the king, and that in that case the words that follow, “and Aravnah said,” would be altogether superfluous; the former remark is correct enough, for the words “all this giveth Aravnah ... to the king” must form part of what Aravnah said, inasmuch as the remark, “all this gave Aravnah to the king,” if taken as the historian's own words, would be in most glaring contradiction to what follows, where the king is said to have bought the floor and the oxen from Aravnah. And the words that follow (“and Aravnah said”) are not superfluous on that account, but simply indicate that Aravnah did not proceed to say the rest in the same breath, but added it after a short pause, as a word which did not directly bear upon the question put by the king. ויּאמר (and he said) is often repeated, where the same person continues speaking (see for example 2Sa 15:4, 2Sa 15:25, 2Sa 15:27). “Jehovah thy God accept thee graciously,” i.e., fulfil the request thou presentest to Him with sacrifice and prayer.
Verse 24
The king did not accept the offer, however, but said, “No; but I will buy it of thee at a price, and will not offer burnt-offerings to the Lord my God without paying for them.” Thus David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. Instead of this, the Chronicles give “shekels of gold, in weight six hundred.” This difference cannot be reconciled by assuming that David paid his fifty shekels in gold coin, which would have been worth as much as six hundred shekels of silver, since gold was worth twelve times as much as silver. For there is nothing about gold shekels in our text; and the words of the Chronicles cannot be interpreted as meaning that the shekels of gold were worth six hundred shekels of silver. No other course is left, therefore, than to assume that the number must be corrupt in one of the texts. Apparently the statement in the Chronicles is the more correct of the two: for if we consider that Abraham paid four hundred shekels of silver for the site of a family burial-place, at a time when the land was very thinly populated, and therefore land must certainly have been much cheaper than it was in David's time, the small sum of fifty shekels of silver (about £6) appears much too low a price; and David would certainly pay at least fifty shekels of gold. But we are not warranted in any case in speaking of the statement in the Chronicles, as Thenius does, as “intentionally exaggerated.”
