Attributed commentary excerpt
John Gill's Exposition on 2 Samuel 24:16
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Exposition of the Old and New Testament
John Gill (1697–1771) · 18th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, etc.] Which, as it was perhaps the last place where the people were numbered, it was the last to which the plague came: this angel appeared in an human form, standing “between the earth and the heaven”; in the midst of the heaven, in the air, right over Jerusalem: “having a drawn sword in his hand stretched over the city”; as is said in (<132116>1 Chronicles 21:16); which was done as a menace, and to inject terror into David and the inhabitants of the city, and to give them notice of what they must expect: the Lord repented him of the evil; he was inflicting, and now threatened Jerusalem with; having compassion on the place where the ark, the symbol of his presence, was, where a temple was to be built to the honour of his name, and where he should be worshipped; and therefore stopped proceeding; as men, when they repent of anything done by them, cease from it, so did the Lord now; otherwise repentance, properly speaking, falls not on him, and so it is next explained: and said to the angel that destroyed the people; not the angel of death, the devil, but a good angel, who had a commission from God for this business: it is enough: stay now thine hand: there is a sufficient number slay no more: and the angel of the Lord was by the threshing place of Araunah the Jebusite; that is, he was in the air, right over the spot, or near it, where was this man’s threshingfloor; and was seen by Araunah and his four sons, who upon it hid themselves, perhaps among the sheaves they were threshing, (<132120>1 Chronicles 21:20); and this threshingfloor was on Mount Moriah, (<140301>2 Chronicles 3:1); as threshingfloors commonly were on mountains for the sake of winnowing the corn when threshed; (see Gill on “<080302>Ruth 3:2”); who, according to Ben Gersom, though he was by birth a Jebusite, was proselyted to the Jewish religion.
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