(27) He put up . . .--It seems hardly fair to call this verse a "figurative or poetical expression for the cessation of the plague." In 1Chronicles 21:16 David sees the angel with drawn sword; and the older text (2Samuel 24:16-17) equally makes the angel a "real concrete being," and not a "personification," as Reuss will have it.

Sheath (n?d?n).--A word only found here. A very similar term is applied to the body as the sheath of the soul in Daniel 7:15; viz., the Aramaic, nidneh, which should, perhaps, be read here.

1Chronicles 21:28 to 1Chronicles 22:1. These concluding remarks are not read in Samuel, but the writer, no doubt, found some basis for them in his special source. They tell us how it was that Oman's threshingfloor became recognised as a permanent sanctuary, and the site ordained for the future Temple. They thus form a transition to the account of David's preparations for the building (1Chronicles 22:2-19).

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.See Chapter Introduction