27 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO SECOND SAMUEL 24 In this chapter an account is given of David's numbering of the people, 2 Samuel 24:1; of the sense he had of his sin, and of his acknowledgment of it; and of the Lord's displeasure at it, who sent the prophet Gad to him, to propose three things to him, one of which he was to choose as a punishment for it, 2 Samuel...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel,.... It had been kindled, and appeared before in sending a three years' famine among them for Saul's ill usage of the Gibeonites, 2 Samuel 21:1; and now it broke forth again, either for some secret sins committed, as Kimchi suggests, or for the rebellion of Absalom, and the insurrection of...
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary - Matthew Henry
The last words of David, which we read in the chapter before, were admirably good, but in this chapter we read of some of his last works, which were none of the best; yet he repented, and did his first works again, and so he finished well. We have here, I. His sin, which was numbering the people in the pride of his heart, ver. 1-9. II. His...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For the king said to Joab the captain of the host, which [was] with him,.... Or who was with him, even Joab, who was now at court, and was a counsellor of David, as well as his general; or which army was with Joab, a standing army he had the command of: go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba; from the northern part of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Joab said unto the king,.... Not so rudely and insolently as he did on account of his mourning for Absalom, but in a more modest, decent, and polite manner: now the Lord thy God add unto the people (how many soever they be) an hundredfold; he wished his subjects were an hundred times more numerous than they were: and that the eyes of my lord...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Notwithstanding the king's word prevailed against Joab, and against the captains of the host,.... Who it seems were of the same mind with Joab, and were against numbering the people, yet their arguments and remonstrances were of no avail with the king; he was determined it should be done, and laid his commands upon them to do it, which they were...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And they passed over Jordan,.... To take the number of the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh first: and pitched in Aroer; for it seems that Joab and the captains had the army with them, and the several captains under their command, partly to assist in numbering the people, and partly to keep them in awe, lest they should...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Then they came to Gilead,.... The land of Gilead, half of which was given to the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the other half to the half tribe of Manasseh, Deuteronomy 3:12; which tribes were numbered, and the first of all: and to the land of Tahtimhodshi; or the low lands of a new place; it seems to be a country newly possessed and inhabited;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And came to the strong hold of Tyre,.... That is, old Tyre, which stood thirty furlongs from new Tyre, the island (y); of which [See comments on Isaiah 23:1]; this must be understood of the parts near unto it; for that itself was not within the land of Israel, and so its inhabitants not to be numbered: and to all the cities of the Hivites, and of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
So when they had gone through all the land,.... Beginning at the east, and from thence to the north, and then going about to the west, came to the south, which finished their circuit: they came to Jerusalem, at the end of nine months and twenty days: they were ten months wanting ten days in numbering the people; in which they seem to have been...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king,.... Having collected from the several captains employed in this work their several particular numbers, he put them together, and gave in the sum total to David: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; though many of them might be under the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And David's heart smote him, after that had numbered the people,.... For nine or ten months his conscience lay asleep, but now the thing was done, it is awakened, and accuses him for it, and he repents of it; now he began to see the pride and haughtiness of his heart; his vanity and confidence in the creature, which led him to it; aggravated by...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For when David was up in the morning,.... Which it is probable was very early, he not being able to sleep through the distress of mind he was in; for the words should be rendered, "and David arose in the morning" (c), for, as we render them, they seem to imply as if he had no sense of his sin before the prophet came to him next mentioned; whereas...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Go, and say unto David,.... Not my servant David, as Nathan was bid to say to him when it was in his heart to build an house for him, 2 Samuel 7:5; but now he had sinned and displeased the Lord, and therefore it is only plain David: thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three [things]; or lay them before thee to consider of which thou wouldest have...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
So Gad came to David, and told him,.... Said nothing to him about his sin, but correction for it; which confirms it that David was made sensible of his sin before he came to him: and said unto him, shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? in 1 Chronicles 21:12, only "three years" are mentioned, and so the Septuagint version here;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait,.... Not knowing well which to choose, each of them being so grievous, and an answer being to be returned immediately; but by his next words, and by the event, it seems he chose the pestilence, though that is not expressly said: let us fall now into the hand of the Lord; the Targum in 1 Chronicles...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel,.... Upon the land of Israel, the people of the land, directly employing an angel to go through the coasts of it, and empowering him to inflict a pestilential disease: from the morning even to the time appointed: from the morning the prophet Gad came to David with a message from the Lord; that very morning...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it,.... Which, as it was perhaps the last place where the people were numbered, it was the last to which the plague came: this angel appeared in an human form, standing "between the earth and the heaven"; in the midst of the heaven, in the air, right over Jerusalem: "having a...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And David spake unto the Lord,.... In prayer; he and the elders of Israel being clothed in sackcloth, and fallen on their faces, he prayed, not unto the angel, but to Jehovah that sent him; see 1 Chronicles 21:16; when he saw the angel that smote the people; in the air over Jerusalem, with a drawn sword in his hand, which made him appear terrible:...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Gad came that day to David,.... Ordered and directed by the angel of the Lord, 1 Chronicles 21:18; and said unto him, go up, rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite: it was too far to go to Gibeon, where the tabernacle was, at such a time of extremity, when the sword of the angel was stretched out over...