1 Chronicles 21:16

And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) This verse is not read in Samuel, which, however, mentions the essential fact that David “saw the angel that smote the people” (2Samuel 24:17). There is nothing in the style to suggest suspicion of a later hand; and it is as likely that the compiler of Samuel has abridged the original account as that the chronicler has embellished it.

Having a drawn sword in his hand.—Comp. Numbers 22:23, where the same phrase occurs. Literally, and his sword drawn in his hand.

Stretched out.—See Isaiah 5:25; Isaiah 9:12, &c., for this term so used of the menace of Divine wrath.

Then David and the elders.—Literally, and David fell, and the elders, covered with the sackcloth. on their faces. The elders have not been mentioned before, but wherever the king went he would naturally be accompanied by a retinue of nobles, and their presence on this occasion agrees with the statement of 2Samuel 24:20, that Araunah saw the king and his servants coming towards him. (See 1Chronicles 21:21, below.)

Fell upon their faces.—See Numbers 22:31; Joshua 5:14; Judges 13:20.

Clothed in sackcloth.—The garb of mourners and penitents.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:1-30 David's numbering the people. - No mention is made in this book of David's sin in the matter of Uriah, neither of the troubles that followed it: they had no needful connexion with the subjects here noted. But David's sin, in numbering the people, is related: in the atonement made for that sin, there was notice of the place on which the temple should be built. The command to David to build an altar, was a blessed token of reconciliation. God testified his acceptance of David's offerings on this altar. Thus Christ was made sin, and a curse for us; it pleased the Lord to bruise him, that through him, God might be to us, not a consuming Fire, but a reconciled God. It is good to continue attendance on those ordinances in which we have experienced the tokens of God's presence, and have found that he is with us of a truth. Here God graciously met me, therefore I will still expect to meet him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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 whereon he was most anxious to lay stress, he gives in full all the miraculous circumstances attending this first designation of what became the temple site (marginal reference "k") as a place "holy to the Lord."

David and the elders ... clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces - Facts additional to the narrative of Samuel; But facts natural in themselves, and in harmony with that narrative. Similarly, the narrative in 1 Chronicles 21:20 is additional to the account in Samuel; but its parts hang together; and there is no sufficient ground for suspecting it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. David and the elders … clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces—They appeared in the garb and assumed the attitude of humble penitents, confessing their sins, and deprecating the wrath of God.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

In sackcloth, i.e. in mourning garments, humbling themselves before God for their sins, and deprecating his wrath against the people.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

See Chapter Introduction

Geneva Study Bible

And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. lift up] The old form of the past changed in modern editions to lifted up; cp. Genesis 22:4, etc.

saw the angel] The full description of the vision is peculiar to Chron.; cp. 2 Samuel 24:17.

and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth] The words supplied in A.V. are unnecessary, and are omitted in R.V. The wearing of sackcloth was doubtless accompanied with fasting; cp. Jonah 3:5.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 16, 17. - These verses offer instances, especially the former, of the shorter narratives not being with Chronicles, but with Samuel And the longer narrative being with Chronicles is found uniformly in the cases in which reference is had, whether more or less directly, to the ecclesiastical or permanent institution of the Israelites. 1 Chronicles 21:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The account of David's repentant beseeching of the Lord to turn away the primitive judgment, and the word of the Lord proclaimed to him by the prophet, commanding him to build an altar to the Lord in the place where the destroying angel visibly appeared, together with the carrying out of this divine command by the purchase of Araunah's threshing-floor, the erection of an altar, and the offering of burnt-offering, is given more at length in the Chronicle than in 2 Samuel 24:17-25, where only David's negotiation with Araunah is more circumstantially narrated than in the Chronicle. In substance both accounts perfectly correspond, except that in the Chronicle several subordinate circumstances are preserved, which, as being minor points, are passed over in Samuel. In 1 Chronicles 21:16, the description of the angel's appearance, that he had a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem, and the statement that David and the elders, clad in sackcloth (garments indicating repentance), fell down before the Lord; in 1 Chronicles 21:20, the mention of Ornan's (Araunah's) sons, who hid themselves on beholding the angel, and of the fact that Ornan was engaged in threshing wheat when David came to him; and the statement in 1 Chronicles 21:26, that fire came down from heaven upon the altar-are examples of such minor points. We have already commented on this section in our remarks on 2 Samuel 24:17-25, and the account in the Chronicle is throughout correct and easily understood. Notwithstanding this, however, Bertheau, following Thenius and Bttcher, conjectures that the text is in several verses corrupt, and wishes to correct them by 2nd Samuel. But these critics are misled by the erroneous presumption with which they entered upon the interpretation of the Chronicle, that the author of it used as his authority, and revised, our Masoretic text of the second book of Samuel. Under the influence of this prejudice, emendations are proposed which are stamped with their own unlikelihood, and rest in part even on misunderstandings of the narrative in the book of Samuel. Of this one or two illustrations will be sufficient. Any one who compares 2 Samuel 24:17 (Sam.) with 1 Chronicles 21:16 and 1 Chronicles 21:17 of the Chronicle, without any pre-formed opinions, will see that what is there (Sam.) concisely expressed is more clearly narrated in the Chronicle. The beginning of 1 Chronicles 21:17, "And David spake unto Jahve," is entirely without connection, as the thought which forms the transition from 1 Chronicles 21:16 to 1 Chronicles 21:17, viz., that David was moved by the sight of the destroying angel to pray to God that the destruction might be turned away, is only brought in afterwards in the subordinate clause, "on seeing the angel." This abrupt form of expression is got rid of in the Chronicle by the clause: "And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel ... and fell ... upon his face; and David spake to God." That which in Samuel is crushed away into an infinitive clause subordinate to the principle sentence, precedes in the Chronicle, and is circumstantially narrated. Under these circumstances, of course, the author of the Chronicle could not afterwards in 1 Chronicles 21:17 make use of the clause, "on seeing the angel who smote the people," without tautology. Berth., on the contrary, maintains that 1 Chronicles 21:16 is an interpolation of the chronicler, and proposes then to cull out from the words and letters בעם המכה המלאך את בראתו (Sam.), the words בעם למנותי אמרתי בראתו (1 Chronicles 21:17), great use being made in the process of the ever ready auxiliaries, mistakes, and a text which has become obscure. This is one example out of many. 1 Chronicles 21:16 of the Chronicle is not an addition which the Chronicle has interpolated between 2 Samuel 24:16-17 of Samuel, but a more detailed representation of the historical course of things. No mention is made in 2nd Samuel of the drawn sword in the angel's hand, because there the whole story is very concisely narrated. This detail need not have been borrowed from Numbers 22:23, for the drawn sword is a sensible sign that the angle's mission is punitive; and the angel, who is said to have visibly appeared in 2nd Samuel also, could be recognised as the bearer of the judicial pestilence only by this emblem, such recognition being plainly the object of his appearance. The mention of the elders along with David as falling on their faces in prayer, clad in sackcloth, will not surprise any reader or critic who considers that in the case of so fearful a pestilence the king would not be alone in praying God to turn away the judgment. Besides, from the mention of the עבדים of the king who went with David to Ornan (2 Samuel 24:20), we learn that the king did not by himself take steps to turn away the plague, but did so along with his servants. In the narrative in 2nd Samuel, which confines itself to the main point, the elders are not mentioned, because only of David was it recorded that his confession of sin brought about the removal of the plague. Just as little can we be surprised that David calls his command to number the people the delictum by which he had brought the judgment of the plague upon himself. - To alter בּדבר, 1 Chronicles 21:19, into כּדבר, as Berth. wishes, would show little intelligence. בּדבר, at Gad's word David went up, is proved by Numbers 31:16 to be good Hebrew, and is perfectly suitable.