And God sent the angel to Jerusalem to destroy it, but as he was about to destroy it, the LORD saw, and he relented from the calamity. And he said to the angel who was working destruction, “It is enough; now stay your hand.” And the angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
David is here under the rod for numbering the people, that rod of correction which drives out the foolishness that is bound up in the heart, the foolishness of pride. Let us briefly observe, I. How he was corrected. If God's dearest children do amiss, they must expect to smart for it. 1.
Commenting on 1 Chronicles 21:7-17
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 (Sa2 24:23), or not, he had been converted to the worship of the true God, and was possessed both of property and influence.
And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and he 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 . (g) When God draws back his plagues, he seems to repent, read .