Commentaria in I Paralipomenon
Chapter 20
David crushes the Ammonites with threshing sledges and saws; soon, in verse 4, he overcomes the Philistines in three battles, and slays three giants.
1. And it came to pass after the turning of the year, at the time when kings go forth to war, that Joab gathered together the army and the strength of the soldiery, and wasted the land of the children of Ammon; and he went and besieged Rabba: but David stayed at Jerusalem, when Joab smote Rabba and destroyed it. 2. And David took the crown of Melchom from his head, and found in it a talent weight of gold, and most precious stones, and made himself a diadem of it: he took also very much spoil out of the city;
3. and the people that were in it he brought out: and made harrows and sledges and chariots armed with iron to go over them, so that they were cut and bruised; so did David to all the cities of the children of Ammon, and returned with all his people to Jerusalem. 4. After this a battle was begun in Gazer against the Philistines, in which Sobochai the Husathite slew Saphai of the race of Raphaim, and humbled them. 5. There was also another battle against the Philistines, in which Adeodatus the son of the forest, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gethite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 6. And there was another war at Geth, in which there was a man of very great stature, having six fingers on each hand and foot, that is, twenty-four in all: and he also was born of the stock of Rapha. 7. He blasphemed Israel, and Jonathan the son of Samaa the brother of David slew him. These were the sons of Rapha in Geth, who fell by the hand of David and of his servants.
This chapter is the same as chapters 10 and 11 of the book of 2 Kings, where I explained it. 2. And David took the crown of Melchom.—The Hebrews read it Malcham, that is, of their king, namely of the Ammonites. So also the Septuagint; for the crown of idols, such as Melchom was, was to be burned with the idols themselves, as is commanded in Deuteronomy 7; wherefore David could not make a royal crown for himself from it.
Chapter 21. Synopsis of the Chapter
David, numbering the people, provokes God to anger, and of the three punishments offered by God chooses pestilence: which, being sent, takes many from the midst; but at length David, by prayer and sacrifice appeasing God, puts it to rest.
1. And Satan rose up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. 2. And David said to Joab and to the princes of the people: Go and number Israel from Bersabee to Dan, and bring me the number that I may know it. 3. And Joab answered: The Lord increase his people a hundredfold 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? 4. But the king’s word prevailed more, and Joab went out and went about through all Israel; and returned to Jerusalem. 5. And he gave David the number of them whom he had gone about; 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. 6. For Levi and Benjamin he did not number, because Joab did unwillingly execute the king’s command. 7. And what was commanded displeased God, and he struck Israel. 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. 9. And the Lord spoke to Gad the seer of David, saying: 10. Go, and speak to David, and say to 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. 11. And when Gad was come to David, he said to him: Thus saith the Lord: Choose which thou wilt: 12. either three years of famine, or three months to flee before thy enemies, and not be able to escape their sword; or three days of 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 consider what answer I shall return to him that sent me. 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. 14. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 15. He sent also an angel to Jerusalem to strike it; and as he was striking, the Lord saw, and had pity on the greatness of the evil; and commanded the angel that was destroying: It is enough, now let thy hand cease. And the angel of the Lord stood 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, with a drawn sword in his hand, and turned against Jerusalem; and both he and the ancients clothed in haircloth fell down flat on the ground. 17. And David said to God: Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? I it is that have sinned; I have done the evil: but these that are the flock, what have they deserved? O Lord my God, let thy hand, I beseech thee, be turned against me, and against my father’s house; but let not thy people be struck. 18. And the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, that he should go up, and build an altar to the Lord God in 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. And Ornan, when he looked up and saw the angel, he and his four sons with him hid themselves; for at that time he was threshing wheat in the floor. 21. And when David came to Ornan, Ornan saw him, and went out to meet him from the floor, and adored him, bowing to the ground. 22. And David said to him: Give me the place of thy floor, that I may build therein an altar to the Lord; so that thou take as much silver as it is worth, and let the plague cease from the people. 23. And Ornan said to David: Take it, and let my lord the king do what pleaseth him; moreover I give the oxen also for a holocaust, and the sledges for wood, and the wheat for a sacrifice: I will give all willingly. 24. And king David said to him: Not so, but I will give the money as much as it is worth; for I ought not to take it from thee, and so offer to the Lord holocausts free of cost. 25. So David gave Ornan for the place six hundred sicles of gold of most just weight. 26. And he built there an altar to the Lord; and offered holocausts, and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord, and he heard him by fire from heaven upon the altar of holocaust. 27. And the Lord commanded the angel, and he put up his sword again into the sheath. 28. Then David, seeing that the Lord had heard him in the floor of Ornan the Jebusite, immolated victims there. 29. And the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses had made in the desert, and the altar of holocausts, were at that time in the high place of Gabaon. 30. And David could not go to the altar, to pray there to God; for he was struck with exceeding great fear, seeing the sword of the angel of the Lord.
12. Either three years of famine.—In 2 Kings 24:13 it is said: “Either seven years of famine,” doubtless the first offer made by God to David was of seven years; but David pleading against so long a time, God moderated the penalty somewhat, and reduced it to three years. So in Genesis 18 God came down from fifty just men to ten, whom if he had found in Sodom, he would doubtless have spared it; and to Ezechiel, chapter 4, when he pleaded, he grants cow’s dung for his food instead of human dung. 18. Ornan.—In 2 Kings 24:23, with the name slightly altered, he is called “Areuna,” and the same is a king, that is, a petty king or prince among the Jebusites.