1; David, tempted by Satan, forces Joab to number the people.
5; The captains, in nine months and twenty days, bring the
muster of thirteen hundred thousand fighting men.
10; David repents, and having three plagues propounded by God,
chooses the three days' pestilence.
15; After the death of three score and ten thousand, David by
prayer prevents the destruction of Jerusalem.
18; David, by God's direction, purchases Araunah's threshing
floor; where having sacrificed, the plague stays.
* A.M. 2987. B.C. 1017. An. Ex. Is. 474. again.
21:1-14
* he.
This verse, when read without reference to any other part of
the word of God, is very difficult to understand, and has been
used by those who desire to undermine the justice of God, to
shew that he sought occasion to punish--that he incited David
to sin; and when he had so incited him, gave to him the
dreadful alternative of choosing one of three scourges by
which his people were to be cut off. On the face of the
passage these thoughts naturally arise, because "the Lord" is
the antecedent to the pronoun "he,"--He moved David. But to
those who "search the Scriptures," this exceedingly difficult
passage receives a wonderful elucidation, By referring to 1
Ch 21:1, the reader will there find that Satan was the mover,
and that the Lord most righteously punished David for the
display of pride he had manifested. Oh! that Christians, who
sometimes have their minds harassed with doubts, would
remember the promise, that what they know not now they shall
know hereafter; and if no other instance of elucidation than
this passage occurred to them to remove their doubts, let this
be a means of stirring them up to dig deeper than ever into
the inexhaustible mines of the Inspired Word.
Jas 1:13,14
* moved.
12:11 16:10 Ge 45:5 50:20 Ex 7:3 1Sa 26:19 1Ki 22:20-23
Eze 14:9 20:25 Ac 4:28 2Th 2:11
* Go, number.
1Ch 27:23,24
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