And when David arose in the morning, the word of Jehovah came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,
David had counted his people months before his conscience woke, and that night he begged God to take away his guilt. This verse brings God's reply at daybreak — not to David, but to Gad, the prophet who had stood by him since his years on the run from Saul.
David woke to his sin with no one else telling him he was wrong. Only then did the word of the LORD reach Gad with the answer.
For more than nine months David seems to have felt nothing about his sin. At last he woke up to it, without, as far as we know, any person convincing him of the evil he had done. But God would not leave him unconcerned about it. God worked on his conscience. He confessed his sin at night, and in the morning the prophet Gad came to him with the answer from God.
The man who carries the message is no stranger to the king. This verse calls him both a prophet and David's seer, and that second title has a long history behind it.
He was with David when he fled from Saul, and gave him advice. Whether he stayed with David through the years when David was rejected, we are not told. He was with him at the end of his reign, and the painful duty of announcing God's judgements on David for numbering the people fell to him. He is called David's "seer," which seems to imply that he had been with him all along.
David had asked God to take away his guilt. God heard him. But that did not cancel what the sin had set in motion.
God certainly hears his prayer. But the wrong-doing of a man in authority must bring some results in the way God governs. So God sends the prophet Gad to David to ask him to choose one of three options.
Another writer marks out what repentance cannot do:
His repentance cannot lessen the guilt of the evil he has done, or make it less deserving of judgment. His repentance cannot atone for his sin or free him from its consequences. What is left for David? To submit to the judgment he would have liked to avoid.
Gad's errand is strange: the king must pick his own punishment. One writer finds purpose in that. The choosing was itself part of the correction.
unmodernised 88-word quote; split, archaic and passive forms removed
The same writer adds that God never corrects outside His love: "Correction is always in covenant love."
David's choice among the three options shows where his trust still lay.
David, guilty as he was, chose like a man of faith. A believer shows his faith even after failing so badly. Whatever the circumstances, David prefers God's hand, even when it is stretched out against him, to the hand of man.
The message that starts here ends at a threshing floor, and judgment stops there.
But in the middle of judgment mercy triumphed over it. The very Jerusalem the guilty order came from was the place where the hand of judgment stopped... It was at the threshing floor of a poor foreigner — a Gentile — that the angel's raised hand was stopped. God would make this piece of ground, bought by the king, the site of His house.
- Conscience first. God worked on David's conscience Himself. No one else had to tell David he was wrong, and God would not leave him unconcerned about his sin.
- Word next. David confessed at night. By morning God's answer had reached Gad, the seer who had stood by him since he fled from Saul.
- Consequences still. God hears the prayer. Yet repentance cannot atone for the sin or remove its results, and the wrong-doing of a man in authority still brings them.
- Rod chosen. David had to pick the rod himself. The choosing made him weigh the fruit of his sin, humbled him further, and gave him fresh reason to lean on the God who was striking him.
- Mercy last. David preferred God's hand to man's. In the middle of judgment mercy triumphed, and the place where the angel's hand stopped became the site of God's house.
Go and say to David, Thus saith Jehovah I impose on thee three [things]; choose one of them that I may do it unto thee.
David has just counted Israel, his conscience has struck him, and he has begged God to take away his guilt. The next morning the prophet Gad brings God's answer: not a clean pardon, but three punishments to choose from — so why must a forgiven man still pick his own chastening?
The chapter opens with God's anger against Israel, not against David alone. One writer sets the numbering inside a wider pattern of how God had been dealing with king, house, and nation.
In 2 Samuel the same history comes in, but here it comes in connection with God's government of that nation, which He had redeemed to be His people forever. "The anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, 'Go, number Israel and Judah.'" God had dealt in government with David and his house. He had dealt in government with Saul and his house. Now God would deal in government with Israel, chastising them through the act of their king.
David's prayer asked for his guilt to be removed. The answer looked past David to the nation.
He confessed his sin at night, and in the morning the prophet Gad came to him with the answer from God. "Take away the iniquity of Your servant" had been David's request. But the Lord had a dispute with Israel, so His dealing in government could not be avoided.
Another writer comments on the parallel account. He notes that the third option is God's own sword, not the enemy's.
But no! Confession does not always hinder the chastening of God. The Lord had made up His mind. "I offer you three things," He said. "Choose one of them: either three years of famine, or three months to be destroyed before the foe, or three days of the sword of the LORD" — not of the enemy — "even the pestilence in the land."
David's remorse was real. But what can remorse actually do about a sin already committed?
His repentance cannot lessen the guilt of the evil he has done, or make that evil less worthy of judgment. His repentance cannot atone for his sin or deliver him from its consequences. What is left for David? To submit to the judgment which he would like to have avoided.
The same pattern shows up with the first man. God pardons, and the results of sin still run their course.
Grace forgives; but the wheels of government roll on in all their terrible majesty. Adam was perfectly forgiven, but his sin produced its own results. The guilt of his conscience was removed, but not the "sweat of his brow." He went out pardoned and clothed — but he went out into thorns and thistles.
The choice itself did something. It brought into the open what David believed about the God who was striking him.
David must choose between three alternatives. This free choice brings out his full confidence in the mercies of the Lord, which are very great. He did not want to fall into the hands of men, for he knew he could find no grace from that direction.
Another writer sees David's answer as the mark of a man who still trusted God.
David, guilty as he was, chose like a man of faith; for the believer shows his faith even after he has been so faulty. Whatever the circumstances, David prefers God's hand — even stretched out against him — to man's hand.
The next verse lists the three options. The two accounts differ over the first one, and one writer explains how he reads it:
The Lord leaves the choice to David. Either three years of famine, three months of flight or three days of pestilence. (This follows 1 Chronicles 21:12. 2 Samuel 24:13 records seven years, which must be a copyist's error.)
The three punishments were not the end of the story. Look at where the judgment stopped.
Mercy triumphs over judgment at Jerusalem. The threshing floor of Araunah becomes the site of the altar to the Lord, the meeting-place of reconciliation for His people forever.
- Government. God was dealing with the whole nation, chastising Israel through the act of their king.
- Forgiven, still chastened. Confession does not always stop God's chastening. Grace forgives while the wheels of government roll on.
- Repentance's limit. David's sorrow could not atone for his sin or remove its results. All he could do was submit.
- The choice reveals the heart. The choice brought out David's full confidence in the mercies of the Lord — God's hand, never man's.
- Mercy has the last word. Judgment stopped at a threshing floor. That spot became the altar site — the meeting-place of reconciliation for God's people.
And Gad came to David, and told him, and said to him, Shall seven years of famine come to thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine adversaries while they pursue thee? or shall there be three days' pestilence in thy land? Now be aware and consider what word I shall bring again to him that sent me.
After the census, David's conscience woke and he confessed. The next morning the prophet Gad arrived — not with a pardon, but with three sentences and an order to pick one. Why must a forgiven man still choose his own punishment?
David had already asked God to take away his guilt. One writer traces how little that prayer changed about what was coming, and why:
His repentance cannot lessen the guilt of the evil he has done. It cannot make that evil less worthy of judgment. His repentance cannot atone for his sin or free him from its consequences. What is left for David? To submit to the judgment he would have liked to avoid.
Every option on Gad's list falls on the nation, not on the king alone. A writer explains the rule behind that:
When we go wrong, discipline is needed to correct the flesh. If our error is a private one, then the chastening is private, though no less painful. If it is public, the chastening must be public, for God shows His justice to all His creatures.
The offer was not abstract. David had lived through these troubles before, so he could weigh each one. (This writer follows the older reading of seven years' famine, explained below.)
Punishment could not be avoided, but David could choose the form it would take, within the limits set for him. Years of famine he and Israel had recently experienced. For three years that trouble had lasted. What misery seven years of it would inflict on them all. During this period a Sabbatical year would fall. In that year the land must rest. The nation would have to pass through it without the gracious provision of the sixth year's plentiful crop... Flight before his enemies was not an unknown trial to David. He had lived through years of harassment from Saul, and he had fled from Absalom.
One writer, commenting on the same words in Chronicles, notes whose weapon the third option is — and why David refused the other two:
"I offer you three things," said He: "choose one of them... three days of the sword of Jehovah" — not of the enemy — "even the pestilence in the land." The indirect strokes he found repulsive, the famine first of all. He could not bear that God should seem to starve His people and condemn them to that slow death, or that the enemy should exalt themselves over Israel. The thought was hateful to him. But an open chastening from God's own hand, by the destroying angel — this he chose.
Some translations read seven years of famine here; the ESV reads three, and so does the parallel account in 1 Chronicles 21:12. Writers explain the gap in more than one way. One calls the longer number a slip in copying:
This follows 1 Chronicles 21:12. 2 Samuel 24:13 records seven years, which must be the error of some copyist.
Another writer answers the charge that the Old Testament is full of mistakes. He gives two explanations:
Numbers are easily miscopied, but the mistake belongs to the copyists, not to Scripture. In this case the Septuagint (by far the oldest of the ancient versions) gives three years in 2 Samuel, as in 2 Chronicles. A difference of purpose explains away many an apparent discrepancy: one statement is as true as the other, but it is not the same statement.
Gad ends by asking what reply to carry back. The choice itself becomes the test of what David believes about God:
Through Gad the Lord sets three choices before him, and he takes the last of them. The sword of the Lord, this two-edged sword, is more reassuring to him than the sword of man because he knows God... He puts himself into His righteous hands, because he knows that His righteousness is never separate from His mercy.
The option David picked ran its terrible course, and then broke off at a particular place:
But God's hand did not slacken. For very love, for His own name's sake, God could not and would not spare. The plague swept over the land and people as a terrible scourge. But in the middle of judgment, mercy triumphed over it. The guilty order had gone out from Jerusalem, and Jerusalem was the very place where God stayed the hand of judgment.
- Forgiven, still disciplined. God accepted David's confession, yet repentance cannot undo what sin has set in motion. He must still submit to the judgment he wished to escape.
- Public sin, public rod. God corrects a private fault in private. A public fault He corrects in the open, so everyone can see His justice.
- The choice is the test. Naming three punishments and asking for an answer forces David to say out loud whose hand he trusts.
- God's sword, not the enemy's. The option he took brings the blow straight from God's hand, not through hostile men.
- Where judgment stops. God did not soften the plague, but He stopped it — and stopped it at Jerusalem, the very city the guilty order came from.
And David said to Gad, I am in a great strait let us fall, I pray thee, into the hand of Jehovah; for his mercies are great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.
David had numbered the people against God's warning. He confessed his sin. Even so, the prophet Gad brought word that chastening would still come. God offered three forms of it, and David had to choose. His answer shows what a man thinks of God when there is no way out.
David's repentance was real, yet it did not undo what he had done. One writer states plainly what repentance could not do for him.
His repentance cannot lessen the guilt of the evil he did. It cannot make that evil less deserving of judgment. His repentance cannot atone for his sin or free him from its consequences. What is left for David? To submit to the judgment he would have liked to avoid.
The three options were not equal in David's eyes. Two would have made God look cruel or handed His people to their enemies.
David admits his soul is in great distress and confusion, but he chooses the last; and he was right. "Let me fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man." David preferred the direct hand of the LORD, and rightly, in my opinion. The other option repelled him — the famine. He could not bear that God should appear to be starving His people and leaving them to that slow death. Nor could he bear the thought of enemies triumphing over Israel. That was hateful to his soul. He chose instead an open chastening from God's own hand, by the destroying angel. So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel, and 70,000 men of Israel fell. As the angel was destroying Jerusalem, the LORD saw it and relented, and said to him, "It is enough; now stay your hand."
One writer applies David's fear of human hands to life among fellow Christians.
Our fellow believers are not always as merciful in their dealings with us as our gracious God. God gave David the choice of three forms of chastisement after his proud blunder in numbering the people without asking Him. David asked to fall into the hand of the LORD, and not into the hand of man.
The reason David gives is not that the plague would be lighter. It is that the hand holding the rod belongs to someone he trusts.
David shows the never-failing mark of a heart that knows the Lord: confidence in God above all, whatever it costs. "Let me fall into the hand of the LORD." What a sweet and precious thought — this is what the Lord is to His people! And He knows well how to fill the heart with the certainty that He deserves its trust. Even while chastening, God is more loving, more faithful, more worthy of confidence than any other.
The parallel account in 1 Chronicles 21 records the same words with one change. There David says "let me fall," not "let us fall." One writer sees the king moving from sharing the blow to taking it alone.
In contrast with the "us" of 2 Samuel 24:14, here in verse 13 we find an important little word: "Let me fall into the hand of the LORD." Here David offers himself as a substitute. He stands alone in the gap. Further on (v. 17), he takes the whole fault on himself: "Was it not I who gave command to number the people?" He offers his life for the sheep.
Hebrews says it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, which sounds like the opposite of David's choice. Writers who handle the two texts together say the situations are entirely different.
Only a real saint could have used this language — someone who had dealt with God in the past, and had learned in some measure how tender and merciful He is… In the letter to the Hebrews the apostle had been describing the dreadful case of sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth. Of such people he declares, "there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." The Lord may chastise His people, and He does, when they turn aside from His ways. However heavily His rod falls on them, they will surely confess with David that His mercies are great.
- Strait. God forgave the sin, but David was still trapped. Repentance cannot undo the consequences God sends.
- Choice. He refused famine and flight. One would make God look as if He were starving His people; the other would let enemies triumph. He took the blow from God's own hand.
- Mercies. David chose from knowledge, not optimism. He had dealt with God before, and knew that even while chastening God is more loving than any other hand. The blow was stopped short: "It is enough."
- Substitute. In Chronicles the "us" becomes "me" — the king steps into the breach alone and offers his life for the sheep.
- Distinction. For a believer under God's rod, His hands are the safest place. The warning in Hebrews speaks to people who abandon Christ, for whom no sacrifice remains.
And Jehovah sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the set time; and there died of the people from Dan even to Beer-sheba seventy thousand men.
David's count of his fighting men ends here: a plague sweeping the land from its northern edge to its southern one, and seventy thousand dead in three days. The verse raises two hard questions — why counting soldiers should be treated as sin at all, and why the people died for what their king did.
The law had already set the terms for counting Israel.
Turn to Exodus 30:11-16. There you will find that when Israel was counted, the people had to provide a ransom for their souls. If they did not, a plague would break out among them. King David once numbered the people, but there is no mention of their giving a ransom. The record is, "So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men." God cannot take account of sinful men in the flesh except in judgment. If man is to stand in favour before God it must be through an accepted ransom.
Why did the blow fall on the nation and not on the king who ordered the count? One writer answers: the people were the very thing David boasted in.
The plans of men do not succeed, and least of all among God's people. "The king's word was abominable to Joab. And God was displeased with this thing; therefore He struck Israel." At first sight this seems strange. Why would God strike Israel? But God was wise. It was Israel that had become a snare and a boast to the king. Did he not number them? They must be reduced now. God would cut down the number. He would make David feel that his folly and pride had made him a curse to God's people, not a blessing.
David had asked to fall into God's hand rather than man's. What followed was a nation with nowhere to hide — and, on this reading, a nation getting what it had earned, with David's census as the trigger rather than the whole cause.
It must have been a solemn time. Throughout the length and breadth of the land death was claiming its victims. Who would be struck next no one could tell. No remedy cured the sick. No pleading, however urgent, saved the life of someone loved. All joy must have fled. God was working, and in power. Could anyone charge Him with injustice? No. They deserved the correction. David's act in counting them was the immediate cause of it. Helpless, how helpless they all were. Their only hope was in the mercy of God.
The plague ran only to the appointed time, and it stopped at the capital. Notice where this writer puts the reason — not in the king's tears.
The pestilence rages. The angel strikes from north to south, from Dan to Beersheba (v. 15), across the whole area where the numbering had taken place. He comes to Jerusalem and stretches out his sword over the beloved city. At that moment "the Lord relented" and stops the hand of the angel. He does not stop it because of David's repentance, but because of His own relenting. His judgment gives way to His grace without either being weakened or sacrificed.
David then asks for the sword to fall on him instead of the people. The writer weighs his offer against a greater one.
He takes the judgment on himself. He stands in the breach so that the sheep may be spared. He takes sin and iniquity on himself — but this sin was his own sin, and this judgment was judgment he had deserved. Another, a lone Arbiter, bore our sins without having any sins of His own. He made our sins His own and laid down His life for His sheep, saying: "If you seek me, let these men go."
The place where God stopped the angel did not stay a scene of death.
David bought the threshing floor and built an altar. There he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then, at the Lord's command, the angel put away his sword. David said, "Here shall be the house of the Lord God and here the altar of burnt offering for Israel." The place where God accepted the sacrifice was to be the place where Israel would worship. True worship rests on the acceptance of the sacrifice.
- Ransom. Counting God's people required a price for each life. David skipped it, and the law's penalty fell.
- Reckoning. God struck the people because they were the king's boast. David had to feel that he was a curse to them, not a blessing.
- Reach. The plague ran the full length of the land, north to south, leaving no remedy and no refuge except God's mercy.
- Relenting. David's repentance did not stop the angel; God's own relenting did. Judgment gave way to grace without weakening either.
- Redemption. David offered himself for the sheep, but he deserved the judgment. A sinless Arbiter gave His life for His sheep, though He had no sins of His own. The place where the plague stopped became the place of accepted sacrifice.
And the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it; but Jehovah repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed among the people, It is enough withdraw now thine hand. And the angel of Jehovah was by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
A plague followed David's census, and the destroying angel now stood over Jerusalem itself. There God stopped him — on a farmer's threshing floor, the ground where the temple would later stand.
The plague was no light stroke. One writer shows how hard the blow fell, and where God stopped it.
God's hand did not slacken. Out of love itself, and for His own name's sake, God could not and would not spare. The plague swept over the land and the people as a terrible scourge. But in the middle of judgment mercy won out. The very Jerusalem that sent out the guilty order was the place where God stayed the hand of judgment.
The word "relented" needs care. One writer separates two different kinds of words God speaks.
God is not a man, that He should repent as to His eternal and unchangeable counsels and unconditional promises, which "are without repentance." But in His grace He may repent of a threatened judgment — that is, not carry it out. He did this with the city of Nineveh. Remember that the Spirit of God stoops to speak in our human way of speaking, because we are weak.
Notice who is missing here. No sacrifice, no priest, nothing David did.
Death had begun to be busy in Jerusalem. It had come close to David. Then the plague stopped. How was this? God had said, "Now stay your hand." Why was this? "The Lord saw, and He relented." David had done nothing to stop the march of disease and the ravages of death. Neither the high priest nor the prophet could make the angel pause for one moment in his work of destruction. There was no help anywhere but in God… He is love, and so He can act out of what He is. No creature has to move Him to it first.
The owner of that ground was the last man you would expect God's grace to reach.
Government has done its needful work, and now the story of divine grace begins. And where should grace be shown as God would show it, but in the case of one of the chief of sinners? Araunah is a Jebusite, one of the Canaanite peoples of the land, long under the curse. And a Jebusite is a "treader down" of God's royal city.
The angel stops at a threshing floor, where oxen tread out grain. One writer finds God's own work pictured there.
Now God was treading down. He was not doing it cruelly, as a destroyer would. He was threshing, the way the patient ox treads out grain under its feet. The work is rough, yet it seeks out and saves the precious grain. The harvest is God's, even if the blessing is man's. Judgment after that goes no further than the "threshing-floor." There it halts, stayed by the pity of God. And Araunah — whose name may mean "filled with lamentation" — receives his God-given name Aranjah, "the singing of Jah"!
David built an altar on that spot. The choice of place matters as much as the altar.
This altar reminds us of the sovereign mercy of God towards His people. He is the God who remembers mercy in judgment. And He chose the very place where He showed that mercy to be His dwelling place among His people.
This is the first time the Bible mentions this piece of ground. One writer weighs what it was against what God planned for it.
Here the threshing floor of Ornan [Araunah] comes into view for the first time. It is a poor spot in itself. But the Lord destined it to be the joy of the whole earth — the place of the glory, the resting place of God and His Israel. At once it stands as the witness of that blessed, precious truth which is the sure ground of all our hopes: with our God, "mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).
- Judgment — the plague was real and deserved. God did not slacken His hand. The sin that started in Jerusalem met its judgment at Jerusalem.
- Relenting — God never changes His settled purposes. But He can hold back a judgment He has threatened. That is what "relented" means here.
- Mercy — nothing human stopped the angel. No one had offered a sacrifice or said a prayer. God acted out of what He is.
- Grace — the angel stopped on a Jebusite's ground, the last place anyone would expect. God showed mercy to one of the chief of sinners.
- Dwelling — judgment went no further than the threshing floor. The very spot where mercy triumphed became the place God chose to live among His people.
And David spoke to Jehovah when he saw the angel that smote among the people, and said, Behold, it is I that have sinned, and it is I that have committed iniquity; but these sheep, what have they done? let thy hand, I pray thee, be on me, and on my father's house!
David sees the angel striking the people, and he knows the census was his own idea. His question — what have these sheep done? — raises the hardest issue in the chapter. Why does a nation suffer for its king's sin, and what can a guilty man offer for them?
The chapter opens with God already angry at Israel. The text does not say why, so one writer looks at what the nation had become.
We are not told why God's anger burned against Israel (v. 1). If there is no public reason for it, then it must be due to the moral and spiritual condition of the nation. Very likely that condition showed itself in the pride that led David to want Israel counted. The nation had grown from a small people of no significance in the world's eyes into a strong empire. Had this humbled the people in thankfulness for the grace of God in so blessing them? Apparently not. We too easily glory in numbers, as though our increase in numbers makes us more distinguished than others.
One writer sets David beside Saul, the king before him. Caught in disobedience, Saul gave his sin a religious excuse and then blamed the people.
He softens his sin by saying it was to sacrifice that they spared the animals. He thought that a religious motive would free him from the guilt of what he did and from its penalty… Again Saul tries to shift the blame for his act onto the people. "The people took of the spoil," he says. How different from David, who saw the sword of the destroying angel lifted over the people… David's conduct here stands out in striking and beautiful contrast to the unattractive king before him!
David asks for the blow to fall on himself and his household instead of the nation. One writer sees a faint picture of Christ here, and marks at once where the picture breaks down.
He takes the judgment on himself and stands in the gap so that the sheep may be spared. He charges himself with sin and iniquity — but sadly, this sin was his own, and this judgment was judgment he had deserved. Another, a lone Mediator, bore our sins without having any sins Himself. He made our sins His own and laid down His life for His sheep, saying: "If you seek me, let these men go" (John 18:8).
It is natural to read David's prayer as the thing that stopped the plague. One writer points to a different reason.
At that moment "the LORD relented from the calamity" and stops the hand of the angel. He does not stop it because David repented, but because He Himself relented. His judgment yields to His grace, without weakening or sacrificing either one.
Note: older translations render this "the LORD repented him of the evil."
The sheep had not ordered the census, yet they were the ones who died. One writer reads this as a warning to anyone who leads.
Yet when David saw the angel and the destruction, the sight broke his heart, and he confessed and judged himself before the Lord… He realises that he ought to suffer the consequences himself. But this is a lesson for anyone who has a prominent place among God's people. The people will suffer for the failure of the leaders.
The story does not end with the plague. It ends with a sacrifice.
After all the history of God's government over David, the close of this book is striking. It ends with the atoning sacrifice that stops the wrath through grace. That sacrifice lays the foundation of the place where God meets Israel, and of the place where they worship.
- Pride — the census grew out of glorying in numbers, a fault shared by king and people alike.
- Confession — David names the sin as his own instead of shifting it onto the people, unlike Saul before him.
- Substitution — David offers to take the blow, but the sin was his own. Only Christ bore sins He never committed.
- Grace — God stopped the angel out of His own mercy, not because David repented. Judgment gave way to grace, and neither was set aside.
- Altar — the book closes with the sacrifice that stops the wrath and marks the place of worship. Failure ends in grace.
And Gad came that day to David, and said to him, Go up, rear an altar to Jehovah in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
Judgment had swept through Israel, and the destroying angel stopped beside a farmer's threshing floor. There Gad told David to build an altar — but why there, and why a new altar when Israel already had one?
A threshing floor is where workers beat grain out and separate it from the husk. The place carries meaning here, and so does its owner: Araunah was not an Israelite.
There is wonderful instruction for us in the plague being stopped at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. The judgment of God only goes as far as the threshing floor. In other words, when God judges, it is with the object of bringing out the grain from the chaff. The process can be very painful, but the blessing it brings to genuine believers is precious beyond words. The Jebusites had lived up to their name, "those who tread down." They trod down Jerusalem, the city God had declared to be His own centre. But the grace of God has changed Araunah's character. He is a prodigal from among the Gentiles, spared while judgment hung over his head. Indeed, he is a picture of all Gentiles whom God saves by His grace.
One pattern runs through Scripture: the thing that threatens ends up serving, and the old order points to what will take its place.
The angel of destruction announces the relief for David in this dark hour. The eater himself gives food, and the strong man gives sweetness. The law itself prophesied of Jesus who was to replace it, just as here the altar was to replace the angel who directed it.
Israel already had settled places of worship, but the order named none of them. (Some writers use the name Ornan for Araunah.)
The ark was on Mount Zion. The tabernacle was at Gibeon. The king was not to go to the ark, nor to make his way to the bronze altar. Instead he was to set up an altar on Ornan's threshing floor, a piece of ground still owned by a Jebusite, one of the ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem. David obeyed at once. God had declared what should be done, and David would do it, so that the plague might stop.
Notice what the instruction assumes. God is asking for a sacrifice from David's hand — and a rejected man's sacrifice is not wanted.
An altar needs a priest or an accepted worshipper. The Lord would not have directed the one if He had not provided the other. "And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering" (Genesis 4:4). The Lord accepted Abel's person first, and then his sacrifice. Here too the Lord's readiness to receive an offering from David's hand was a pledge: through mercy triumphing over judgment, the Lord had received David himself and put his sin away.
This patch of working ground did not stay a farm.
It became the very site of the centre of God's house. When Solomon built the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, he began there, in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, where the Lord had appeared to David his father.
The hill already carried a history of sacrifice long before David.
Moriah was the historical site where Abraham had offered Isaac (Genesis 22:2). On this mountain of the Lord it would be provided. How much more so, when the sin of Israel and of their king had stirred up the Lord's judgment against the people. God provided now through a sacrifice that cost the people nothing, but for which David paid the full price. He has provided in a far more perfect way on this same mountain, where Jesus was crucified for us.
Scripture records this event twice, in Samuel and in Chronicles. One writer sees a different emphasis in each, down to the metal named.
In general, the account in Samuel deals with the side of man's need. Chronicles gives us the side of the purpose of God. Samuel speaks of silver — the glory of God in relation to man's need of redemption. Chronicles speaks of gold — the glory of God in relation to His own purposes, in which He displays Himself.
- Stopped — the plague halts at a threshing floor. God's judgment sifts grain from chaff; it does not destroy His people.
- Spoken — the order to build comes through the destroying angel. The altar takes the place of the sword.
- Sent — God points David past the ark and past the old altar at Gibeon to a Jebusite's field. David obeys at once.
- Sealed — the request for a sacrifice is itself proof of pardon. God takes no offering from a man He means to strike.
- Settled — that floor became the temple site on Moriah, where Abraham once offered Isaac and where Jesus was later crucified.
And David, according to the saying of Gad, went up as Jehovah had commanded.
David has confessed his sin, and a deadly plague has swept the land. Now the prophet Gad brings him a strange instruction: go up to a Jebusite farmer's threshing floor and build an altar there. The verse records only that he obeyed. Behind that one line lie three questions: why that spot, why an altar, and why obedience was all that God asked of him.
The verse records no hesitation and no argument. One commentator sets David's response beside Ornan's, who hid himself when he saw the angel:
These verses show us David's thankful, believing acceptance of the mercy revealed to him. He did not receive the grace of God in vain. He at once went up at the word of the prophet, while Ornan and his sons hid themselves from the angel. Here we may notice something. No flesh can stand before the Lord naked, in its own resources. Yet sinners may come fully up to His heavenly presence in the power of simply believing in His grace. Ornan and David illustrate this. Ornan had not had the grace of the Lord revealed to him. He knew nothing of the altar that would stand on his threshing floor. So he hid himself — a bare creature in the sight of God, like Adam before him in such a case. But David knew the remedy that mercy, triumphing over judgment, had provided. So he dares to stand, though ashamed and humbled... In all he does there is no disturbance or stirring of the flesh. It is all the assurance and quietness of faith resting in the word of the Lord.
How could the danger end, and where should the king go? God answered both questions Himself:
The angel had not yet put his sword away, so further judgment was only held back, not definitely turned away... God alone could decide, and reveal, on what terms that dreaded sword would be put away. The ark was on Mount Zion. The tabernacle was at Gibeon (2 Chron. 1). The king was not to go to the ark, nor to the bronze altar. Instead he was to raise an altar on Ornan's threshing floor — a piece of ground still owned by a Jebusite, one of the ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem. David obeyed at once. God had declared what should be done, and David would do it, so that the plague might be stayed.
David went up in answer to mercy he had already received. But why had the plague stopped at all?
David had done nothing to stop the spread of the disease and the ravages of death. The high priest and the prophet were equally powerless to make the angel pause for one moment in his work of destruction. There was no resource but in God... He could act like this because of what He is. He relented, and stopped the arm of the angel. No one that we know of asked Him to. No one offered a sacrifice to persuade Him to be gracious.
Why did the plague stop at a threshing floor? That is where a farmer beats the grain out from the chaff:
There is wonderful instruction for us, however, in where the plague stopped — the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. The judgment of God only goes as far as the threshing floor. In other words, when God judges, it is with the object of bringing out the grain from the chaff. The process may be deeply painful, but the resulting blessing for genuine believers is beyond words.
Araunah offered the ground and the animals for free. One writer sees in David's refusal a picture of someone greater:
And Araunah the Jebusite willingly offered the threshing floor and the sacrificial animals. But David would not agree. "I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing." For fifty shekels of silver he bought the oxen and the threshing floor... David stands before that altar as the one who buys and offers, meeting the claim of God. In this he is a picture of our Lord, who bought us with the great price and offered Himself.
The spot mattered far beyond that one day:
The place where mercy triumphed over judgment becomes the site of the altar. This shows where the temple was afterwards to be built — the place where divine mercy stopped the plague.
- Mercy first. The angel's hand was stayed before any sacrifice was offered and before anyone asked — God acted "because of what He is."
- The place, named. God sent David past the ark and past the altar at Gibeon, to a Jebusite's threshing floor of His own choosing.
- The place, obeyed. He went up at once, standing in "the quietness of faith resting in the word of the Lord" while Ornan hid.
- The place, paid for. David refused a free altar. Burnt offerings that cost nothing are no offering. The king who buys and offers pictures the Lord who bought us and offered Himself.
- The place, kept. Judgment stopped, mercy triumphed, and the altar rose. There the temple later stood.