2 Samuel 24
1 David, tempted by Satan, forces Joab to number the people.
5 The captains, in nine months and twenty days, bring the muster of thirteen hundred thousand fighting men.
10 David repents, and having three plagues propounded by God, chooses the three days' pestilence.
15 After the death of three score and ten thousand, David by prayer prevents the destruction of Jerusalem.
18 David, by God's direction, purchases Araunah's threshing floor; where having sacrificed, the plague stays.
again <03254> [A.M. 2987. B.C. 1017. An. Ex. Is. 474. again.]
incited <05496> [he.]
This verse, when read without reference to any other part of the word of God, is very difficult to understand, and has been used by those who desire to undermine the justice of God, to shew that he sought occasion to punish--that he incited David to sin; and when he had so incited him, gave to him the dreadful alternative of choosing one of three scourges by which his people were to be cut off. On the face of the passage these thoughts naturally arise, because "the Lord" is the antecedent to the pronoun "he,"--He moved David. But to those who "search the Scriptures," this exceedingly difficult passage receives a wonderful elucidation, By referring to 1 Ch 21:1, the reader will there find that Satan was the mover, and that the Lord most righteously punished David for the display of pride he had manifested. Oh! that Christians, who sometimes have their minds harassed with doubts, would remember the promise, that what they know not now they shall know hereafter; and if no other instance of elucidation than this passage occurred to them to remove their doubts, let this be a means of stirring them up to dig deeper than ever into the inexhaustible mines of the Inspired Word.
incited <05496> [moved.]
count <03212 04487> [Go, number.]
Joab <03097> [Joab.]
Go through <07751> [Go now, etc. or, Compass now all.]
Dan <01835> [from Dan.]
muster <06485> [and number.]
We know not in what the sinfulness of this action consisted. Some think it was a contempt of the promise that the Israelites should be innumerable, and that they ought not to have been numbered without an express command, as in the days of Moses. Others suppose with Josephus that it was a kind of sacrilege, in omitting to collect the half-shekel a-piece for the use of the sanctuary. It however would appear that pride and ambition, and a desire of conquest, induced David to this measure, and rendered it so displeasing to God.
know <03045> [that I may.]
king's ......................... king's <04428> [the king's.]
So <03318> [went out.]
Aroer <06177> [Aroer.]
wadi <05158> [river. or, valley. Jazer.]
Gilead <01568> [Gilead.]
[land of Tahtim-hodshi. or, nether land newly inhabited.]
Dan-jaan.
Sidon <06721> [Zidon.]
Tyre <06865> [Tyre.]
Beer Sheba <0884> [to Beer-sheba.]
800,000 ......... 500,000 <08083 03967 0505> [eight hundred thousand.]
David felt ......... David <03820 01732> [David's heart.]
sinned <02398> [I have sinned.]
remove <05674> [take away.]
foolishly <05528> [foolishly.]
Gad <01410> [Gad.]
seer <02374> [seer.]
offering <05190> [I offer.]
carry ... out <06213> [that I may.]
seven <07651> [seven.]
flee <05127> [flee.]
three ............... three days <07969 03117> [three days.]
very <03966> [I am in.]
mercy <07356> [for his.]
very ................ great <03966 07227> [great. or, many. let me not.]
Lord <03068> [the Lord.]
Dan <01835> [from Dan.]
Seventy thousand men <07657 0505 0376> [seventy thousand men.]
angel ................. angel .............. angel <04397> [the angel.]
relented <05162> [repented.]
enough <07227> [It is enough.]
Araunah <0728> [Araunah.]
[Ornan. the Jebusite.]
said <0559> [spake.]
sinned <02398> [Lo, I have sinned.]
sheep <06629> [these sheep.]
<03027> [let thine.]
Gad <01410> [Gad.]
threshing floor <01637> [threshing floor.]
These, among the ancient Jews, were only round, level plats of ground in the open air, as they are to this day in the East, where the corn was trodden out by oxen.
Araunah <0728> [Araunah. Heb. Araniah.]
Lord's <03068> [as the Lord.]
bowed <07812> [bowed.]
lord <0113> [Wherefore.]
buy <07069> [To buy.]
plague <04046> [the plague.]
lord <0113> [Let my lord.]
oxen ......... harnesses <01241> [be oxen.]
king ....... king ...... king <04428> [as a king.]
Lord <03068> [The Lord.]
insist on buying ...................... bought <07069> [Nay.]
David <01732> [So David.]
built ... altar <01129 04196> [built there.]
Lord ............ Lord <03068> [So the Lord.]
