15 17. The Plague<\/p>\n
15<\/strong>. even to the time appointed<\/em> ] 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<\/em>. This would naturally mean until the end of the third day; but the duration of the plague seems to have been mercifully shortened ( 2Sa 24:16<\/em><\/span>). Perhaps a time appointed<\/em> (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<\/strong>, i.e. the hour for offering the evening sacrifice, about three o’clock in the afternoon. Cp. 1Ki 18:29<\/span>; 1Ki 18:36<\/span>; Dan 9:21<\/span>; Act 3:1<\/span>. This is supported by the explanation given in the Targum: “from the time of the slaying of the perpetual sacrifice until it is burned;” and by Jerome ( Quaest. Hebr. in libros Regum<\/em>): “By the time appointed<\/em> is meant that at which the evening sacrifice was offered.” (3) The Sept. rendering, until the time of breakfast<\/em>, i.e. noon, is improbable.<\/p>\n The time appointed – <\/B>Perhaps the time of the assembly, meaning the time of the evening sacrifice, at three oclock, when the people assembled for prayer, more commonly described as the time of the evening oblation Dan 9:21<\/span>; 1Ki 18:29<\/U><\/span>, 1Ki 18:36<\/span>; Act 3:1<\/span>; Luk 1:10<\/span>.<\/P> Seventy thousand – <\/B>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 Num 16:49<\/span>; in the plague, on account of Baal-Peor, 24,000 Num 25:9<\/span>; 1Co 10:8<\/span>.<\/P> <\/p>\n 2Sa 24:15-25<\/span><\/p>\n So the Lord sent a pestilence.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n The plague stayed<\/strong><\/p>\n It was time of peace and prosperity in Israel. King Davids rule had been blessed, and the people dwelt in safety. In the midst of this happy quiet, David was moved to order a numbering of the people.<\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>It followed upon the deepened repentance.<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>It came in connection with expiation.<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>Then it did not straightway remove all the consequences of the sin; but, as we may believe, did convert them into means of disciplinary good.<\/p>\n One thing only is required from us as the condition of restored Divine favour. That is trusting repentance.<\/p>\n Is there now any one of us to whom any part of the truth brought to view in this Scripture has not some application?<\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>Searching our own hearts, we should surely find some form of sin there–perhaps the very spirit which provoked the displeasure of God against Israel.<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>In His patience God may not as yet have made His displeasure felt by us in pains and ills seen to be traceable to it; and yet He may have sent sorrow, loss, hardships, intended to bring us to Himself; it is certain that He has faithfully forewarned us that for every unpardoned sin He will at some time bring us to judgment.<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>To escape in the evil day no way is offered, none is to be found, save the old way of humble, trusting repentance.<\/p>\n 4. <\/strong>For those who thus come the door of His heart is wide open; expiation has already been provided; pardon will be instant and complete; and, while to lifes end many painful effects of sin may remain, these, in their case, will be changed to means of good, to chastisements whereby He wilt perfect us in His own image and for His everlasting kingdom.<\/p>\n 5. <\/strong>The proof of our repentance and trust and acceptance will appear in prompt obedience, childlike thought of God as our God, and a heart ready, nay, eager to serve in any, however costly, service He may appoint. (Monday Club Sermons<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The plague stayed<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>In this lesson we have, first, an account of the judgment: So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel; and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. Here is judgment following repentance and confession. There are some sins which, though truly repented of and forgiven, still bring retributive consequences from which the transgressor cannot escape in this life. He must wear them as brands of condemnation set upon sin by Divine justice for his own and others good. These consequences, while they come in just retribution, are also sent in mercy as Gods barriers against the progress of sin. It is here affirmed that the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel. Plagues and pestilence have various national and physical causes. But it is equally plain that they are connected with the sins and follies of men. They are the penalties of violated law. In other words, they have a place in the righteous government of God, and so come to execute His will. Here the pestilence is attributed, instrumentally, to angelic agency.<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>This lesson furnishes an example of true penitence. Here is a case of genuine repentance which is accepted with God. Davids confession was not extorted from him by the pressure of the Divine judgment. Before it came he saw his sin, and said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have done. Divine judgments are often, indeed, instrumental in arousing men to see the enormity of their guilt. They are used as goads to prick a dull and sleeping conscience. But true penitence is not the result of fear. It springs from seeing the hatefulness and wickedness of sin as done against the wisdom, justice, holiness and love of God. Sin is folly, and brings ruin to tile transgressor, but its chief enormity lies in the fact that it is done against a God of holiness and love. So true confession is confession to God.<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>This lesson also shows us how saving mercy was obtained for Israel. The judgment of God was righteously destroying the people, and His mercy, though free, sovereign and ready to save, could not ignore His righteousness. There must be a way opened for its manifestation if Jerusalem is saved. This is secured through the Divine appointment. David is directed by Gad, a prophet of the Lord, to build an altar unto the Lord, that the plague might be stayed from the people. It was not by Davids tears of penitence and confession of sin that the plague was stayed. In like manner, not our tears or prayers or confessions, but the blood of Christ shed for us, furnishes the only ground for the removal of the sentence of death which the broken law of God has passed upon us. He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.<\/p>\n 4. <\/strong>This passage presents another feature of spiritual life worthy of attention. It is the spirit of generosity and unselfishness manifested by David in fulfilling the command of God. Here was royal liberality; and it is set down to his everlasting honour in the Word of God that he gave like a king. He stands before us as a noble representative of those large-hearted, generous men who are ever ready, when the occasion demands, to sacrifice their private interests for the public good. And never did David make a better investment of his means than when he bought Araunahs threshing-floor. It was the building-lot for the temple which for a thousand years prefigured Christ, and so became a fountain of blessing to the nations. Money invested in such a cause is not lost, but laid up in store for the life to come. (S. D. Niccolls, D. D<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Gods judgment on pride<\/strong><\/p>\n See the power of the angels, when God gives them commission, either to save or to destroy. Joab is nine months in passing with his pen, the angel but nine hours in passing with his sword, through all the coasts and corners of Israel. See how easily God can bring down the proudest sinners, and how much we owe daily to the Divine patience. Davids adultery is punished, for the present, only with the death of one infant, his pride with the death of all those thousands, so much does God hate pride. (M. Henry<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Divine justice in national retributions<\/strong><\/p>\n Famine, pestilence, revolution, war, are judgments of the Ruler of the world. What sort of a Ruler, we ask, is He? The answer to that question will determine the true sense of the <\/strong>term, a judgment of God. The heathen saw Him as a passionate, capricious, changeable Being, who could be angered and appeased by men. The Jewish prophets saw Him as a God whose ways were equal, who was unchangeable, whose decrees were perpetual, who was net to be bought off by sacrifices, but pleased by righteous dealing, and who would remove the punishment when the causes which brought it on were taken away; in their own words, when men repented God would repent. That does not mean that He changed His laws to relieve them of their suffering, but that they changed their relationship to His laws, so that, to them thus changed, God seemed to change. A boat rows against the stream; the current punishes it. So is a nation violating a law of God; it is subject to a judgment. The boat turns and goes with the stream; the current assists it. So is a nation which has repented and put itself into harmony with Gods law; it is subject to a blessing. But the current is the same; it has not changed, only the boat has changed its relationship to the current. Neither does God change–we change; and the same law which executed itself in punishment now expresses itself in reward. (G. Brooke<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The pestilence<\/strong><\/p>\n Death on the Pale Horse–the Black Death of mediaeval times (1848) in some one of divers forms, issued forth now. Appearing in the heat of the summer months, aggravated by the very greatness of the population which had occasioned the census, spreading with the rapidity of an Oriental disorder in crowded habitations, it flew from end to end of the country in three days. (Dean Stanley<\/em>.)<\/p>\n Verse 15<\/span>. From the morning – to the time appointed<\/B><\/I>] That is, from the morning of the day after David had made his election till the third day<\/I>, 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<\/I> persons were slain! This was a terrible mortality in the space of less than three days.<\/P> <\/p>\n To the time appointed; <\/B>either, <\/P> 1. From morning to evening, which is here called the time appointed; or, the time of the convention<\/I>, or, public meeting<\/I>, as this Hebrew word oft signifies, i. e. till the time of the evening prayer and sacrifice, when the people used more solemnly to meet together. See Psa 141:2<\/span>; Act 3:1<\/span>. Thus God mitigated his sentence, and turned three days into one; it being a thing not unusual with God to qualify his threatenings, and to take off the evil threatened sometimes wholly, as in Ninevehs case, and sometimes in part. And this God might do here upon the speedy and serious repentance of David, and of his people. Or rather, <\/P> 2. From the morning<\/I> (or rather, from that morning<\/I>; for the article seems to be emphatical, and to denote that very morning in which Gad came to David, 2Sa 24:11<\/span>, and that the plague did immediately ensue after Gads offer, and Davids choice,) <\/P> even to the time appointed, <\/B>to wit, by God, i.e. for three days, as God had set the time, 2Sa 24:13<\/span>. <\/P> Object<\/I>. If it continued three days, how is it said that God repented him of the evil, and stopped the angel in his course? 2Sa 24:16<\/span>. <\/P> Answ<\/I>. This he did in the beginning of the third day, whereas otherwise it should have gone on to the end of the day. Or it may signify no more but this, At the end of the third day God gave over smiting; for then is God said (after the manner of men) to repent, when he ceaseth to proceed as before he had done. Seventy thousand men<\/I>; so the number of his people, which was the matter of his pride and glorying, was diminished. <\/P> <\/p>\n 15. from the morning<\/B>ratherthat<\/I> morning when Gad came [2Sa24:18<\/span>], till the end of the three days. <\/P> there died of the people . .. seventy thousand men<\/B>Thus was the pride of the vaingloriousmonarch, confiding in the number of his population, deeply humbled.<\/P><\/p>\n So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel<\/strong>,…. 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:<\/p>\n from the morning even to the time appointed<\/strong>: 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 is,<\/p>\n “from the time the daily sacrifice was slain until it was burnt;”<\/p>\n and it is the sense of several learned men that it was only from the morning until the time of the evening sacrifice, or evening prayer, about three o’clock in the afternoon, and so lasted about nine hours:<\/p>\n and there died of the people, from Dan even to Beersheba, seventy thousand men<\/strong>; so that there was a great diminution of the people in all places where they were numbered; and David’s sin may be read in the punishment of it; his heart was lifted up by the numbers of his people, and now it must be humbled by the lessening of them.<\/p>\n f Pirke Eliezer, c. 43.<\/p>\n (15) The time appointed.<\/strong>Much difficulty has been found with this expression; but, if the Hebrew can bear this meaning, it may be understood well enough of the time (somewhat less than three days, 2Sa. 24:16<\/span>), <\/em>which God in His good pleasure determined. The Hebrew, however, probably means time of assembly, which is generally understood to signify the time of the evening sacrifice; so the Chaldee understand it, and so also St. Jerome. This would reduce the time of the pestilence to a single day.<\/p>\n When the angel.<\/strong>The abruptness of the mention of the angel <\/em>here is removed in 1Ch. 21:15<\/span>, And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it; and as he was destroying it, the Lord beheld, and he repented, &c.<\/p>\n Threshing-place.<\/strong>Better, threshing-floor, <\/em>as the same word is translated in 2Sa. 24:18<\/span>; 2Sa. 24:21<\/span>; 2Sa. 24:24<\/span>.<\/p>\n Araunah the Jebusite.<\/strong>The name is variously spelled, Avarnah (text), Aranyah (2Sa. 24:18<\/span>, text), and Aravnah (margin); in Chronicles it is uniformly Ornan. The latter is thought to be the Hebrew, and the former the Jebusite name, slightly varied in. expression in Hebrew. He was a Jebusite, i.e., descended from the former possessors of Jerusalem; but we are not told whether he was now a proselyte.<\/p>\n When he saw the angel.<\/strong>More fully (1Ch. 21:16<\/span>), 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.<\/p>\n These sheep.<\/strong>David seeks to take all blame to himself, and prays that punishment may fall only upon him and his fathers house. But, without mooting the question as to how far the people actively shared in Davids sin, his prayer was impossible to be granted. Such was the divinely ordained federal relation between the ruler and his people that they were necessarily involved in the guilt of their head.<\/p>\n 15<\/strong>. <\/strong> A pestilence <\/strong> Some deadly plague scattered through all the land by the destroying angel, so that at the end of three days it might be said of all the homes in Israel, as it was once in Egypt, there was scarcely a house where there was not one dead. David was vainglorious over the multitude of his warriors, but this one stroke almost decimates them. <\/p>\n To the time appointed <\/strong> The end of the third day. This is the only natural sense of the words here, and there is no evidence that the pestilence was removed before the third day.<\/p>\n 2Sa 24:15<\/span><\/em><\/strong>. <\/strong>Even to the time appointed<\/em><\/strong><\/strong> There seems nothing difficult in this passage, as some have supposed: the plain meaning appears to be, that the pestilence, commencing in the morning, continued even to the time appointed; i.e.<\/em> even to the <\/em>third day; when God, moved with the repentance of the king and his subjects, commanded the angel, 2Sa 24:16<\/span> to stay his hand, <\/em>without continuing to destroy till the evening.<\/em> <\/p>\n 2Sa 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.<\/p>\n Ver. 15. From the morning, even to the appointed time,<\/strong> ] i.e., <\/em> Till toward the evening of the third day; for before that whole day was over God repented, and bade the angel hold his hand. See Jer 18:8<\/span> ; Jer 18:10 Joh 3:10<\/span> . Vatablus, by the appointed time here, understandeth the evening of the first day, and cometh in with Hoc commendat misericordiam Dei, &c., <\/em> this commendeth the mercy of God; that for three days threatened, he sendeth the pestilence one day only. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And there died of the people.<\/strong> ] Some, saith Josephus, died suddenly, with great pains, and bitter pangs; some lingered longer, and died under the physicians’ hands; some were all of a sudden smitten with blindness, and then with death; some, as they went to bury their dead, fell down dead themselves. The sweating sickness here in England – which began in the year 1486, and lasted almost forty years – was strange and violent; for if a man was attacked therewith he died, or escaped within nine hours, or ten at the most. If he took cold, he died within three hours. If he slept within six hours, as he should be desirous to do, he died raving, &c. a<\/em> From England it went over the seas to Holland, Zealand, Denmark, Norway, &c., chasing only the English there, as some report, which made them, like tyrants, both feared and avoided wherever they came. b<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n a<\/em> Sennert., De Febribus,<\/em> lib. iv. cap. 15. <\/p>\n b<\/em> Life of King Edward VI,<\/em> by Sir John Heywood.<\/p>\n time appointed. Septuagint and Syriac say the plague lasted only till noon. So this “time” may mean for the evening sacrifice, 3pm (Compare 2Sa 24:18). <\/p>\n Judgment Stayed by Sacrifice <\/p>\n 2Sa 24:15-25<\/p>\n The pestilence swept through the land like cholera or the black death in modern times. At last it approached the Holy City. It seemed as if the angel of the Lord were hovering over it, sword in hand, awaiting the final order. All this is spoken after the manner of men. It is clear, however, that, in answer to Davids penitent faith, a great change came over the scene. If the same faith had been exercised before the plague reached Jerusalem, may we not believe that an arrest would have come previously? As soon as David was prepared, as in 2Sa 24:17, to suffer instead of his people, his love and contrition and faith were accepted on their behalf.<\/p>\n Then, on Mount Moriah, where centuries before Abrahams uplifted knife was stayed, the angel now stayed his act of judgment. The threshing floor of Araunah became the site of an altar, while afterward on that spot stood the Temple, the center of national worship and the scene of the manifestation of the Son of man. The lesson for us is that, when we take the true attitude toward God, we can exercise, by our faith, prayer and self-sacrifice, a wonderful influence in behalf of cities and nations.<\/p>\n For Review Questions, see the e-Sword Book Comments. <\/p>\n the Lord: Num 16:46-49, Num 25:9, 1Sa 6:19, 1Ch 21:14, 1Ch 27:4, Mat 24:7, Rev 6:8 <\/p>\n from Dan: 2Sa 24:2 <\/p>\n seventy thousand men: Isa 37:36 <\/p>\n Reciprocal: Lev 10:6 – lest wrath Lev 26:25 – I will send Deu 28:21 – General 1Ki 4:25 – from Dan 1Ch 21:2 – Beersheba Psa 91:3 – and from Psa 91:6 – destruction Eze 14:19 – if I<\/p>\n 2Sa 24:15. So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel The event immediately answered to the choice; a plague instantly ensued. From the morning even to the time appointed From that morning, in which Gad came to David, to the third day, the time appointed by God for the continuance of the plague. But not to the conclusion of that day, for we learn from the next verse that God, moved by the repentance of the king and his subjects, commanded the destroying angel to stay his hand, which plainly indicates that he had not fully accomplished the commission at first given him. There died of the people seventy thousand A calamity, says Delaney, which has no parallel in the whole compass of history. It seems that the Hebrew nation were not only guilty, at this time, of many other sins, but were very culpable in regard to the numbering of the people, as well as David. They gloried, it is probable, in, and relied upon their numbers, and their own strength, instead of trusting in God and in his promises, for protection against, and victory over their enemies. And, therefore, it was with reason that they fell in this sad manner, to show them that all flesh is grass, and that their own strength and numbers availed nothing without God.<\/p>\n 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 {h} Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men.<\/p>\n (h) From the one side of the country to the other.<\/p>\n 3. David’s punishment 24:15-17<\/span><\/p>\n An angelic messenger from God again brought death to many people throughout all Israel (cf. Exo 12:23). The Angel of the Lord may have been the preincarnate Christ, but he could have simply been an angelic messenger whom God sent. [Note: See Youngblood, p. 1100-1.] <\/span> Evidently God gave David the ability to see the angel who was killing the people as the angel entered Jerusalem prepared to kill more innocent victims of David’s sin there (2Sa 24:17; cf. 2Ki 6:17). David asked God to have mercy on the people since he was the sinner responsible for the punishment. He had failed to appreciate the extent of the effects of his act when he ordered the census. Note David’s shepherd heart in his reference to his people as "sheep" (2Sa 24:17).<\/p>\n "He is even willing to suffer (die?) for the sake of the sheep (2Sa 24:17)!" [Note: Gordon, p. 322.] <\/span><\/p>\n "Wanting more land and more people to rule, David finds himself with 70,000 fewer subjects." [Note: Dillard, p. 106.] <\/span><\/p>\n The 70,000 who died may have been 70 military units of soldiers. [Note: See Youngblood, p. 1100.] <\/span><\/p>\n "Sin is really a selfish act. It’s all about bringing ourselves pleasure caring little about the toll it will take on someone else." [Note: Swindoll, p. 282.] <\/span><\/p>\n 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 Beer-sheba seventy thousand men. 15 17. The Plague 15. even to the time appointed ] The meaning of these words, which are not found in Chron., is very doubtful. … Continue reading “Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 2 Samuel 24:15”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/bible-commentary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
I. <\/strong>Sin overtaken by judgment. What was the sin? Outwardly it was in the numbering already referred to. But what wrong could there be in taking a census? It is now found to be useful. It had before been done in Israel, and with Divine approval. The wrong could not have been in the census itself. The real sin, then, like all sin, was in the heart; and plainly its root was pride and vain-glory. King and people forgot their dependence upon God, and the allegiance due to him. The pestilence struck directly at the pride of people and ruler. It crippled their power. It thwarted military ambition. It smote that of which they were ready to boast into feebleness and death. Are we, of these later ages, to look upon like visitations, as of fire or famine or war or pestilence as judgments for sin, or corrections for moral transgression? Never are we to be in haste, or too confident, in interpreting Divine Providence. But when we are told that devouring flames consuming great cities, famine depopulating broad lands, and pestilence which walketh in darkness, and destruction which wasteth at noonday, mean wiser building, better agriculture, more careful drainage–just this and nothing more, at least nothing moral or spiritual–we are sure that one great part of the Divine purpose has been overlooked. Doubtless God does mean that the lower lessons should be learned. He does mean to correct neglect of maxims of prudence. He does so order His laws and dealings as to make us studious, watchful, and faithful in all that pertains to physical life.<\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>Judgment deepening repentance. Our Saviour has taught us that the angels shall be Gods ministers in the final judgment (Mat 13:41<\/span>.) Here we find that they are His messengers in present ills. It was as one of these had reached Jerusalem, and had outstretched his hand for its destruction, that tie became visible to the king. What true humility, what deep repentance is here! There is no syllable of complaint that the Divine stroke is too heavy. There is no word of personal justification; no shielding of self under anothers fault. The sin was not all his; but he saw only his own. My sin, my transgression! Such was the language of his crushed, repentant heart. Such is the language of true repentance always–when its work is deep and thorough.<\/p>\n
III. <\/strong>Repentance met by mercy. The Lord repented Him of the evil. The words are startling, as applied to God. And yet they need not be obscure. Note three things with respect to this mercy:–<\/p>\n
IV. <\/strong>A trustful reconsecration. Observe the prompt and cheerful obedience which now marked the kings conduct. No sooner did the Divine message reach him than he went up as the Lord commanded (v. 19). Nor did he find the way closed before him. Clearly the Lord, as He is wont to do with contrite souls, had gone before to prepare it. Observe, the Lord is now the Lord my God! Here is nearness, trust, love. There is no longer distance or aversion; but such peace as assured pardon always brings. Men who have had great deliverances felt to be from God have always delighted to make them occasions of fresh consecration. With all the more of humble, swelling joy will this be done when the deliverance is from what is seen to be the effect of personal sin–mercy arresting deserved judgment. In his description of the distress of Harold, the last of Englands Saxon kings, on account of his false oath, the novelist, Bulwer, has said: There are sometimes seasons in the life of man when darkness wraps the conscience as sudden night wraps the traveller in the desert, and the angel of the past with a flaming sword closes on him the gates of the future. Then faith flashes on him with a light from the cloud; then he clings to prayer as a drowning wretch to a plank; then that mysterious recognition of atonement smooths the frown on the past, and removes the flaming sword from the future. He who hath never known in himself, nor marked in another, such strange crises in human fate, cannot judge of the strength and weakness it bestows; but till he can so judge, the spiritual part of all history is to him a blank scroll–a sealed volume. There would seem to be many of whom this is true.<\/p>\nFuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible <\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"