2 Samuel 24:15

_SO THE LORD SENT A PESTILENCE UPON ISRAEL FROM THE MORNING EVEN TO THE TIME APPOINTED: AND THERE DIED OF THE PEOPLE FROM DAN EVEN TO BEERSHEBA SEVENTY THOUSAND MEN._ So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel, from the morning even to the time appointed - rather that morning, when Gad came, until the end of the three days. AND THERE DIED OF THE PEOPLE, FROM DAN EVEN TO BEER-SHEBA, SEVENTY THOUSAND MEN. What an awful panic must have prevailed throughout the land! What a dreadful agony must David have endured during these horrible three days and nights! The whole land was converted into a vast lazar-house. Thus, by the sad removal of such multitudes of his subjects in all grades of society, was the pride of the self-willed and vain-glorious monarch, confiding in the extent of his population, deeply humbled....

10-15 It is well, when a man has sinned, if he has a heart within to smite him for it. If we confess our sins, we may pray in faith that God would forgive them, and take away, by pardoning mercy, that sin which we cast away by sincere repentance. What we make the matter of our pride, it is just in God to take from us, or make bitter to us, and make it our punishment. This must be such a punishment as the people have a large share in, for though it was David's sin that opened the sluice, the sins of the people all contributed to the flood. In this difficulty, David chose a judgment which came immediately from God, whose mercies he knew to be very great, rather than from men, who would have triumphed in the miseries of Israel, and have been thereby hardened in their idolatry. He chose the pestilence; he and his family would be as much exposed to it as the poorest Israelite; and he would c...

Verse 2 Samuel 24:15. _FROM THE MORNING - TO THE TIME APPOINTED_] That is, from the morning of the day after David had made his election till the _third day_, according to the condition which God had proposed, and he had accepted: but it seems that the plague was terminated before the conclusion of the third day, for Jerusalem might have been destroyed, but it was not. Throughout the land, independently of the city, _seventy thousand_ persons were slain! This was a terrible mortality in the space of less than three days....

THE TIME APPOINTED - Perhaps “the time of the assembly,” meaning the time of the evening sacrifice, at three o’clock, when the people assembled for prayer, more commonly described as “the time of the evening oblation” Daniel 9:21; 1Ki 18:29, 1 Kings 18:36; Acts 3:1; Luke 1:10. SEVENTY THOUSAND - It is the most destructive plague recorded as having fallen upon the Israelites. In the plague that followed the rebellion of Korah there died 14,700 Numbers 16:49; in th

EXPOSITION 2 SAMUEL 24:1 AND AGAIN THE ANGER OF JEHOVAH WAS KINDLED AGAINST ISRAEL. It is probable that this chapter once stood in intimate connection with 2 Samuel 21:1; and that the famine therein described was followed by a pestilence, of which the blame largely rested upon David, though the sin punished by it was fully shared by the people. In saying that David was moved of Jehovah to number Israel and Judah, the writer acknowledges the great truth that all action, both good and evil, is of God. "Shall there be evil in a city, and Jehovah hath not done it?" (Amos 3:6). While we are taught to pray that we may not be led into temptation, yet trial and temptation are by G

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 the plague began, and lasted to the time set for it, the three days, or at least unto the beginning of the third, when reaching Jerusalem, the Lord repented of it, and stayed his hand; though many think a much shorter time is intended; some think it lasted no more than half a day, if so much; some say but three hours f; the Septuagint version, until dinnertime; and the Syriac and Arabic versions, until the sixth hour of the day, which was noon; and so Kimchi says, some of their Rabbins interpret it of the half or middle of the day; the Targum...

4. DAVID'S FAILURE: THE ALTAR ON THE THRESHING FLOOR OF ARAUNAH CHAPTER 24 _ 1. The numbering of the people (2 Samuel 24:1)_ 2. The sin acknowledged and Gad's message (2 Samuel 24:10) 3. The pestilence (2 Samuel 24:15) 4. The altar on the threshing floor of Araunah (2 Samuel 24:18) The final chapter of the books of Samuel is of much interest and importance. “And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and He moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.” In...

1 SAMUEL 24. THE CENSUS (J). (_Cf._ p. 292.) This event also may belong to the beginning of David's reign over all Israel. 2 SAMUEL 24:1. Here is another illustration of the imperfect recognition of the moral nature of Yahweh in the primitive documents. No one is conscious of sin, yet Yahweh, for some inscrutable, arbitrary reason, is angry with His people. Accordingly, He induces David to commit an obvious sin, so that He may have a justification for punishing Israel. It is useless to ask why a census was sinful; such ideas go too far back for us to trace their origin (Numbers 31:50 *). In the Priestly Code censuses are taken quite happily. The subsequent advance of religious thought in Israel is indicated by the fact that in...

TIME APPOINTED. Septuagint and Syriac say the plague lasted only till noon. So this "time" may mean for the evening sacrifice, 3pm (Compare 2 Samuel 24:18)....

The Plague 15. _even to the time appointed_ The meaning of these words, which are not found in Chron., is very doubtful. (1) The E. V. follows the Vulg. _usque ad tempus constitutum_. This would naturally mean until the end of the third day; but the duration of the plague seems to have been mercifully shortened (2 Samuel 24:16). Perhaps _a time appointed_(there is no definite article) might mean a time determined in the counsel of God, before the expiration of the period originally named. (2) Most commentators render UNTIL THE TIME OF ASSEMBLY, i.e. the hour for offering the evening sacrifice, about three o'clock in the afternoon. Cp. 1 Kings 18:29; 1 Kings 18:36;...