21 And Araunah said, Why has my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To give you a price for your grain-floor, so that I may put up an altar to the Lord, and the disease may be stopped among the people.
And he said to them, If you will let me put my dead to rest here, make a request for me to Ephron, the son of Zohar, That he will give me the hollow in the rock named Machpelah, which is his property at the end of his field; let him give it to me for its full price as a resting-place for my dead among you. Now Ephron was seated among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite gave Abraham his answer in the hearing of the children of Heth, and of all those who came into his town, saying, No, my lord, I will give you the field with the hollow in the rock; before all the children of my people will I give it to you for a resting-place for your dead. And Abraham went down on his face before the people of the land. And Abraham said to Ephron, in the hearing of the people of the land, If only you will give ear to me, I will give you the price of the field; take it, and let me put my dead to rest there. So Ephron said to Abraham, My lord, give ear to me: the value of the land is four hundred shekels; what is that between me and you? so put your dead to rest there. And Abraham took note of the price fixed by Ephron in the hearing of the children of Heth, and gave him four hundred shekels in current money.
And the Lord said to Moses, Come out from among this people, so that I may send sudden destruction on them. And they went down on their faces. And Moses said to Aaron, Take your vessel and put in it fire from the altar, and sweet spices, and take it quickly into the meeting of the people, and make them free from sin: for wrath has gone out from the Lord, and the disease is starting. And at the words of Moses, Aaron took his vessel, and went running among the people; and even then the disease had made a start among them; and he put spices in his vessel to take away the sin of the people. And he took his place between the dead and the living: and the disease was stopped. Now fourteen thousand, seven hundred deaths were caused by that disease, in addition to those who came to their end because of what Korah had done. Then Aaron went back to Moses to the door of the Tent of meeting: and the disease came to a stop.
So David said to the Gibeonites, What may I do for you? how am I to make up to you for your wrongs, so that you may give a blessing to the heritage of the Lord? And the Gibeonites said to him, It is not a question of silver and gold between us and Saul or his family; and it is not in our power to put to death any man in Israel. And he said, Say, then, what am I to do for you? And they said to the king, As for the man by whom we were wasted, and who made designs against us to have us completely cut off from the land of Israel, Let seven men of his family be given up to us and we will put an end to them by hanging them before the Lord in Gibeon, on the hill of the Lord. And the king said, I will give them. But the king did not give up Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the Lord's oath made between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul. But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Saul to whom Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, had given birth; and the five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, whose father was Adriel, the son of Barzillai the Meholathite: And he gave them up to the Gibeonites, and they put them to death, hanging them on the mountain before the Lord; all seven came to their end together in the first days of the grain-cutting, at the start of the cutting of the barley. And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took haircloth, placing it on the rock as a bed for herself, from the start of the grain-cutting till rain came down on them from heaven; and she did not let the birds of the air come near them by day, or the beasts of the field by night. And news was given to David of what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, one of Saul's wives, had done. And David went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had taken them away secretly from the public place of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had put them, hanging up the bodies there on the day when they put Saul to death in Gilboa: And he took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from that place; and they got together the bones of those who had been put to death by hanging. And they put them with the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the resting-place of Kish, his father, in Zela in the country of Benjamin; they did all the king had given them orders to do. And after that, God gave ear to their prayers for the land.
And Jeremiah said, The word of the Lord came to me, saying, See, Hanamel, the son of Shallum, your father's brother, will come to you and say, Give the price and get for yourself my property in Anathoth: for you have the right of the nearest relation. So Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, came to me, as the Lord had said, to the place of the armed watchmen, and said to me, Give the price and get my property which is in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: for you have the nearest relation's right to the heritage; so get it for yourself. Then it was clear to me that this was the word of the Lord. So I got for a price the property in Anathoth from Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and gave him the money, seventeen shekels of silver; And I put it in writing, stamping it with my stamp, and I took witnesses and put the money into the scales. So I took the paper witnessing the business, one copy rolled up and stamped, and one copy open: And I gave the paper to Baruch, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, before the eyes of Hanamel, the son of my father's brother, and of the witnesses who had put their names to the paper, and before all the Jews who were seated in the place of the armed watchmen. And I gave orders to Baruch in front of them, saying, This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Take these papers, the witness of this business, the one which is rolled up and stamped, and the one which is open; and put them in a vessel of earth so that they may be kept for a long time.
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Commentary on 2 Samuel 24 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 24
2Sa 24:1-9. David Numbers the People.
1-4. again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah—"Again" carries us back to the former tokens of His wrath in the three years' famine [2Sa 21:1]. God, though He cannot tempt any man (Jas 1:13), is frequently described in Scripture as doing what He merely permits to be done; and so, in this case, He permitted Satan to tempt David. Satan was the active mover, while God only withdrew His supporting grace, and the great tempter prevailed against the king. (See Ex 7:13; 1Sa 26:19; 2Sa 16:10; Ps 105:25; Isa 7:17, &c.). The order was given to Joab, who, though not generally restrained by religious scruples, did not fail to present, in strong terms (see on 1Ch 21:3), the sin and danger of this measure. He used every argument to dissuade the king from his purpose. The sacred history has not mentioned the objections which he and other distinguished officers urged against it in the council of David. But it expressly states that they were all overruled by the inflexible resolution of the king.
5. they passed over Jordan—This census was taken first in the eastern parts of the Hebrew kingdom; and it would seem that Joab was accompanied by a military force, either to aid in this troublesome work, or to overawe the people who might display reluctance or opposition.
the river of Gad—"Wady" would be a better term. It extends over a course estimated at about sixty miles, which, though in summer almost constantly dry, exhibits very evident traces of being swept over by an impetuous torrent in winter (see De 2:36).
6. the land of Tahtim-hodshi—that is, the land lately acquired; namely, that of the Hagarites conquered by Saul (1Ch 5:10). The progress was northward. Thence they crossed the country, and, proceeding along the western coast to the southern extremities of the country, they at length arrived in Jerusalem, having completed the enumeration of the whole kingdom in the space of nine months and twenty days.
9. Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king—The amount here stated, compared with 1Ch 21:5, gives a difference of three hundred thousand. The discrepancy is only apparent, and admits of an easy reconciliation; thus (see 1Ch 27:1-15), there were twelve divisions of generals, who commanded monthly, and whose duty was to keep guard on the royal person, each having a body of troops consisting of twenty-four thousand men, which, together, formed an army of two hundred eighty-eight thousand; and as a separate detachment of twelve thousand was attendant on the twelve princes of the twelve tribes mentioned in the same chapter, so both are equal to three hundred thousand. These were not reckoned in this book, because they were in the actual service of the king as a regular militia. But 1Ch 21:5 joins them to the rest, saying, "all those of Israel were one million, one hundred thousand"; whereas the author of Samuel, who reckons only the eight hundred thousand, does not say, "all those of Israel," but barely "and Israel were," &c. It must also be observed that, exclusive of the troops before mentioned, there was an army of observation on the frontiers of the Philistines' country, composed of thirty thousand men, as appears from 2Sa 6:1; which, it seems, were included in the number of five hundred thousand of the people of Judah by the author of Samuel. But the author of Chronicles, who mentions only four hundred seventy thousand, gives the number of that tribe exclusive of those thirty thousand men, because they were not all of the tribe of Judah, and therefore he does not say, "all those of Judah," as he had said, "all those of Israel," but only, "and those of Judah." Thus both accounts may be reconciled [Davidson].
2Sa 24:10-14. He, Having Three Plagues Propounded by GAD, Repents, and Chooses Three Days' Pestilence.
10-13. David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the Lord, I have sinned—The act of numbering the people was not in itself sinful; for Moses did it by the express authority of God. But David acted not only independently of such order or sanction, but from motives unworthy of the delegated king of Israel; from pride and vainglory; from self-confidence and distrust of God; and, above all, from ambitious designs of conquest, in furtherance of which he was determined to force the people into military service, and to ascertain whether he could muster an army sufficient for the magnitude of the enterprises he contemplated. It was a breach of the constitution, an infringement of the liberties of the people, and opposed to that divine policy which required that Israel should continue a separate people. His eyes were not opened to the heinousness of his sin till God had spoken unto him by His commissioned prophet.
13. Shall seven years of famine come unto thee—that is, in addition to the three that had been already, with the current year included (see on 1Ch 21:11).
14. David said, … Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord—His overwhelming sense of his sin led him to acquiesce in the punishment denounced, notwithstanding its apparent excess of severity. He proceeded on a good principle in choosing the pestilence. In pestilence he was equally exposed, as it was just and right he should be, to danger as his people, whereas, in war and famine, he possessed means of protection superior to them. Besides, he thereby showed his trust, founded on long experience, in the divine goodness.
2Sa 24:15-25. His Intercession to God; the Plague Ceases.
15. from the morning—rather that morning when Gad came [2Sa 24:18], till the end of the three days.
there died of the people … seventy thousand men—Thus was the pride of the vainglorious monarch, confiding in the number of his population, deeply humbled.
16. the Lord repented him of the evil—God is often described in Scripture as repenting when He ceased to pursue a course He had begun.
17. David … said—or, "had said,"
I have sinned … but these sheep, what have they done?—The guilt of numbering the people lay exclusively with David. But in the body politic as well as natural, when the head suffers, all the members suffer along with it; and, besides, although David's sin was the immediate cause, the great increase of national offenses at this time had (2Sa 24:1) kindled the anger of the Lord.
18. Araunah—or Ornan (1Ch 21:18), the Jebusite, one of the ancient inhabitants, who, having become a convert to the true religion, retained his house and possessions. He resided on Mount Moriah, the spot on which the temple was afterwards built (2Ch 3:1); but that mount was not then enclosed in the town.
21. to build an altar unto the Lord, that the plague may be stayed—It is evident that the plague was not stayed till after the altar was built, and the sacrifice offered, so that what is related (2Sa 24:16) was by anticipation. Previous to the offering of this sacrifice, he had seen the destroying angel as well as offered the intercessory prayer (2Sa 24:17). This was a sacrifice of expiation; and the reason why he was allowed to offer it on Mount Moriah was partly in gracious consideration to his fear of repairing to Gibeon (1Ch 21:29, 30), and partly in anticipation of the removal of the tabernacle and the erection of the temple there (2Ch 3:1).
23. All these things did Araunah, as a king, give—Indicating, as the sense is, that this man had been anciently a heathen king or chief, but was now a proselyte who still retained great property and influence in Jerusalem, and whose piety was evinced by the liberality of his offers. The words, "as a king," are taken by some to signify simply, "he gave with royal munificence."
24. Nay; … I will … buy it of thee at a price—The sum mentioned here, namely, fifty shekels of silver, equal £6 sterling, was paid for the floor, oxen and wood instruments only, whereas the large sum (1Ch 21:25) was paid afterwards for the whole hill, on which David made preparations for building the temple.
25. David offered burnt offerings and peace offerings—There seem to have been two sacrifices; the first expiatory, the second a thanksgiving for the cessation of the pestilence (see on 1Ch 21:26).