The Geneva Bible Translation Notes, [1599], at sacred-texts.com
(a) Before they were plagued with famine, (Sa2 21:1).
(b) The Lord permitted Satan, as in (Ch1 21:2).
For the king said to Joab the captain of the host, which [was] with him, Go now through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan even to Beersheba, and number ye the people, that I may know the (c) number of the people.
(c) Because he did this to determine his power and to trust in it, it offended God, for otherwise it was lawful to number the people, (Exo 30:12; Num 1:2).
And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel (d) eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah [were] (e) five hundred thousand men.
(d) According to Joab's count: for in all there were eleven hundred thousand, (Ch1 21:5).
(e) Including the Benjamites with them, or else they had but four hundred and seventy thousand.
For when David was up in the morning, the word of the LORD came unto the prophet Gad, David's (f) seer, saying,
(f) Whom God had appointed for David and his time.
So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall (g) seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days' pestilence in thy land? now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me.
(g) Three years of famine were past for the Gibeonites and this was the fourth year to which should have been added another three more years, (Ch1 21:12).
So the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time appointed: and there died of the people from (h) Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men.
(h) From the one side of the country to the other.
And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: (i) stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite.
(i) The Lord spared this place, because he had chosen it to build his temple there.
And David spake unto the LORD when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly: but these sheep, what have they (k) done? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house.
(k) David did not see the just cause why God plagued the people, and therefore he offers himself for God's correction as the only cause of this evil.
And (l) Araunah said, Wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To buy the threshingfloor of thee, to build an altar unto the LORD, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
(l) Called also Ornan (Ch1 21:20).
All these [things] did Araunah, (m) [as] a king, give unto the king. And Araunah said unto the king, The LORD thy God accept thee.
(m) That is, abundantly, for as some write, he was king of Jerusalem before David won the tower.
And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy [it] of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the LORD my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for (n) fifty shekels of silver.
(n) Some write that every tribe gave 50 which makes 600, or that afterward he bought as much as came to 550 shekels.