25. gave ... for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight] In 2 Samuel xxiv. 24, bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. The huge discrepancy here between Chronicles and Samuel is noteworthy. If the price in Samuel, 50 shekels of silver for threshing-floor and oxen, seems somewhat small (compared with the 400 shekels paid by Abraham for the cave of Machpelah, Genesis xxiii. 15–17), the 600 shekels of gold in Chronicles is extravagantly large. It is accounted for by the fact that the Chronicler regarded the transaction, not as the acquisition merely of the site for the altar but of the area on which the Temple was afterwards built (see verse 22). No sum could well seem too large for the purchase of ground destined to be so holy. The figure 600 may have been chosen on the ground that it was equal to a payment of 50 shekels for each tribe.
²⁶And David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the Lord; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering. ²⁷And the Lord commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.
26. peace offerings] See xvi. 1, note. At the end of the verse LXX. (compare Peshitṭa) adds, and consumed the burnt offering. Compare Leviticus ix. 24; 1 Kings xviii. 38. The fire is not mentioned in 2 Samuel.
Chapter XXI. 28–Chapter XXII. 1.
The Selection of the Site of the Temple.
²⁸At that time, when David saw that the Lord had answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.
28. At that time, etc.] The construction of this section must be carefully noted. chapter xxi. 28 is continued by chapter xxii. i, verses 29, 30 of chapter xxi. being a parenthesis. The division of chapters here is unfortunate.
At that time] The phrase is taken up by “Then” of xxii. 1. The Chronicler wishes us to note that David regarded the success of his intercession at the floor of Ornan as an indication that this floor was God’s approved site for the Temple.
²⁹For the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.
29. For] The beginning of a parenthesis.
the tabernacle of the Lord] See the prefatory note to chapter xiii.; also compare xvi. 1, 39, and 2 Chronicles i. 3.