Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
David, by numbering the people, provokes God to anger, and from three punishments offered by God he chooses the plague: which being sent accordingly carries off many; but at last David, by appeasing God through prayer and sacrifice, puts it to rest.
Vulgate Text: 1 Paralipomenon 21:1-30
1. And Satan rose up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel. 2. And David said to Joab and to the leaders of the people: Go, and number Israel from Beersheba to Dan, and bring me the count that I may know it. 3. And Joab answered: May the Lord increase His people a hundredfold more than they are; but, my lord the king, are they not all your servants? Why does my lord seek this, which will be counted as a sin for Israel? 4. But the king's word prevailed, and Joab went out and traveled through all Israel; and he returned to Jerusalem. 5. And he gave David the number of those he had counted; and the total number of Israel was found to be one million one hundred thousand men who drew the sword; and of Judah, four hundred and seventy thousand warriors. 6. But Levi and Benjamin he did not number, because Joab was unwilling to carry out the king's command. 7. And God was displeased with what had been commanded, and He struck Israel. 8. And David said to God: I have sinned greatly in doing this; I beseech You, take away the iniquity of Your servant, for I have acted foolishly. 9. And the Lord spoke to Gad, the seer of David, saying: 10. Go, and speak to David, and say to him: Thus says the Lord: I offer you three choices; choose one of them, whichever you wish, and I will do it to you. 11. And when Gad came to David, he said to him: Thus says the Lord: Choose what you will: 12. either three years of famine, or three months of fleeing before your enemies and being unable to escape their sword; or three days of the sword of the Lord, that is, pestilence in the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the borders of Israel: now therefore consider what I should answer Him who sent me. 13. And David said to Gad: I am pressed on every side by distress; 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. 14. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 15. He also sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it; and as it was being destroyed, the Lord looked and had compassion on the greatness of the evil; and He commanded the angel who was destroying: It is enough, now stay your hand. And the angel of the Lord was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 16. And David, lifting up his eyes, saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, and a drawn sword in his hand, turned against Jerusalem; and they fell, both he and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, prostrate upon the ground. 17. And David said to God: Am I not the one who commanded the people to be numbered? It is I who sinned; it is I who did evil: this flock, what has it deserved? O Lord my God, let Your hand, I beseech You, be turned against me and against my father's house; but let not Your people be struck. 18. And the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the Lord God on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19. So David went up according to the word of Gad, which he had spoken to him in the name of the Lord. 20. Now Ornan, looking up and seeing the angel, and his four sons with him, hid themselves; for at that time he was threshing wheat on the threshing floor. 21. And when David came to Ornan, Ornan saw him and came out from the threshing floor to meet him, and bowed before him with his face to the ground. 22. And David said to him: Give me the site of your threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar to the Lord; for as much silver as it is worth you shall receive, and the plague will cease from the people. 23. And Ornan said to David: Take it, and let my lord the king do whatever pleases him; I will also give the oxen for the burnt offering, and the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for the sacrifice: I will gladly provide everything. 24. And King David said to him: By no means shall it be so, but I will give you silver for the full price; for I must not take what is yours and thus offer the Lord burnt offerings that cost me nothing. 25. So David gave Ornan six hundred shekels of gold of just weight for the site. 26. And he built there an altar to the Lord; and he offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord, and He answered him with fire from heaven upon the altar of burnt offering. 27. And the Lord commanded the angel, and he returned his sword to its sheath. 28. At once David, seeing that the Lord had heard him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, offered sacrifices there. 29. But the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses had made in the desert, and the altar of burnt offerings, were at that time on the high place at Gibeon. 30. And David could not bring himself to go to the altar to pray to God there; for he was terrified with excessive fear at the sight of the sword of the angel of the Lord.
Verse 12: Three Years of Famine
12. EITHER THREE YEARS OF FAMINE. — In 2 Kings 24:13, it says: "Either seven years of famine"; namely the first offer from God made to David was seven years; but when David pleaded against such a long duration, God moderated the punishment and reduced it to three years. Similarly in Genesis 18, God came down from fifty just men to ten, and if He had found them in Sodom, He would have spared it; and to Ezekiel, chapter 4, praying against using human dung, He grants cow dung for fuel.
Verse 18: Ornan
18. ORNAN. — In 2 Kings 24:23, with a slightly altered name he is called "Araunah," and is likewise a king, that is, a petty king or prince among the Jebusites.