And God sent an angel - Thus the Targum: "And the Word of the Lord sent the angel of death against Jerusalem to destroy it; and he beheld the ashes of the binding of Isaac at the foot of the altar, and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, which he made in the Mount of Worship; and the house of the upper sanctuary, where are the souls of the righteous, and the image of Jacob fixed on the throne of glory; and he turned in his Word from the evil which he designed to do unto them; and he said to the destroying angel, Cease; take Abishai their chief from among them, and cease from smiting the rest of the people. And the angel which was sent from the presence of the Lord stood at the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

ליר מלאך האלהים ויּשׁלח, "And God sent an angel towards Jerusalem," gives no suitable sense. Not because of the improbability that God sent the angel with the commission to destroy Jerusalem, and at the same moment gives the contrary command, "Stay now," etc. (Berth.); for the reason of this change is given in the intermediate clause, "and at the time of the destroying the Lord repented it," and command and prohibition are not given "at the same moment;" but the difficulty lies in the indefinite מלאך (without the article). For since the angel of Jahve is mentioned in 1 Chronicles 21:12 as the bringer of the pestilence, in our verse, if it treats of the sending of this angel to execute the judgment spoken of, המּלאך must necessarily be used, or המּלאך את המּלא, as in 1 Chronicles 21:16; the indefinite מלאך can by no means be used for it. In 2 Samuel 24:16 we read, instead of the words in question, יר המּלאך ידו ויּשׁלח, "and the angel stretched out his hand towards Jerusalem;" and Bertheau thinks that the reading האלהים (in the Chron.) has arisen out of that, by the letters ידו ה being exchanged for יהוה, and אלהים being substituted for this divine name, as is often the case in the Chronicle; while Movers, S. 91, on the contrary, considers the reading of the Chronicle to be original, and would read יהוה ישׁלח in Samuel. But in that way Movers leaves the omission of the article before מלאך in the Chronicle unexplained; and Bertheau's conjecture is opposed by the improbability of such a misunderstanding of a phrase so frequent and so unmistakeable as ידו ישׁלח, as would lead to the exchange supposed, ever occurring. But besides that, in Samuel the simple המּלאך is strange, for the angel has not been spoken of there at all before, and the lxx have consequently explained the somewhat obscure המּלאך by ὁ ἄγγελος τοῦ Θεοῦ. This explanation suggests the way in which the reading of our text arose. The author of the Chronicle, although he had already made mention of the יהוה מלאך in 1 Chronicles 21:12, wrote in 1 Chronicles 21:15 האלהים מלאך האלהי ויּשׁלח, "the angel of God stretched (his hand) out towards Jerusalem," using האלהים instead of יהוה, - as, for example, in Judges 6:20, Judges 6:22; Judges 13:6, Judges 13:9, and Judges 13:13, Judges 13:15, Judges 13:17. האלהים מלאך alternates with יהוה מלאך, and omitting ידו with ישׁלח, as is often done, e.g., 2 Samuel 6:6; Psalm 18:17, etc. By a copyist מלאך and האלהים have been transposed, and מלאך was then taken by the Masoretes for an accusative, and pointed accordingly. The expression is made clearer by וּכהשׁחית, "And as he destroyed, Jahve saw, and it repented Him of the evil." The idea is: Just as the angel had begun to destroy Jerusalem, it repented God. רב, adverb, "enough," as in 1 Kings 19:4, etc., with a dativ commodi, Deuteronomy 1:6, etc. Bertheau has incorrectly denied this meaning of the word, connecting רב with בּעם in 2 Samuel 24:16, and desiring to alter our text to make it conform to that. In 2nd Samuel also רב is an adverb, as Thenius also acknowledges.

And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and {f} as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and he {g} repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

(f) Read 2Sa 24:16.

(g) When God draws back his plagues, he seems to repent, read Ge 6:6.

Ornan: also called, Araunah

Margin angel

See Scofield Note: "Heb 1:4".

15. stood by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite-Ornan was probably his Hebrew or Jewish, Araunah his Jebusite or Canaanitish, name. Whether he was the old king of Jebus, as that title is given to him (2Sa 24:23), or not, he had been converted to the worship of the true God, and was possessed both of property and influence.

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.