And Gad came that day to David,.... Ordered and directed by the angel of the Lord, 1Ch 21:18;and said unto him, go up, rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite: it was too far to go to Gibeon, where the tabernacle was, at such a time of extremity, when the sword of the angel was stretched out over Jerusalem, 1Ch 21:29; and this was the most proper place, as it was the very spot over and nearest to which the angel was; and was on Mount Moriah, where the Jews say Abraham offered up Isaac; and where the temple was afterwards built, as Kimchi and Ben Gersom observe; and Eupolemus, an Heathen writer , says, that when David desired to build a temple for God, and that he would show him the place of the altar, an angel appeared to him, standing over the place where the altar at Jerusalem was to be built.
Apud Euseb. Evangel. Praepar. l. 9. c. 30. p.