2 Samuel 24

2 Samuel 24:9

2 Sam. 24:9. Concerning the seeming difference in the account of the number of Israel when David numbered them in Samuel, and in Chronicles. See Bedford, p. 559. Scripture Chronology. The number of all Israel in the book of Chronicles, were eleven hundred thousand men. 1 Chronicles 21:5. And the book of Samuel saith that they were only eight hundred thousand. 2 Samuel 24:9. So that here are three hundred thousand difference. On the other hand the book of Samuel saith that the men of Judah were five hundred thousand. 2 Samuel 24:9. And the book of Chronicles saith that they were only four hundred and seventy thousand. So that here also is thirty thousand difference.

For the reconciling this great and double diversity, it is to be observed that there were four and twenty thousand soldiers and officers that attended David monthly, so many every month. 1 Chronicles 27:1-16. And these make in all, two hundred and eighty-eight thousand. These were like a standing guard about the king every month, and ready for any sudden expedition. There were besides these, the rulers of the tribes and the officers under them, and therefore allowing a thousand officers to every twenty-four thousand (as we cannot well allow less), there will be the twelve thousand wanting, which added to the two hundred and eighty-eight thousand, make just three hundred thousand, and these were not put into the account in Samuel. Thus in the tribe of Judah, if twenty-four thousand legionary soldiers, and a thousand officers over them, be added to the four hundred and seventy thousand, there will be but five thousand wanting in the number; and as this was David’s own tribe, which was faithful to him in all difficulties and troubles, it is no wonder if so many of them were employed in some other extraordinary offices. These Joab put into the account, because their number and list had been long known, and because the king would not put a tax upon his own servants.

2 Samuel 24:18

2 Sam. 24:18, to the end, and 1 Chronicles 21:18, to the end, and 1 Chronicles 22:1. The temple and altar where those sacrifices were to be offered that were typical of the sacrifice of Christ, were by God’s orders erected on a threshing-floor, a place where wheat was wont to be threshed, that it might become bread to support men’s lives. The wheat that was here threshed, or the bread that was made of it, seems to be typical of Christ, that bread which came down from heaven, who is often typically represented by bread, by flour, and wheat. Vide Note on 2 Kings 4. And the threshing of this wheat to prepare it for our food, seems to represent the sufferings of Christ, by which he was prepared to be our spiritual food, and therefore this very wheat that was threshed on this floor was the first meat-offering that was offered to God on the altar that was built in this place. And the threshing instruments, that were typical of the instruments of Christ’s sufferings, in being the instruments wherewith the corn was threshed, are made use of as the fuel for the fire, in which David offers sacrifice in this place, and the fire in which that very wheat that they had threshed was burnt; and the same oxen that in that place were used to labor in treading out the corn, were the first sacrifice that was there offered; so that before they were sacrificed on the altar, they in their labours in that place were typical of Christ, who underwent such great labours to procure bread for our souls; and they were sacrificed for men, there, in that very place, where they were used to labor for the good of men; as Christ was crucified in that very land where he had laboriously spent his life for the good of men, and where his goodness had been so distinguishingly manifested for so many ages, and in that very city, Jerusalem, where he had especially labored, and which city had been for many ages distinguished by his goodness above all others in the world.

Those oxen were sacrificed on a fire that was made of their own instruments, their own yokes and other instruments that they had borne; 2 Samuel 24:22. As Christ carried his own cross.