David’s sin in numbering the people is punished by a pestilence: which
ceaseth upon his offering sacrifice in the thrashingfloor of Ornan.
21:1. And Satan rose up against Israel: and moved David to number
Israel.
21:2. And David said to Joab, and to the rulers of the people: Go, and
number Israel from Bersabee even to Dan, and bring me the number of
them that I may know it.
21:3. And Joab answered: The Lord make his people a hundred times more
than they are: but, my lord the king, are they not all thy servants:
why doth my lord seek this thing, which may be imputed as a sin to
Israel?
21:4. But the king’s word rather prevailed: and Joab departed, and went
through all Israel: and returned to Jerusalem.
21:5. And he gave David the number of them, whom he had surveyed: and
all the number of Israel was found to be eleven hundred thousand men
that drew the sword: and of Juda four hundred and seventy thousand
fighting men.
The number, etc.... The difference of the numbers here and 2 Kings 24.
is to be accounted for, by supposing the greater number to be that
which was really found, and the lesser to be that which Joab gave in.
21:6. But Levi and Benjamin he did not number: for Joab unwillingly
executed the king’s orders.
21:7. And God was displeased with this thing that was commanded: and he
struck Israel.
21:8. And David said to God: I have sinned exceedingly in doing this: I
beseech thee take away the iniquity of thy servant, for I have done
foolishly.
21:9. And the Lord spoke to Gad the seer of David, saying:
21:10. Go, and speak to David, and tell him: Thus saith the Lord: I
give thee the choice of three things: choose one which thou wilt, and I
will do it to thee.
21:11. And when Gad was come to David, he said to him: Thus saith the
Lord: choose which thou wilt:
21:12. Either three years famine: or three months to flee from thy
enemies, and not to be able to escape their sword: or three days to
have the sword of the Lord, and pestilence in the land, and the angel
of the Lord destroying in all the coasts of Israel: now therefore see
what I shall answer him who sent me.
Three years famine.... Which joined with the three foregoing years of
famine mentioned, 2 Kings 21. and the seventh year of the land’s
resting, would make up the seven years proposed by the prophet, 2 Kings
24.13.
21:13. And David said to Gad: I am on every side in a great strait: but
it is better for me to fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies
are many, than into the hands of men.
21:14. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel. And there fell of
Israel seventy thousand men.
21:15. And he sent an angel to Jerusalem, to strike it: and as he was
striking it, the Lord beheld, and took pity for the greatness of the
evil: and said to the angel that destroyed: It is enough, now stop thy
hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the thrashingfloor of Ornan
the Jebusite.
Ornan.... Otherwise Areuna.
21:16. And David lifting up his eyes, saw the angel of the Lord
standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand,
turned against Jerusalem: and both he and the ancients clothed in
haircloth, fell down flat on the ground.
21:17. And David said to God: Am not I he that commanded the people to
be numbered? It is I that have sinned: it is I that have done the evil:
but as for this flock, what hath it deserved? O Lord my God, let thy
hand be turned, I beseech thee, upon me, and upon my father’s house:
and let not thy people be destroyed.
21:18. And the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David, to go up,
and build an altar to the Lord God in the thrashingfloor of Ornan the
Jebusite.
21:19. And David went up, according to the word of Gad, which he spoke
to him in the name of the Lord.
21:20. Now when Ornan looked up, and saw the angel, he and his four
sons hid themselves: for at that time he was thrashing wheat in the
floor.
21:21. And as David was coming to Ornan, Ornan saw him, and went out of
the thrashingfloor to meet him, and bowed down to him with his face to
the ground.
21:22. And David said to him: Give me this place of thy thrashingfloor,
that I may build therein an altar to the Lord: but thou shalt take of
me as much money as it is worth, that the plague may cease from the
people.
21:23. And Ornan said to David: Take it, and let my lord the king do
all that pleaseth him: and moreover the oxen also I give for a
holocaust, and the drays for wood, and the wheat for the sacrifice: I
will give it all willingly.
21:24. And king David said to him: It shall not be so, but I will give
thee money as much as it is worth: for I must not take it from thee,
and so offer to the Lord holocausts free cost.
21:25. So David gave to Ornan for the place, six hundred sicles of gold
of just weight.
Six hundred sicles, etc.... This was the price of the whole place, on
which the temple was afterwards built; but the price of the oxen was
fifty sicles of silver. 2 Kings 24.24.
21:26. And he built there an altar to the Lord: and he offered
holocausts, and peace offerings, and he called upon the Lord, and he
heard him by sending fire from heaven upon the altar of the holocaust.
21:27. And the Lord commanded the angel: and he put up his sword again
into the sheath.
21:28. And David seeing that the Lord had heard him in the
thrashingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, forthwith offered victims there.
21:29. But the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the desert,
and the altar of holocausts, was at that time in the high place of
Gabaon.
21:30. And David could not go to the altar there to pray to God: for he
was seized with an exceeding great fear, seeing the sword of the angel
of the Lord.