1 Chronicles 21:15 Explained in Context

Selected verse

Verse 15. 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.

King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions

Quick Meaning

Shows God restraining the angel at Jerusalem beside Ornan's threshingfloor.

Read It With

1 Chronicles 21:14–21:17

Shows God restraining the angel at Jerusalem beside Ornan's threshingfloor. Read 1 Chronicles 21:15 within 21:14–21:17. The complete unit records: Pestilence kills many, the destroying angel stops at Ornan's threshing floor, David and elders mourn, and David names himself as the sinner while calling the people sheep.

Why This Verse Appears Here

The narrative centers victims and delayed royal responsibility before the altar instruction. In this exact position, the line beginning “And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was…” shows God restraining the angel at Jerusalem beside Ornan's threshingfloor.

Follow the Context

Pestilence kills many, the destroying angel stops at Ornan's threshing floor, David and elders mourn, and David names himself as the sinner while calling the people sheep.
The narrative centers victims and delayed royal responsibility before the altar instruction.

Phrase-by-Phrase Explanation

“And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was…”

In plain language: Shows God restraining the angel at Jerusalem beside Ornan's threshingfloor.

The line beginning “And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was…” shows God restraining the angel at Jerusalem beside Ornan's threshingfloor.

Why it matters: The wording carries a material literary, historical, temple, royal-power, violence, ethnic, illness, gender, exile, reception, or misuse boundary.

How certain? probable

What This Verse Is Not Saying

The plague does not justify blaming victims, treating subjects as expendable sheep, claiming epidemics reveal particular sins, or replacing public health and care with speculation.

What Remains True

Shows God restraining the angel at Jerusalem beside Ornan's threshingfloor. This concrete detail supports a bounded truth: Leadership is accountable for truth, justice, lives, land, and labor; remembered calling or success does not erase harm or remove correction.

How It Can Shape Life

Because this verse shows God restraining the angel at Jerusalem beside Ornan's threshingfloor, keep it inside 21:14–21:17, compare its Samuel-Kings relationship honestly, protect affected people from coercion or stigma, and apply only the accountable principle the complete unit supports.

Teach It Back

Explain why 1 Chronicles 21:15 shows God restraining the angel at Jerusalem beside Ornan's threshingfloor. Use 21:14–21:17, paraphrase “And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was…,” state one source or reconstruction limit, identify one person or group power can obscure, and reject one conclusion this verse does not authorize.

Explain the verse in context

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Continue in Context

The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.

Read 1 Chronicles 21:14–21:17 — Seventy thousand die and David asks the sword to turn toward his house

Sources used for this Verse Lens

How certain is this explanation? probable

Where care is needed

1 Chronicles 21:15 remains within this thought-unit limit: The number dead, angelic vision, divine relenting, and relation to 2 Samuel and 4QSam-a are textually and historically complex; theological narration must not erase mass death.

These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.

Biblical text

King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006

eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society

USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.

Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage for this thought unit.

Exact location: 1 Chronicles 21:14–21:17, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus

Open source ↗

hebrew text and morphology

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 1 Chronicles

Open Scriptures

Open Scriptures, release 2.2

Supports: Hebrew wording, morphology, names, clauses, regnal formulas, temple vocabulary, older-English controls, and translation limits.

Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/1Chr.xml, Masoretic words and morphology for 21:14–21:17

Open source ↗

translation and translator notes

NET Bible Full Notes: 1 Chronicles

Biblical Studies Press

Biblical Studies Press; STEP Bible presentation, 2019 edition; current web presentation

Supports: Unit-bounded translation comparisons and only those lexical, textual, grammatical, numerical, historical, and parallel-passage notes attached to these verses.

Exact location: STEP Bible NET2full, 1 Chronicles 21:14–21:17, verse-attached translation and translator notes

Open source ↗

Open the complete thought-unit research record