Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
17. AND DAVID SAID TO THE LORD, WHEN HE SAW THE ANGEL STRIKING THE PEOPLE: IT IS I THAT HAVE SINNED.—The Angel had already by God’s order stayed the plague; this done, he nevertheless showed himself to David with a stern and fiery countenance, with drawn sword, as though threatening still to strike the people: wherefore David, terrified, fell down suppliant on the ground with his people, and asked pardon for the people and obtained it. So Abulensis, Salianus and others. The Hebrews hand down that David, struck by this vision and the grief of the stricken people, fell into an incurable disease. Wherefore he groaned to God: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak,” Psalm 6:3. “He calls himself weak,” says Lyranus, “according to the opinion of the ancient Rabbis, who from the vision of the Angel striking the people for the aforesaid numbering was so terrified that for the rest he remained languid: so that he was not warmed with any clothes, as is said in 3 Kings 1:1.” “The Hebrews say,” says Jerome, “that Sadoc the priest in his mitre besought the Lord and imitated his father Aaron, and that the Lord saw his prayers and devotion and had mercy.”
IT IS I THAT HAVE SINNED,—namely by numbering the people, from which sin the people were free, who, however, were guilty on account of other crimes committed by them, which God wished to chastise here. Let princes and prelates consider here, admire and imitate David’s profound humility, penance and charity, supplicating for the people, and asking that the punishment be transferred from them to himself. Let them hear St. Ambrose in the Apology of David, chapter 7: “How admirable is that, that he offered himself to the Angel striking the people. By this deed he was at once judged worthy of sacrifice who was thought unworthy of absolution. Nor is it wonder, since Moses also, by offering himself to the Lord for the error of the people, blotted out also the errors of the people.” Almost the same Theodoret, Question 37: “Worthy of admiration,” he says, “are the very words of the king: not knowing the cause, he called what had been done his own sin; and that the just sentence might be borne against his own race, he supplicated, using the words of a good shepherd, imitating his Son and Lord, who laid down his life for his sheep.” It is added, 1 Paralipomenon 21:16: “And both he (David) and the ancients clothed in haircloth fell flat on the ground.” So St. Charles Borromeo, to avert a plague and other calamities, in a public supplication went barefoot, with a rope cast about his neck, carrying a cross.
18. GO UP (to mount Moria, which is a part of mount Sion) AND BUILD AN ALTAR TO THE LORD IN THE THRESHING-FLOOR OF AREUNA THE JEBUSITE,—because on account of the Angel threatening with the sword there was still fear of the plague, nay a remnant of it. For though God had said to the Angel: “It is enough,” that he should infect no one further with the plague, yet those who had already been infected by it were not healed. Gad the prophet therefore commands David by God’s instinct to erect an altar, to confirm the freedom granted by himself. Others, however, think from this place that the Angel had not yet ceased from striking and inflicting the plague, and therefore the plague had not yet ceased, nor had God yet said to the Angel: “It is enough,” but said it after David’s prayers and sacrifice. For although Scripture had narrated this before, verse 16, yet it seems to have done so by anticipation, wishing first to complete the narrative of what was done and said between God and the Angel; then to subjoin the intermediate means ordained for it by God, namely David’s supplication and victim, by which appeased God said to the Angel: “It is enough,” and stayed the plague.
This exposition is probable, and favouring it is what David says in verse 21: “And that the slaughter may cease which rageth among the people.” And at the end: “And the Lord became merciful to the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel.” So Cajetan.
IN THE THRESHING-FLOOR OF AREUNA THE JEBUSITE.—“Areuna” was a prince of the Jebusites, whence in verse 23, in the Hebrew, he is called king, and he was a friend and familiar of David, wherefore he seems to have become a proselyte, and converted to Judaism and the true God. So Abulensis, Dionysius, Salianus. Furthermore, he who was called by the Hebrews Areuna, that is, collection, or ark, was by the Jebusites, with the name slightly altered, called Ornan, as is plain from 1 Paralipomenon 21:18. Hence Vatablus thinks that he was the king of the Jebusites before Jerusalem was taken by David, by the capture of which he was made tributary to David. The same teaches St. Augustine, sermon 198 On the Time, Serarius and others.
You ask, why did God choose this threshing-floor of Areuna for the sacrifice? I answer first, because this threshing-floor was on mount Moria, where formerly, 850 years before, Abraham was commanded by God to immolate his son, Genesis 22. Secondly, because in the same place God had decreed that the temple should be built by Solomon, of which he wished a kind of specimen and prelude here to be laid and given by David. This is plain from 2 Paralipomenon 3:1, where it is said: “And Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, on mount Moria, which had been shown to David his father, in the place which David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite.” Symbolically, God wished to signify in the “threshing-floor of the Jebusite,” that is, in the region of the Gentiles, that by the true David and Solomon, that is Christ, the temple, that is, the Catholic Church of the true Israelites and children of Abraham by faith, was to be built of the living stones of the faithful. So Angelomus, and St. Augustine ... interprets ark, and Ornan in Latin sounds “light to us.” “Well, then, when he wished to appease God for the offence by which he had sinned, he is commanded to build an altar in the threshing-floor of Areuna or Ornan, that from it each may gather that otherwise the Divinity cannot be appeased by man, unless in the ark of the heart, by the light of right faith and true love, he set up to him an altar of devout humility, on which he may offer to God the sacrifice of pious confession and praise, acceptable to God. Which is rightly made manifest by the same Prophet in the Psalms, where it is said in the person of the Lord: The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me. And again: A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God will not despise.” Allegorically, David here sacrificing in the threshing-floor of Areuna and appeasing God’s wrath, and quelling the plague, was a type of Christ, who in the same place (for mount Calvary is near to mount Moria and as it were a part and ridge of it) was to immolate himself as a victim for sin to the Father, to appease his wrath, and to take away from us present and eternal death.
21. AND THE SLAUGHTER CEASED.—David did not know that God had said to the Angel striking: “It is enough”: nay, after this saying the Angel appeared to David with a drawn sword as though threatening to strike, whence David thought he was in truth still striking; nay some think he had in truth still struck, as I said on verse 18, and Scripture sufficiently hints this, saying that at the prayers and sacrifice of David God, appeased, took away the plague, here in the last verse, and 1 Paralipomenon chapter 21, where after David’s sacrifice it is added in verse 27: “And the Lord commanded the Angel; and he put up his sword into the sheath.” However it be, it is certain that before David’s prayers and sacrifice God was not yet reconciled, but by the Angel with drawn sword still threatened the people; but by David’s prayers and victims he was fully appeased, and ordered the Angel to put back into its sheath the flashing sword.