(9) And the Lord (Jehovah) spake unto Gad.--Samuel, "And David arose in the morning. Now a word of Jehovah had come to Gad the prophet, a seer of David, saying--" This appears to be more original than our text.
David's seer.--Better, a seer of David's, for the same title is applied to Heman (1 Chronicles 25:5). For Gad, see 1 Samuel 22:5, and 1 Chronicles 29:29. From the latter passage it has been inferred that it was Gad who wrote the original record of the census.
Verse 9. - Gad, David's seer. The parallel place says, "The Prophet Gad (הֲנָּבִיא), David's seer" (2 Samuel 24:11). The Hebrew word here used in both passages for "seer," is חֹזֶה, in place of the word of higher import, הָרֹאֶה, the use of which is confined to Samuel, Hanani, and to the person spoken of in Isaiah 30:10. In this last passage our Authorized Version translates "prophet" while in 1 Chronicles 29:29 our Authorized Version translates both Hebrew names in the very same verse by the one English word "seer." Gad was, perhaps, a pupil of David (2 Samuel 22:8), and was the successor of Samuel (1 Chronicles 9:22) in this office.
21:1-30 David's numbering the people. - No mention is made in this book of David's sin in the matter of Uriah, neither of the troubles that followed it: they had no needful connexion with the subjects here noted. But David's sin, in numbering the people, is related: in the atonement made for that sin, there was notice of the place on which the temple should be built. The command to David to build an altar, was a blessed token of reconciliation. God testified his acceptance of David's offerings on this altar. Thus Christ was made sin, and a curse for us; it pleased the Lord to bruise him, that through him, God might be to us, not a consuming Fire, but a reconciled God. It is good to continue attendance on those ordinances in which we have experienced the tokens of God's presence, and have found that he is with us of a truth. Here God graciously met me, therefore I will still expect to meet him.
David's seer.--Better, a seer of David's, for the same title is applied to Heman (1 Chronicles 25:5). For Gad, see 1 Samuel 22:5, and 1 Chronicles 29:29. From the latter passage it has been inferred that it was Gad who wrote the original record of the census.