📖WEB · 1 Chronicles 21:19
What does 1 Chronicles 21:19 mean?
"David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in Yahweh’s name."
— 1 Chronicles 21:19 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
David lifted up his eyes, and saw Yahweh’s angel standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.
David said to God, “Isn’t it I who commanded the people to be counted? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father’s house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.”
Then Yahweh’s angel commanded Gad to tell David that David should go up and raise an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in Yahweh’s name.
Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to Yahweh on it. You shall sell it to me for the full price, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”
Explanation
This verse is a short but significant statement of obedience. In plain language, it tells us that David did what the prophet Gad told him to do, and that Gad's instruction carried the authority of God himself—it was spoken "in Yahweh's name," meaning it was not merely Gad's personal opinion but a message from the Lord delivered through him. David responded immediately and without argument, "going up" to the place Gad indicated.
The context is essential to understanding this verse. Earlier in 1 Chronicles 21, David sinned by taking a census of Israel out of pride or misplaced trust in military strength rather than in God. As a consequence, God sent a plague on Israel that killed seventy thousand men. When David saw the destroying angel stand
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