Bible Strands
1 Chronicles 21:15
Then God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem, but as the angel was doing so, the LORD saw it and relented from the calamity, and He said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the LORD was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrative records Yahweh halting a divinely commissioned angel after observing the destruction of Jerusalem during a plague that killed seventy thousand Israelites. The angel ceases his execution at the LORD’s direct command while positioned near Ornan the Jebusite’s threshing floor.
The words — The Hebrew רָאָה (ra’ah) literally means “he saw,” marking the precise moment Yahweh perceives the destruction and chooses to intervene. The verb וַיִּשְׁלַח (va-yishlach) translates as “and he sent,” indicating the initial divine commission of the angel to Jerusalem.
The thread — This moment of divine relenting parallels Exodus 32:14, where Yahweh similarly turns back from a threatened calamity, and echoes Genesis 6:6 regarding God’s grief and regret over human actions.
Why it lands — The text requires a reader to recognize that divine judgment is bounded by sovereign restraint, not arbitrary violence. It demands acknowledgment that the cessation of destruction originates solely from Yahweh’s direct command, not human merit.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.
Cross-references
- Genesis 6:6 And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
- Exodus 32:14 So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.
- Jeremiah 26:18 “Micah the Moreshite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah and told all the people of Judah that this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, and the temple mount a wooded ridge.’
- Matthew 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling!
- Mark 14:41 When Jesus returned the third time, He said, “Are you still sleeping and resting? That is enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
- Exodus 9:28 Pray to the LORD, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail. I will let you go; you do not need to stay any longer.”
- Judges 2:18 Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for the Israelites, He was with that judge and saved them from the hands of their enemies while the judge was still alive; for the LORD was moved to pity by their groaning under those who oppressed them and afflicted them.
- Judges 10:16 So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the LORD, and He could no longer bear the misery of Israel.
- 2 Samuel 24:16 But when the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
- 2 Samuel 24:18 And that day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”