Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
God, angered at the census of the people by David, offers David the choice of three punishments, namely famine, war, and plague. David chose the plague; therefore, when it fell upon them, it killed 70,000. Then, at verse 17, David prays that the punishment be transferred from the people to himself, and he offers sacrifice at the threshing floor of Araunah; and so he reconciles God to himself and to the people.
Vulgate Text: 2 Kings 24:1-25
1. And the fury of the Lord continued to be angry against Israel, and He moved David among them, saying: Go, number Israel and Judah. 2. And the king said to Joab, the commander of his army: Go through all the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know their number. 3. And Joab said to the king: May the Lord your God increase the people, as many as they now are, and multiply them a hundredfold in the sight of my lord the king; but why does my lord the king desire such a thing? 4. But the word of the king prevailed over the words of Joab and the commanders of the army. 5. And Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king, to number the people of Israel. 6. And when they had crossed the Jordan, they came to Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the valley of Gad; and they went on to Jazer. 7. And they passed through Gilead and to the lower land of Hodshi, and they came to the wooded regions of Dan; and going about by Sidon, 8. they passed by the fortress of Tyre and all the land of the Hivite and the Canaanite, and they came to the south of Judah, to Beersheba. 9. And Joab gave the number of the census of the people to the king, and there were found of Israel eight hundred thousand strong men who could draw the sword, and of Judah five hundred thousand fighting men. 10. But the heart of David struck him after the people had been numbered, and David said to the Lord: I have sinned greatly in this deed; but I pray, Lord, that You would take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted most foolishly. 11. And David arose in the morning, and the word of the Lord came to Gad the prophet and Seer of David, saying: 12. Go and speak to David: Thus says the Lord: Three things are offered to you as a choice; choose one of them that you wish, that I may do it to you. 13. And when Gad had come to David, he announced it to him, saying: Either famine shall come upon you for seven years in your land; or for three months you shall flee from your enemies, and they shall pursue you; or certainly for three days there shall be a plague in your land. Now therefore deliberate, and see what answer I shall give to Him who sent me. 14. And David said to Gad: I am greatly distressed; but it is better that I should fall into the hands of the Lord (for His mercies are many) than into the hands of men. 15. And the Lord sent a plague upon Israel, from morning until the appointed time, and there died of the people, from Dan to Beersheba, seventy thousand men. 16. And when the Angel of the Lord had stretched out His hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord had mercy upon the affliction, and said to the Angel striking the people: It is enough; now stay your hand. And the Angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 17. And David said to the Lord, when he had seen the Angel striking the people: It is I who have sinned, I who have acted wickedly; these who are sheep, what have they done? Let Your hand, I beseech You, be turned against me and against the house of my father. 18. And Gad came to David on that day and said to him: Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 19. And David went up according to the word of Gad, as the Lord had commanded him. 20. And Araunah looked out and saw the king and his servants coming toward him; 21. and going out he bowed before the king with his face to the ground, and said: Why has my lord the king come to his servant? David said to him: To buy the threshing floor from you, and to build an altar to the Lord, that the plague which rages among the people may cease. 22. And Araunah said to David: Let my lord the king take and offer as seems good to him; behold, here are oxen for a burnt offering, and the cart and the yokes of the oxen for fuel. 23. All these things Araunah, as a king, gave to the king. And Araunah said to the king: May the Lord your God receive your vow. 24. So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver; 25. and David built an altar there to the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings; and the Lord was propitiated toward the land, and the plague was restrained from Israel.
Verse 1: God's Anger Against Israel
1. AND THE FURY OF THE LORD CONTINUED TO BE ANGRY AGAINST ISRAEL. — Theodoret answers that it was because Israel had rebelled with Absalom against David their king. Lyranus and Cajetan answer that it was the sin by which Israel conspired with Sheba against David. Abulensis thinks that there were moreover other sins of the people.
AND HE MOVED DAVID AMONG THEM TO SAY: GO, NUMBER THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH. — God "moved" David, not by Himself suggesting to him and saying: "Go and number the people" (for then He would have incited him to sin, which He cannot do), but by permitting the devil, who was ready and eager for this, to incite David to this proud numbering of the people. God therefore indirectly, but the devil directly, stirred David to this census, as is expressly stated in 1 Chronicles 21:1: "Satan rose up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel."
Hence St. Gregory wisely observes, book 29 of the Morals, chapter 4, that subjects should not be angry at their rulers when they fall into some error or vice, but should attribute the cause of the fall to themselves and their own sins. "He who was praised with God bearing witness, David the prophet, inflated with a sudden fury of pride, sinned by numbering the people; and yet the people received the punishment while David sinned. Why is this? Because the hearts of rulers are disposed according to the merit of the people."
Verse 2: The Sin of the Census
NUMBER THE PEOPLE, THAT I MAY KNOW THEIR NUMBER. — He sinned because he did this out of vanity and pride. Hear St. Augustine, book 22 Against Faustus, chapter 66: "There was such pastoral love for the flock entrusted to him that he was willing to die for them, when, after the people had been numbered, God was pleased to punish his sin of pride by diminishing that very number through the death of many, by whose multitude the heart of the king had been tempted with pride."
Verse 9: The Number of the People
9. AND THERE WERE FOUND OF ISRAEL EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND STRONG MEN. — 1 Chronicles chapter 21, verse 5, says: "The total number of Israel was one million one hundred thousand men." I say therefore that there was a twofold census: the first was one in which the commanders wrote down names in private registers, totaling eleven hundred thousand; the second was one in which these were transcribed into a larger book that Joab had, totaling only eight hundred thousand, because Joab was carrying out this registration unwillingly and the plague halted the transcription before completion.
Verse 10: David's Conscience Strikes Him
10. BUT THE HEART OF DAVID STRUCK HIM — that is to say: David's conscience stung him and told him that he had acted wrongly in numbering the people out of pride and presumption. Josephus adds that Gad the prophet and others showed David that he had sinned in this census.
Verse 12: The Choice of Three Punishments
12. THREE THINGS ARE OFFERED TO YOU AS A CHOICE. — "Three," namely disasters and calamities: plague, famine, and war; for whichever of these three you choose, it will diminish and reap this immense number of Israel, in which you as king boast and glory, and thus it will strike down your pride. So says St. Augustine, book 22 Against Faustus, chapter 66.
13. EITHER FAMINE SHALL COME UPON YOU FOR SEVEN YEARS. — Instead of "seven," 1 Chronicles chapter 21, verse 12, says "three," because God's first proposal contained "seven"; but then God mitigated and reduced it to three years.
Verse 14: Better to Fall into God's Hands
14. IT IS BETTER THAT I SHOULD FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE LORD (FOR HIS MERCIES ARE MANY) THAN INTO THE HANDS OF MEN. — He therefore deprecates war from men, namely the Philistines, Syrians, and Ammonites. Josephus relates: "The king, thinking that if he asked for famine, he could seem to have considered his own interest rather than others' — having much grain in his storehouses, while they did not — and that if he chose to be defeated by the enemy for three months, he would likewise have been looking out for himself, since he had fortresses and a very strong cohort around him — he chose a calamity common to rulers and ruled alike, in which equal fear would threaten all."
Hence St. Chrysostom, homily 29 on the Epistle to the Romans, shows that David was a good shepherd, because he laid down his life for his sheep: "Therefore in the choice of those punishments, he chose neither famine nor enemy persecution; but death sent by the Lord, through which he hoped that the others would indeed be safe, but that he himself would be removed before all the rest."
Verse 15: The Plague — Seventy Thousand Dead
AND THE LORD SENT A PLAGUE UPON ISRAEL, FROM MORNING UNTIL THE APPOINTED TIME. — The Septuagint has: from morning until the hour of lunch. Hence many think this plague lasted only six hours. So Theodoret says: "God threatened death for three days, but brought death for only six hours. Thus God, benign and merciful, used greater threats to terrify sinners, but inflicts punishments far less than His threats."
Others, such as Abulensis, Cajetan, and Salianus, think this plague lasted for two full days and for part of the third day, until God said to the Angel striking: "It is enough."
AND THERE DIED OF THE PEOPLE SEVENTY THOUSAND MEN.
Verse 16: The Angel Stays His Hand
16. AND WHEN THE ANGEL OF THE LORD HAD STRETCHED OUT HIS HAND OVER JERUSALEM TO DESTROY IT, THE LORD HAD MERCY. — Hence it is clear that the Angel first struck the other tribes with the plague, and killed 70,000 from them, and finally on the third day struck Jerusalem as well.
AND HE SAID TO THE ANGEL STRIKING THE PEOPLE: IT IS ENOUGH. — Hence it is inferred that God, before David prayed, out of His spontaneous mercy commanded the Angel to halt the plague.
A similar thing occurred in the Roman plague, which carried off Pope Pelagius, and to calm which St. Gregory instituted public Litanies. Then they report that when Gregory, processing, had arrived at the Mausoleum of Hadrian, an Angel was seen putting a drawn sword back into its sheath, signifying that the disease had ceased.
Verse 17: David's Prayer for His People
17. IT IS I WHO HAVE SINNED — namely, by numbering the people, from which sin the people were innocent, although they were guilty on account of other crimes. Let Princes and Prelates consider here, admire, and imitate the profound humility, repentance, and charity of David supplicating for the people and asking that the punishment be transferred from them to himself. Hear St. Ambrose in his Apology for David, chapter 7: "How admirable it was that he offered himself to the Angel striking the people! By this act he was immediately judged worthy of sacrifice, who had been considered unworthy of absolution."
It is added in 1 Chronicles 21:16: "And both he himself (David) and the elders fell down, clothed in sackcloth, prostrate on the ground." So St. Charles Borromeo, to avert the plague and other calamities, processed in public supplication barefoot, with a rope cast about his neck, carrying a cross.
Verse 18: The Threshing Floor of Araunah
18. GO UP (to Mount Moriah, which is part of Mount Zion) AND BUILD AN ALTAR TO THE LORD ON THE THRESHING FLOOR OF ARAUNAH THE JEBUSITE. — "Araunah" was a prince of the Jebusites, and he was a friend and intimate of David; he seems to have become a proselyte and converted to Judaism and the true God.
Why did God choose this threshing floor above others for the sacrifice? First, because this threshing floor was on Mount Moriah, where some 850 years before, Abraham had been commanded by God to sacrifice his son, Genesis 22. Second, because in the same place God had decreed that the temple would be built by Solomon, of which He willed this to be a specimen and prelude established by David, as is clear from 2 Chronicles 3:1.
Symbolically, God wished to signify that on the "threshing floor of the Jebusite," that is, in the region of the Gentiles, the true David and Solomon, that is, Christ, would build a temple, that is, the Catholic Church of the true Israelites and children of Abraham by faith, from the living stones of the faithful.
Allegorically, David here sacrificing on the threshing floor of Araunah and appeasing the wrath of God and calming the plague was a type of Christ, who in the same place (for the hill of Calvary is near Mount Moriah and is, as it were, part of it and its ridge) was to immolate Himself as a victim for sin to the Father, was to appease His wrath, and was to take away from us both present and eternal death.
Verse 24: David Buys the Threshing Floor
24. SO DAVID BOUGHT THE THRESHING FLOOR AND THE OXEN FOR FIFTY SHEKELS OF SILVER. — 1 Chronicles 21:25 says: "David gave Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold." The common response is that David gave 50 silver shekels for the threshing floor of the altar and the oxen; but afterwards, for the entire property of Araunah, so that Solomon might build upon it that temple which was the wonder of the world, he gave six hundred gold shekels. So say St. Jerome, the Glossa, Lyranus, Hugh, Dionysius, Cajetan, Salianus, Serarius, and others.
Verse 25: God Is Propitiated
25. AND THE LORD WAS PROPITIATED TOWARD THE LAND. — The sign of this propitiation was fire sent by God from heaven, which consumed David's offerings and, as it were, took them up to God, to whom they were offered. This is clear from 1 Chronicles 21:26.
At the same time, by this sign of fire, God showed that He willed a temple to be erected by Solomon in the same place, in which offerings would be made to Him and burned by heavenly fire. David announced this to the people when he said: "This is the house of God, and this is the altar of burnt offering for Israel" (1 Chronicles 22:1). Whence immediately he procured stonecutters, iron, wood, and the rest of the materials necessary for the building of the temple.
Chronology of David's Reign
Here are terminated the political acts of David, namely those pertaining to wars and the governance of the people. The ecclesiastical and spiritual acts are omitted here — such as the composition of the Psalms, the distribution of the Levites and priests, the preparation of materials for the building of the temple — which are supplied and narrated at length in 1 Chronicles chapters 23 through the end of the book.
Here therefore ends the second book of Kings, which entirely contains the political acts and deeds of David, from the beginning of his reign to the end of his life. The principal dates of David's life:
At age 20, anointed king by Samuel. At age 22, he killed Goliath. At age 30, David was anointed king of Judah at Hebron. At age 38, he was made king by all the tribes. At age 39, he stormed the citadel of Zion. At age 42, he transferred the Ark to Zion. At age 50, he violated Bathsheba and killed Uriah. At age 51, rebuked by Nathan, he repented. At age 52, Solomon was born. At age 61, Absalom seized the kingdom and was killed. At age 63, the three-year famine and the crucifixion of Saul's descendants. At age 64, four wars against the Philistine giants. At age 67, the census and the plague of 70,000. At age 70, David established Solomon as king and shortly afterward died — which was the year 2929 from the creation of the world, 270 years before the founding of Rome, and 1021 years before the birth of Christ.