2 Samuel 24:24 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

So David bought the threshing-floor, and the oxen, &c.— Much difficulty has been raised upon the articles of this sale, in a case (to me) sufficiently plain. The author here tells us, that David bought the threshing-floor, but does not say for what; and then immediately adds, and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. Now it is but supposing such a stop placed after the word floor, as shews it to be a sentence distinct from what follows, or supposing the following clause to be included in a parenthesis, (a construction which must be supposed in all other writings in a thousand instances,) and the matter is clear of all difficulty. And that one or both of these must be the case is sufficiently evident to me, from 1 Chronicles 21:25 where the price paid for the place is expressly set down to be six hundred shekels of gold, without mentioning any price paid for the oxen. Delaney remarks, that the 91st Psalm seems evidently to have been written by David in commemoration of his deliverance from this public calamity. Note; (1.) But for the blood of Jesus, the destroying angel would utterly consume this guilt world. (2.) The sacrifice of praise is the bounden duty of the pardoned sinner. (3.) They who desire to serve God without expence, have little of David's spirit. (4.) Christ, the living altar, and the acceptable sacrifice, having once offered himself for a propitiation, we may rejoice in the returning favour of a reconciled God, and fear no more either danger or death.