And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him {i} hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.

(i) If man hides himself at the sight of an angel who is a creature, how much more as a sinner able to appear before the face of God?

Wesley's Notes

21:20 Hid themselves - Because of the glory and majesty in which the angel appeared, which mens weak natures are not able to bear; and from the fear of God's vengeance which now seemed to be coming to their family.

King James Translators' Notes

And Ornan...: or, When Ornan turned back and saw the angel, then he and his four sons with him hid themselves

Scofield Reference Notes

Margin angel

See Scofield Note: "Heb 1:4".

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20, 21. Ornan was threshing wheat-If the census was entered upon in autumn, the beginning of the civil year, the nine and a half months it occupied would end at wheat harvest. The common way of threshing corn is by spreading it out on a high level area, and driving backwards and forwards upon it two oxen harnessed to a clumsy sledge with three rollers and some sharp spikes. The driver sits on his knees on the box, while another person is employed in drawing back the straw and separating it from the grain underneath. By this operation the chaff is very much chopped, and the grain threshed out.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.