Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.
All Commentaries on Judges 2:23 Go To Judges 2
Caesarius of Arles
AD 542
Although all the nations in the surrounding country were subject to king David, still God did not allow the Jebusites to be destroyed entirely, as he himself says elsewhere: “I for my part will not clear away for them any more of the nations. Through them the Israelites were to be made to prove whether they would fear me.” For this reason the prophet said to David, “Go up, and build an altar to the Lord in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” That pagan king represented the people of the Gentiles. Notice, brothers, that no place in the land of the Jews was found worthy for the altar of the Lord to be built; but in the land of the Gentiles a place is chosen where the angel is seen and the altar of the Lord is built, and thus the wrath of the almighty Lord is appeased. Then already was prefigured the fact that in the hearts of the Jews no worthy place could be found to offer spiritual victims; the land of the Gentiles, that is, the conscience of Christians, is chosen as the place for the Lord’s temple.
