The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Chronicles — Section 332

Ver. 12.-Three yean' famine. The the Hill of Moriah (Conder's • Bible H11.nd• pRrallel place he.s, in our Hebrew text, book,' 2nd edit., 236 [6)). The threshing• "seven " instead of "three." But the floor. The primitive threshing-floors of the Septmi.gint indicates this to be but a cor- Israelites still essentially obtain. They rupt.ion of 0. 10.ter text; for it reads " three," were level spots of stamped 0.nd well-trodden as here. The parallel place shows no earth, about fifty feet in diameter, and se- mention of the destroying angel here spoken !ected in positions most exposed to the wind, of. The three inflictions of famiue, sword, 111 order to take the advantage of its help in pestilence, are found not unfrequently else- the separating of the grain from the chatr. where in Scripture (see Deut. xxviii. 21- On these circular spots of hard earth the 25; Ezek. xiv. 21; Rev. vi. 4-8). Now sheaves of grain, of whatever kind, wet& ... advise thyself. The simple text is" Now distributed in all sorts of disorder. Oxen see,'' in place of "Now know and see" of and other cattle trod them. And sometimes the paraII el passage. these beasts were driven round 0.nd ronndfive Ver. 13.-It is in such answers as these- abreast. The stalk of the grain was, of course, answers of equal piety and practical wisdom, much bruised and crushed, and the method that the difference is often visible between is described still as of a very rough and the man radically bad, and the man good at w0.Steful kind. Instruments were also em- heart and the child of grace, even when ployed, 0.s the "flail" (Ruth ii. 17; Isa. fallen into the deepest depth of sin. xxviii. 27, 28); the "sledge," to which Ver. 14.-So the Lord sent pestilenoe upon possibly reference is made in Judg. viii. 7, Israel. This sentence is followed in the 16, under the name barkanim (Authorized parallel place by " from the morning even Version," briers"). These sledges were of to the time appointed." It has been sng- two kinds: (1) themorag (2 Sam. xxiv. 22; oh. gested that "the time appointed" may xxi. 23; Isa. xii. 15), made of fiat planks mean the time of the evening sacrifice, and joined together, and furnished with rough that God shortened thus the three davs to studs on the under surface; and (2) agalah, a short one day. There seems nothing rendered Authorized Version, "cart-wheel" sufficient to snpport the suggestion, unless (Isa. xxviii. 27), made of wooden rollers, or it might lie in the "repenting" of the Lord, rollers of iron or stone, and dragged by cattle and his "st0.ying" of the angel's hand, in over the sheaves. Egypt and Syria, 0.s well ver. 15. There fell of Isr0.el seventy thous0.ud as Palestine, still show these instruments (see men. The whole number of Israel, including Robinson's 'Bibi. Res.,' i. 550 ; end Thom- women, must have reached near to five son's ' Land and the Book,' pp. 538-541), millions. On this assumption, the se,crifice of Vers. 16, 17.-These verses oft'er instances, life for Israel would be something like l ·4 especially the former,of the shorter narratives per cent., or fourteen in the thousand. not being with Chronicles, but with Samuel. Ver. 15.-And God sent an angel It is And the longer narrative being with Chro• at this point first that any mention of 0.n nicles is found uniformly in the cases in angel is found in the par0.llel place, but then which reference is had, whether more or less 11ot in the present form, but in a sentence directly, to the ecclesiastical or permanent which would seem to presuppose the know- institution of the Israelites. ledge of the agency of an angel on the oc- Ver. 18.-The angel. The Hebrew shows casion: "And when the angel stretched out no article (see Numb. xxii. 34, 35; 1 Kings his h0.nd upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the xiii. 18; xix. 5; Zech. i. 9). The ple,ce whore Lord repented him of the evil" (2 Sam. xxiv. the altar was now about to be erected was 16). Stood by the threshing-floor of Orne.n. that made famous by the sacrifice of Abra- The verb "stood" is employed here quite ham (Gen. xxii. 2, 9), and, though less generically. It does not imply that the 0.ngel certainly, that known to the priesthood of stood on the ground ; for see next verse, in Melchizedek (Gen. xiv. 17-20). which it is said that he "stood between the Ver. 20.-This verse is not found in the earth and the heaven," the Hebrew verb parallel place. The Septuagint reading of being exactly the same. Ornan is the uni- " king" in this verse, in place of " angel," is form form and spelling of the name in no doubt an error. The drift of this and the Chronicles. In Samuel, however, the name following verse is pl0.in and continuous. appears as ;,n-,:,..: (2 Sam. xxiv, 20), or Ornan and his sons had hidden themselves Araunah. Yet'i.n-~er.16,ofthesamechapter on the apparition of the 0.ngel, but came out the Kethiv inverts the order of the resh and on the 9.dvent of David, to welcome him. vau, prefixing the article, or what looks like Ver. 22.-The plaoe of this threshing-floor; it, and again iu ver. IS the Kethiv shows the i.e. the pl0.ce on which the threshing-floor form ;,•J'1N. Ornan, then, or Araunab, wus was made. It was the level summit of the a dcsc;,'~;l~nt of the old Jebusite race to middle elevated ground of the oasteru wl,om the furt of Zion once belonged. And l'hlge on which Jerusalem was situate (oh, the pre11ent narrative finds him living on xi. 4-7), on. XXI. 1-30.] THE FIRST BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. 331