- 128-
enumerations we prefer that in 2 Samuel 24:9. However, 1,300,000, or even, according
to 1 Chronicles 21:5, 1,570,000 men capable of bearing arms, would only imply a total
population of about five or six millions, which is not excessive.
(^46) According to 1 Chronicles 21:12, the famine was to be of three years duration. The
number "seven" in 2 Samuel 24:13 must be a clerical error.
(^47) This is the proper rendering of 2 Samuel 24:15.
(^48) This seems to have been the original, while that of Ornan (1 Chronicles 21:15) and
others are the Hebraised forms of the name.
(^49) 2 Samuel 24:23, reads in the Hebrew: "The whole, O king, does Aravnah give unto
the king," and not as in the Authorized Version.
(^50) Of the two statements of the price, we unhesitatingly take that in 1 Chronicles 21:25
(the other in 2 Samuel depending on a clerical error, very common and easily
accounted for in numerals). Bearing in mind that the common shekel was of half the
value of the sacred, and that the proportion of gold to silver was about ten to one, the
six hundred shekels of gold would amount to about £380. In Siphre 146 a., various
attempts are made to conciliate the two diverging accounts - it need scarcely be said
ineffectually. The learned reader will find a full discussion of the question in Ugolini's
tractate Altare Exterius (Ugolini Thesaurus, Fol. Vol. 10. pp. 504-506).
(^51) Solomon was probably at this time about twenty years of age.
(^52) These were not only foreign settlers, but the descendants of the original inhabitants
of the land whose lives had been spared. Such was their number that Solomon could
employ no fewer than one hundred and fifty thousand of them to bear burdens, and to
hew stones (1 Kings 5:15; 2 Chronicles 2:17).
(^53) This, and not "in my trouble," is the correct rendering of 1 Chronicles 22:14.
(^54) Although, as we have often explained, clerical errors occur in the numerals in the
historical books, it may be well to give the real equivalent of the silver and gold,
mentioned in 1 Chronicles 22:14. Bearing in mind the distinction between the sacred
and the common shekel (2 Samuel 14:26; 1 Kings 10:17, compared with 2 Chronicles
9:16), it would amount to under £4,000,000. Immense as this sum is, Keil has shown
that it is by no means out of proportion with the treasures taken as booty in antiquity
(comp. Bibl. Comment. Vol. 5. pp. 181-184).
(^)