The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Samuel — Section 584

meaning. For Jerome, who made the tre!la- Jsre.el. The Lord repented. Jn all the lation, says, '''tern pus conetitutum ' mee.ne dealings of God's providence, hie actions are the hour when the evening sacrifice was made to depend npon human conduct. offered'' (' 'fre.dd. Heb. in Duos Libros Looked e.t from above, from God's side, all Regum '). The versions nil e.gree that the things are foreknown e.nd immutably fixed; pestilenoo lasted only e. few hours. Thus looked at from man's aide, all is perpetually the Syrino translates, "From morning until changing as man changes. 'fhe rescue of the sixth hour," i.e. noon. So too the Septua- Jernse.lem e.e the result of David's peni- gint, "From morning until the midday tence and prayers, is thus to human view a meal." The Vulgate adds on three hours, change in the counsels e.nd even in the feel- as the evening sacrifice we.s e.t the ninth ings of him who cbangeth not. The thresh- hour ; and this is the meaning of the ing-plaoe. "The threshing-floor," e.s rightly Che.Idea Pare.phrase: "From the time the translated in vers. 18, 21, 24. Threshing- de.ily sacrifice was slain u'ntil it was burnt." floors were conetrncted, whenever possible, on As the word moi!d used here means both e. eminences, that the wind might drive the time or place appointed for a meeting, and cha.ff.and dust away. Araunah's was on the also the meeting itself, the right translation east of Jernsalem, outside the walls, upon probably is, " From the morning even to the Mount Moriah, and was the site on which time of assembly," or, as we should say, "the the temple was built (see 2 Chron. iii. 1). boil of service." Moi!d we.a the regular Araunah. The no.me is so spelt seven times word for the time of the temple service, in vers. 20-24, for which reason the Me.e- deri Yed from the old name of the tabernacle, soritee have substituted it for .Avarnah, found which was called "the tent of moi!d" (see in this verse in the Hebrew text, e.nd for Numb. xvi. 19, etc.), rendered in the Autho- Aranyah in ver. 18. In I Chron. xxi. the rized Version, "the tabernacle of the con- name is spelt Oman; in the Septuagint in gregation," and in the Revised Version, all places, 'Opvd., Oma, and in the Syriac, " the tent of meeting." The hour would Oron. The no.me is, of course, e. Jebusite thus be the ninth, or three o'clock in the word, and the variation arises from the afternoon. Seventy thousand men. This narrators having written down the sound as is a vast number to fall victims of the pesti- it caught their ears. In this, as in many lence in so short a time, as even the most other pe.rticule.rs, it is clear that the chro- dangerous forms of' sickness take some days nicler derived his account from independent for their development. But similarly the sources. army of Seunacherib was cut off in e. night Ver. 17.-I have done wickedly; Hebrew, (Isa. xxxvii. 36); as were the firstborn in I have done pervereely, or crookertly. David Egypt, whose visitation more nearly re- acknowledges that his conduct had not been sembles the course of this pestilence; and upright and straightforward, but that he the rapidity of the death-blow, striking had turned aside into the pe.ths of self-will down so vast a multitude suddenly through- and personal e.ggrandizement. These sheep, out all parts of the land, would be proof to what have they done 1 The sin had been every mind that the mortality was the quite as much that of the people as of the Divine chastisement for ne.tione.l sin. It is king; for the war-Inst had entered into the possible, nevertheless, that the black death- very heart of the nation. But David, with cloud, bringing with it the plague, may that warmth of feeling which makes his have been settling down. upon the le.nd pre- character so noble, can see only his own viously, e.nd have alarmed David, and fault. It is not a true repentance when the brought him to repentance ; and though no sinner looks for excuses, and apportions the new cases occurred after the offering of his blame between himself e.nd others. To burnt offerings (ver. 25), yet it by no means David the people seemed innocent, or, if at follows that all cases of infection were mira- all to blame, he felt that it was be who had culously ourod. The malady may have run set them the example and led them on. in them its norme.l course. It was Jerusalem The narrative in this ple.ce is much briefer that was saved from the blow, and, after the than in Chronicles. offering of the burnt offering, the pestilence Ver. 1S.-Go np. David probably, on re-' smote down no more. ceiving God'8 message, had gone to the tent Ver. 16.-The angel. In the next verse which be he.d pitched for the ark in Zion we are told that David saw the angel, o.nd (eh. vi. 17), in order that he might pray more fully in 1 Ohron. xxi. 16 tho.t he there; and while on his we.y he saw tbe beheld him " standing between the earth dllrk plague-clond coming e.s the messenger and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his of God's wrath to amite Jeruse.lem. In an he.nd." The pestilence pie.inly was not a agony of grief, he poured out his prayer natural visitation ; though possibly the that Jernse.lem might be spa.red, and God meo.ns used was o. simoom, or poisonous wind, l1e1ml him, e.nd aent Gad e. second time to allvanoing with terrible rapidity throughout bid him offer IIIMlrifi.oe, that, by making all  600 THE SEOOND BOOK OF SAMUEL. [CH, XXIV, 1-26,