lately fet upon numbering the people, fees his guilt, and repents his purpose, the moment it was finished: that heart which was fo lately dilated with vanity *, now fhrinks into contrition and penitence. It is fomewhere faid of Epaminondas, that, the next day after the battle of Leuctra, he was seen remarkably fad and dejected; and being asked the reason, answered, I yesterday fuffered myself to be too much elated with vanity, and I am mortifying for it today. This feems to have been pretty much the cafe of David; whofe vain heart now recoils, with dreadful pangs, upon his breast. And David's heart fmote him, (says the text) after that he had numbered the people: and David faid unto the Lord, I have finned greatly in that I have done: and now I befeech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of thy fervant; for I have done very foolishly. In this fituation of mind, Gad, David's feer, found him the next morning †, when he * And perhaps this may be the reason why this action is imputed to the inftigation of Satan, the father of pride. + I must here obferve, an egregious error in our English translation: which gives us to apprehend, that R 4 David's he came to denounce the divine vengeance upon his guilt and to fhew him, and the world, that the vengeance he came now to denounce, could be no cafual calamity, nor the effect of any natural caufe, he gave him his choice of three evils; one of which must immediately be inflicted upon him: Shall Seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? Or wilt thou flee three months before. thine enemies, while they pursue thee? Or that there be three days peftilence in thy land? Now advife, and fee what answer I shall return to Him that fent me. To these dreadful and diftracting alternatives, David made this truly heroic, and religious reply: And David faid unto Gad,I am in a great freight: let us fall now into, the hand of the Lord, (for his mercies are great) and let me not fall into the hand of man. Had he chofen either war or famine, his wealth and his power had eafily fecured himself and family, from any imminent danger of either: but in this David's penitence was the effect of Gad's threat: For, (fays the text) when David was up in the morning, the word of the Lord came unto the prophet Gad, David's feer, faying, Go, and fay unto David, &c. Whereas the word which is tranflated For, fhould be tranflated And; and it is not a caufal, but a connective particle. con confifted his heroifm, that he chofe that evil, which he himself rifqued, in common with his meanest subject, THE event was immediately anfwerable to the choice; a plague inftantly ensued, and continued to the time appointed; which deftroyed, in that very fhort space, seventy thousand men, from Dan to Beersheba; a calamity which hath no parallel, in the whole compafs of history. DAVID, deeply afflicted and penitent under this heavy chaftifement, affembled the elders of Ifrael; and all of them, cloathed in fack-cloth, humbled themselves in a most folemn and public manner before GOD; imploring his mercy, and deprecating his vengeance. And whilst they were in this condition, David, lifting up his eyes to GOD, faw the angel of the Lord ftanding between the earth and the heaven; having a drawn fword in his hand, stretched out over JeruSalem. Upon the fight of which, David, and all his attending elders, fell upon their faces, to the earth; and David cried out to GoD, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? Even I it is that have finned, and done evil indeed. But for thèse Посера Sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, O Lord my God, be on me, and on my father's house; but not on thy people, that they should be plagued. THIS fupplication and humiliation of David, and the elders, foftened the divine wrath, and arrefted the vengeance. And the Lord faid to the angel, that deftroyed the people, It is enough; ftay now thine hand. And the place where the avenging angel was ftaid, was over the threshing-floor of Araunab the Jebusite. THEN the angel of the Lord commanded Gad, inftantly to order David to go, and fet up an altar to GOD in the threshingfloor of Araunah the Jebufite. David immediately obeyed, and treated with Araunah for the threshing-floor; fignifying to him, at the fame time, the reason why he defired to purchase it. The truth of which Araunab himself muft eafily be fatisfied of, inafmuch as he also, with his four fons, had feen the destroying angel, and hid themfelves in terror of the fight. And therefore David had no fooner made the propofal, but the generous Araunah replied, with a ready offer of every thing he wanted; land, oxen for facrifice, and threshing inftruments for fuel, and the wheat for the meat offering, without any price or purchase. But this David abfolutely refufed; declaring, that he would buy every thing at the full price; and that he would not facrifice to GoD of that which coft him nothing; and accordingly he bought the place for fix hundred fhekels of gold; and the oxen for fifty fhekels of filver *. And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burntofferings and peace-offerings, and called upon the Lord, and be answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering, and the plague was ftayed from Ifrael. Much difficulty hath been raised upon the articles of this fale, in a cafe, to me, fufficiently plain. The authors of 2 Sam. xxiv. tell us, that David bought the threshing-floor, but do not fay for what; and then immediately add, and the oxen for fifty fhekels of filver--Now, it is but fuppofing fuch a ftop, placed after the word Floor, as fhews it to be a fentence diftinct from what follows, or fuppofing the following claufe to be included in a parenthesis (a conftruction which must be fuppofed in all other writings, in a thousand inftances); and the matter is clear of all difficulty. And that one or both of these must be the cafe, is fufficiently evident to me from 1 Chron. xxi. 25. where the price paid for the place is exprefly fet down to be fix hundred Thekels of gold, without mentioning any price paid for the oxen. How |
