1 Chronicles — Chapter 21

And Satan rose up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. Lapide: In II Kings 24:1 the Lord is said to have moved David; here Satan. Lapide reconciles: God permitted and used Satan as an instrument for His own just purposes; Satan moved David through suggestions of pride and vainglory. The permission of God and the malice of Satan concur without God being the author of sin.

Either three years' famine... or three months to flee from thy enemies... or else for three days the sword of the Lord. Lapide: In II Kings 24:13 seven years of famine were first offered; here three years. Lapide explains that God moderated the offer, reducing from seven to three years, as He moderated from fifty to ten just men before destroying Sodom (Gen. 18).

I am in a great strait on every side: but it is better that I should fall into the hands of the Lord, for His mercies are very many, than into the hands of men. Lapide: David chooses the pestilence, not from rashness, but from a deep trust in God's mercy. He prefers to suffer at the hands of a God who is infinitely merciful rather than from men who show no mercy. A model of trust in divine Providence amid chastisement.

And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to strike it: and as he was striking it, the Lord beheld, and took pity... and the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Lapide: The angel stands precisely at the threshing floor of Ornan, on Mount Moria — the very place God will later command to be the site of the Temple. The cessation of the plague here is a divine sign consecrating this spot.

And the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David, that he should go up and build an altar to the Lord God in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Lapide on 22:1: \"Hec est domus Dei\" — \"This is the house of God\" — David identifies the threshing floor of Ornan on Mount Moria as the divinely chosen site for the Temple. God Himself designated it by the stopping of the angel and the acceptance of the sacrifice.

And he built there an altar to the Lord, and offered holocausts and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord, and He heard him, and sent fire from heaven upon the altar of holocaust, and consumed the burnt offering. Lapide: God's acceptance of sacrifice by fire from heaven is the seal of divine approval — as He had accepted Abel's offering, and later accepted Elias's on Carmel. The same place will be the altar of Solomon's Temple.