The resemblance to the parallel passage in Samuel is throughout less close than usual; the additions are more numerous, the supernatural circumstances of the narrative being brought out into greater prominence. The history is evidently not drawn from Samuel, but from some quite separate document, pr... [ Continue Reading ]
As the books of Scripture are arranged in our Version, Satan is here for the first time by name introduced to us. He appears not merely as an “adversary” who seeks to injure man from without, but as a Tempter able to ruin him by suggesting sinful acts and thoughts from within. In this point of view,... [ Continue Reading ]
In 2 Samuel 24:9 the numbers are different. The explanation there given is not so generally accepted as the supposition that the numbers have, in one passage or the other (or possibly in both), suffered corruption.... [ Continue Reading ]
To omit the Levites would be to follow the precedent recorded in Numbers 1:47. The omission of Benjamin must he ascribed to a determination on the part of Joab to frustrate the king’s intention, whereby he might hope to avert God’s wrath from the people.... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE ANGEL OF THE LORD DESTROYING ... - These words are not in Samuel, which puts the third alternative briefly. They prepare the way for the angelic appearance 1 Chronicles 21:16, on which the author is about to lay so much stress.... [ Continue Reading ]
Here a picture of awful grandeur takes the place of the bare statement of the earlier historian 2 Samuel 24:17. And here, as elsewhere, the author probably extracts from the ancient documents such circumstances as harmonize with his general plan. As the sanctity of the temple was among the points wh... [ Continue Reading ]
It has been observed that it is only in books of a late period that Angels are brought forward as intermediaries between God and the prophets. This, no doubt, is true; and it is certainly unlikely that the records, from which the author of Chronicles drew, spoke of Gad as receiving his knowledge of... [ Continue Reading ]
Compare the marginal reference and note. It may also be conjectured that we should read “six” for “six hundred” here; since, according to the later Jewish system, six gold shekels were nearly equal in value to fifty silver ones.... [ Continue Reading ]
HE ANSWERED HIM FROM HEAVEN BY FIRE - This fact is not mentioned by the author of Samuel, since his object is to give an account of the sin of David, its punishment, and the circumstances by which that punishment was brought to a close, not to connect those circumstances with anything further in the... [ Continue Reading ]
David, knowing that by sacrifice on this altar he had caused the angel to stay his hand, was afraid to transfer his offerings elsewhere, lest the Angel should resume his task and pestilence again break out.... [ Continue Reading ]