And the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it; but Jehovah repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed among the people, It is enough withdraw now thine hand. And the angel of Jehovah was by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
A plague followed David's census, and the destroying angel now stood over Jerusalem itself. There God stopped him — on a farmer's threshing floor, the ground where the temple would later stand.
The plague was no light stroke. One writer shows how hard the blow fell, and where God stopped it.
God's hand did not slacken. Out of love itself, and for His own name's sake, God could not and would not spare. The plague swept over the land and the people as a terrible scourge. But in the middle of judgment mercy won out. The very Jerusalem that sent out the guilty order was the place where God stayed the hand of judgment.
The word "relented" needs care. One writer separates two different kinds of words God speaks.
God is not a man, that He should repent as to His eternal and unchangeable counsels and unconditional promises, which "are without repentance." But in His grace He may repent of a threatened judgment — that is, not carry it out. He did this with the city of Nineveh. Remember that the Spirit of God stoops to speak in our human way of speaking, because we are weak.
Notice who is missing here. No sacrifice, no priest, nothing David did.
Death had begun to be busy in Jerusalem. It had come close to David. Then the plague stopped. How was this? God had said, "Now stay your hand." Why was this? "The Lord saw, and He relented." David had done nothing to stop the march of disease and the ravages of death. Neither the high priest nor the prophet could make the angel pause for one moment in his work of destruction. There was no help anywhere but in God… He is love, and so He can act out of what He is. No creature has to move Him to it first.
The owner of that ground was the last man you would expect God's grace to reach.
Government has done its needful work, and now the story of divine grace begins. And where should grace be shown as God would show it, but in the case of one of the chief of sinners? Araunah is a Jebusite, one of the Canaanite peoples of the land, long under the curse. And a Jebusite is a "treader down" of God's royal city.
The angel stops at a threshing floor, where oxen tread out grain. One writer finds God's own work pictured there.
Now God was treading down. He was not doing it cruelly, as a destroyer would. He was threshing, the way the patient ox treads out grain under its feet. The work is rough, yet it seeks out and saves the precious grain. The harvest is God's, even if the blessing is man's. Judgment after that goes no further than the "threshing-floor." There it halts, stayed by the pity of God. And Araunah — whose name may mean "filled with lamentation" — receives his God-given name Aranjah, "the singing of Jah"!
David built an altar on that spot. The choice of place matters as much as the altar.
This altar reminds us of the sovereign mercy of God towards His people. He is the God who remembers mercy in judgment. And He chose the very place where He showed that mercy to be His dwelling place among His people.
This is the first time the Bible mentions this piece of ground. One writer weighs what it was against what God planned for it.
Here the threshing floor of Ornan [Araunah] comes into view for the first time. It is a poor spot in itself. But the Lord destined it to be the joy of the whole earth — the place of the glory, the resting place of God and His Israel. At once it stands as the witness of that blessed, precious truth which is the sure ground of all our hopes: with our God, "mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13).
- Judgment — the plague was real and deserved. God did not slacken His hand. The sin that started in Jerusalem met its judgment at Jerusalem.
- Relenting — God never changes His settled purposes. But He can hold back a judgment He has threatened. That is what "relented" means here.
- Mercy — nothing human stopped the angel. No one had offered a sacrifice or said a prayer. God acted out of what He is.
- Grace — the angel stopped on a Jebusite's ground, the last place anyone would expect. God showed mercy to one of the chief of sinners.
- Dwelling — judgment went no further than the threshing floor. The very spot where mercy triumphed became the place God chose to live among His people.
And David spoke to Jehovah when he saw the angel that smote among the people, and said, Behold, it is I that have sinned, and it is I that have committed iniquity; but these sheep, what have they done? let thy hand, I pray thee, be on me, and on my father's house!
David sees the angel striking the people, and he knows the census was his own idea. His question — what have these sheep done? — raises the hardest issue in the chapter. Why does a nation suffer for its king's sin, and what can a guilty man offer for them?
The chapter opens with God already angry at Israel. The text does not say why, so one writer looks at what the nation had become.
We are not told why God's anger burned against Israel (v. 1). If there is no public reason for it, then it must be due to the moral and spiritual condition of the nation. Very likely that condition showed itself in the pride that led David to want Israel counted. The nation had grown from a small people of no significance in the world's eyes into a strong empire. Had this humbled the people in thankfulness for the grace of God in so blessing them? Apparently not. We too easily glory in numbers, as though our increase in numbers makes us more distinguished than others.
One writer sets David beside Saul, the king before him. Caught in disobedience, Saul gave his sin a religious excuse and then blamed the people.
He softens his sin by saying it was to sacrifice that they spared the animals. He thought that a religious motive would free him from the guilt of what he did and from its penalty… Again Saul tries to shift the blame for his act onto the people. "The people took of the spoil," he says. How different from David, who saw the sword of the destroying angel lifted over the people… David's conduct here stands out in striking and beautiful contrast to the unattractive king before him!
David asks for the blow to fall on himself and his household instead of the nation. One writer sees a faint picture of Christ here, and marks at once where the picture breaks down.
He takes the judgment on himself and stands in the gap so that the sheep may be spared. He charges himself with sin and iniquity — but sadly, this sin was his own, and this judgment was judgment he had deserved. Another, a lone Mediator, bore our sins without having any sins Himself. He made our sins His own and laid down His life for His sheep, saying: "If you seek me, let these men go" (John 18:8).
It is natural to read David's prayer as the thing that stopped the plague. One writer points to a different reason.
At that moment "the LORD relented from the calamity" and stops the hand of the angel. He does not stop it because David repented, but because He Himself relented. His judgment yields to His grace, without weakening or sacrificing either one.
Note: older translations render this "the LORD repented him of the evil."
The sheep had not ordered the census, yet they were the ones who died. One writer reads this as a warning to anyone who leads.
Yet when David saw the angel and the destruction, the sight broke his heart, and he confessed and judged himself before the Lord… He realises that he ought to suffer the consequences himself. But this is a lesson for anyone who has a prominent place among God's people. The people will suffer for the failure of the leaders.
The story does not end with the plague. It ends with a sacrifice.
After all the history of God's government over David, the close of this book is striking. It ends with the atoning sacrifice that stops the wrath through grace. That sacrifice lays the foundation of the place where God meets Israel, and of the place where they worship.
- Pride — the census grew out of glorying in numbers, a fault shared by king and people alike.
- Confession — David names the sin as his own instead of shifting it onto the people, unlike Saul before him.
- Substitution — David offers to take the blow, but the sin was his own. Only Christ bore sins He never committed.
- Grace — God stopped the angel out of His own mercy, not because David repented. Judgment gave way to grace, and neither was set aside.
- Altar — the book closes with the sacrifice that stops the wrath and marks the place of worship. Failure ends in grace.
And Gad came that day to David, and said to him, Go up, rear an altar to Jehovah in the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
Judgment had swept through Israel, and the destroying angel stopped beside a farmer's threshing floor. There Gad told David to build an altar — but why there, and why a new altar when Israel already had one?
A threshing floor is where workers beat grain out and separate it from the husk. The place carries meaning here, and so does its owner: Araunah was not an Israelite.
There is wonderful instruction for us in the plague being stopped at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. The judgment of God only goes as far as the threshing floor. In other words, when God judges, it is with the object of bringing out the grain from the chaff. The process can be very painful, but the blessing it brings to genuine believers is precious beyond words. The Jebusites had lived up to their name, "those who tread down." They trod down Jerusalem, the city God had declared to be His own centre. But the grace of God has changed Araunah's character. He is a prodigal from among the Gentiles, spared while judgment hung over his head. Indeed, he is a picture of all Gentiles whom God saves by His grace.
One pattern runs through Scripture: the thing that threatens ends up serving, and the old order points to what will take its place.
The angel of destruction announces the relief for David in this dark hour. The eater himself gives food, and the strong man gives sweetness. The law itself prophesied of Jesus who was to replace it, just as here the altar was to replace the angel who directed it.
Israel already had settled places of worship, but the order named none of them. (Some writers use the name Ornan for Araunah.)
The ark was on Mount Zion. The tabernacle was at Gibeon. The king was not to go to the ark, nor to make his way to the bronze altar. Instead he was to set up an altar on Ornan's threshing floor, a piece of ground still owned by a Jebusite, one of the ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem. David obeyed at once. God had declared what should be done, and David would do it, so that the plague might stop.
Notice what the instruction assumes. God is asking for a sacrifice from David's hand — and a rejected man's sacrifice is not wanted.
An altar needs a priest or an accepted worshipper. The Lord would not have directed the one if He had not provided the other. "And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering" (Genesis 4:4). The Lord accepted Abel's person first, and then his sacrifice. Here too the Lord's readiness to receive an offering from David's hand was a pledge: through mercy triumphing over judgment, the Lord had received David himself and put his sin away.
This patch of working ground did not stay a farm.
It became the very site of the centre of God's house. When Solomon built the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, he began there, in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, where the Lord had appeared to David his father.
The hill already carried a history of sacrifice long before David.
Moriah was the historical site where Abraham had offered Isaac (Genesis 22:2). On this mountain of the Lord it would be provided. How much more so, when the sin of Israel and of their king had stirred up the Lord's judgment against the people. God provided now through a sacrifice that cost the people nothing, but for which David paid the full price. He has provided in a far more perfect way on this same mountain, where Jesus was crucified for us.
Scripture records this event twice, in Samuel and in Chronicles. One writer sees a different emphasis in each, down to the metal named.
In general, the account in Samuel deals with the side of man's need. Chronicles gives us the side of the purpose of God. Samuel speaks of silver — the glory of God in relation to man's need of redemption. Chronicles speaks of gold — the glory of God in relation to His own purposes, in which He displays Himself.
- Stopped — the plague halts at a threshing floor. God's judgment sifts grain from chaff; it does not destroy His people.
- Spoken — the order to build comes through the destroying angel. The altar takes the place of the sword.
- Sent — God points David past the ark and past the old altar at Gibeon to a Jebusite's field. David obeys at once.
- Sealed — the request for a sacrifice is itself proof of pardon. God takes no offering from a man He means to strike.
- Settled — that floor became the temple site on Moriah, where Abraham once offered Isaac and where Jesus was later crucified.
And David, according to the saying of Gad, went up as Jehovah had commanded.
David has confessed his sin, and a deadly plague has swept the land. Now the prophet Gad brings him a strange instruction: go up to a Jebusite farmer's threshing floor and build an altar there. The verse records only that he obeyed. Behind that one line lie three questions: why that spot, why an altar, and why obedience was all that God asked of him.
The verse records no hesitation and no argument. One commentator sets David's response beside Ornan's, who hid himself when he saw the angel:
These verses show us David's thankful, believing acceptance of the mercy revealed to him. He did not receive the grace of God in vain. He at once went up at the word of the prophet, while Ornan and his sons hid themselves from the angel. Here we may notice something. No flesh can stand before the Lord naked, in its own resources. Yet sinners may come fully up to His heavenly presence in the power of simply believing in His grace. Ornan and David illustrate this. Ornan had not had the grace of the Lord revealed to him. He knew nothing of the altar that would stand on his threshing floor. So he hid himself — a bare creature in the sight of God, like Adam before him in such a case. But David knew the remedy that mercy, triumphing over judgment, had provided. So he dares to stand, though ashamed and humbled... In all he does there is no disturbance or stirring of the flesh. It is all the assurance and quietness of faith resting in the word of the Lord.
How could the danger end, and where should the king go? God answered both questions Himself:
The angel had not yet put his sword away, so further judgment was only held back, not definitely turned away... God alone could decide, and reveal, on what terms that dreaded sword would be put away. The ark was on Mount Zion. The tabernacle was at Gibeon (2 Chron. 1). The king was not to go to the ark, nor to the bronze altar. Instead he was to raise an altar on Ornan's threshing floor — a piece of ground still owned by a Jebusite, one of the ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem. David obeyed at once. God had declared what should be done, and David would do it, so that the plague might be stayed.
David went up in answer to mercy he had already received. But why had the plague stopped at all?
David had done nothing to stop the spread of the disease and the ravages of death. The high priest and the prophet were equally powerless to make the angel pause for one moment in his work of destruction. There was no resource but in God... He could act like this because of what He is. He relented, and stopped the arm of the angel. No one that we know of asked Him to. No one offered a sacrifice to persuade Him to be gracious.
Why did the plague stop at a threshing floor? That is where a farmer beats the grain out from the chaff:
There is wonderful instruction for us, however, in where the plague stopped — the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. The judgment of God only goes as far as the threshing floor. In other words, when God judges, it is with the object of bringing out the grain from the chaff. The process may be deeply painful, but the resulting blessing for genuine believers is beyond words.
Araunah offered the ground and the animals for free. One writer sees in David's refusal a picture of someone greater:
And Araunah the Jebusite willingly offered the threshing floor and the sacrificial animals. But David would not agree. "I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing." For fifty shekels of silver he bought the oxen and the threshing floor... David stands before that altar as the one who buys and offers, meeting the claim of God. In this he is a picture of our Lord, who bought us with the great price and offered Himself.
The spot mattered far beyond that one day:
The place where mercy triumphed over judgment becomes the site of the altar. This shows where the temple was afterwards to be built — the place where divine mercy stopped the plague.
- Mercy first. The angel's hand was stayed before any sacrifice was offered and before anyone asked — God acted "because of what He is."
- The place, named. God sent David past the ark and past the altar at Gibeon, to a Jebusite's threshing floor of His own choosing.
- The place, obeyed. He went up at once, standing in "the quietness of faith resting in the word of the Lord" while Ornan hid.
- The place, paid for. David refused a free altar. Burnt offerings that cost nothing are no offering. The king who buys and offers pictures the Lord who bought us and offered Himself.
- The place, kept. Judgment stopped, mercy triumphed, and the altar rose. There the temple later stood.
And Araunah looked, and saw the king and his servants coming on towards him; and Araunah went out, and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.
A plague is destroying Jerusalem, and David's own sin set it in motion. The angel of judgment has stopped at a Jebusite's threshing floor, where the owner now looks up and sees the king coming toward him.
A threshing floor is the flat ground where a farmer beats the grain out of his harvest. One writer follows what the Lord intended for this one.
In this verse the threshing floor of Ornan first comes into view. It is a poor spot in itself. Yet the Lord destined it to be the joy of the whole earth: the place of the glory, the rest of God and of His Israel. It stands before us at once as the witness of that blessed, precious truth which is the sure ground of all our hopes — that with our God "mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13). Israel had laid itself open to the Lord's judgment. He might have broken the nation at once, like a jar He took no pleasure in. But "mercy triumphs over judgment" in the heart of their God, and He told the destroying angel to stay his hand at this threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
(Araunah is also called Ornan.)
Of all the ground in Israel, God halts the sword on land owned by an outsider.
Government has done its needed work, and now the story of divine grace begins. And where should grace be shown as God would show it, but in the case of one of the chief of sinners? Araunah is a Jebusite, one of the Canaanite peoples of the land, long under the curse — a Jebusite, a "treader down" of God's royal city.
Araunah and his sons had just seen the angel and hidden themselves. What separated them from the king walking toward them was not innocence.
No one can stand before the Lord naked, in his own resources. Yet sinners may come right up into His heavenly presence, simply by believing in His grace. Ornan and David show us this. The grace of the Lord had not been revealed to Ornan. He knew nothing of the altar that would be built on his threshing floor. So, as nothing but a creature in the sight of God, like Adam before him in such a case, he hid himself. But David knew the remedy that mercy, triumphing over judgment, had provided. So he dares to stand, though ashamed and humbled.
Why does the sight of David calm a terrified man?
The Lord, we have said, had seen the angel; then David had seen him; now Ornan in turn sees him. At this sight he and his sons hide themselves, terrified. But Ornan is reassured when he sees David, sent by God to set up an altar on Ornan's threshing floor. Indeed, what could be more reassuring than the sight of the Lord's Anointed? God had commissioned him to make expiation and put an end to the judgment.
His bow is not forced.
When Araunah sees the king and his servants coming, he willingly takes the lowly place and bows before the king. He asks why the king has come to a man so insignificant.
After the bow comes a generous offer — Araunah gives the king everything he needs, free of charge. Commentators read David's refusal differently. One admires Araunah's giving and regrets that David paid instead.
He had two names. Araunah means "Jah is firm," and Ornan means "strong." The sword of judgment stopped at the threshing floor of this Jebusite... Indeed, in the knowledge of God he seems for the moment to have been greater than David. Scripture records of him, "All these things did Araunah, as a king, give to the king." It is a pity that David spoiled the beauty and grace of that by insisting on paying for everything he received.
That last line follows an older translation; the ESV reads, "All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king." Others see the payment as the thing that makes the site secure.
The ground had to be bought at full price. Ornan did give it freely. Yet may we not see, in the huge price paid for that ground, a shadow of the infinite price paid to satisfy justice and set an unchangeable basis for worship and blessing? And we might ask in passing: how much did it cost to get our altar into its right place before God?
The meeting in this verse fixed a location on the map of Israel's worship for ever.
But even there mercy triumphs over judgment at Jerusalem, and the threshing floor of Araunah becomes the site of the altar to Jehovah, the meeting place of reconciliation for His people for ever.
- Mercy halts. The sword stopped at an ordinary working floor. That floor became the standing witness that mercy triumphs over judgment.
- Mercy chooses. It halted on the ground of a Jebusite — a man from the cursed peoples, a "treader down" of God's city.
- Mercy reassures. The sight of the Lord's anointed steadies the man who hid from the angel. God sent him to make expiation and end the judgment.
- Mercy bows. Araunah leaves his floor, goes low before the king, and asks why such a visitor has come to him.
- Mercy stays. David bought that spot at full price, and it became the place of the altar — an unchangeable basis for worship and blessing.
And Araunah said, Why is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To buy the threshing-floor of thee, to build an altar to Jehovah, that the plague may be stayed from the people.
A plague is sweeping Israel, and the angel's sword is still drawn over Jerusalem. David climbs the hill to a farmer's threshing floor to buy the ground for an altar. Why does stopping a plague need a sale and a sacrifice? And why this patch of dirt?
David had already asked God twice. First he asked God to take away his guilt. Then he asked God to strike him and his family instead of the people. God said no both times.
When Joab returned to David with the unfinished census of the people, the king begged God to take away his iniquity. God could not grant that request then. Now he asks God that he and his father's house should suffer, and not the people of Israel. Again he asked for what was not to be granted. Righteousness had demanded that God come in judgment on the people, so judgment had gone out. God was now going to show His mercy in full, so He would not make David suffer in the place of all Israel. Only David's Son and David's Lord could be the substitute in full.
David says he wants the plague stopped. What stopped it was the offering on the altar he built there.
Israel was safe now — not that they deserved it, and they never could have deserved it. They were safe, because the sword was sheathed in righteousness through grace. What brought this about? Was it not the sacrifice God had accepted? It spoke to Him of what He alone understood at that time: the sacrifice of His Son. … He arrested the arm of the angel because He is love. He heard the plea for the land, and the plague stopped, because the sacrifice had cared for His righteousness and holiness in picture.
Araunah offered him everything free, and David refused. The two records of the sale also word it differently. Samuel has David buying the threshing floor; Chronicles calls the same man Ornan and has David buying the place.
David buys the place of the threshing floor, not just the threshing floor alone as in 2 Samuel 24:21, 24. This explains the difference in the purchase price. Ornan means well, but he does not understand; he would like to contribute to this work. David does not allow it. He alone will offer God a sacrifice. He pays for it out of what he has, and it costs Ornan nothing. David does not wish to give to God that which belongs to another, but that which is his own, just as Christ gave His own life.
The place matters. A threshing floor is where grain is beaten loose from the husk. Araunah was a Jebusite — not an Israelite.
There is wonderful instruction for us, though, in the fact that the plague stopped at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. The judgment of God only goes as far as the threshing floor. In other words, when God judges, it is with the object of bringing out the grain from the chaff. The process may be very painful, but the blessing it brings to true believers is beyond words. … God's grace has changed Araunah's character. He is a prodigal among the Gentiles, spared when judgment was hanging over his head. Indeed, he pictures all Gentiles whom the grace of God saves.
This one sale did more than end a plague.
David's altar and offerings were meant to stop the plague. But the threshing floor of Araunah, or Ornan the Jebusite, was the place where Solomon built the temple of the Lord. There stood the altar of burnt offering and the golden altar, for the worship of Jehovah the God of Israel. So this altar reminds us of God's sovereign mercy towards His people. He is the God who remembers mercy in judgment. He chose the place where He showed His mercy to be His dwelling place among His people.
That floor has its counterpart for believers today.
David would stand only by Ornan's floor, the place where mercy had visited him. In the same way, we stay only by the wounded side of Christ. Our sin, like the soldier's spear, had opened it. But out of it mercy has brought blood and water to wash the sins away.
- Place — God stopped the angel at one spot. That spot became the site of the altar, and later of the temple.
- Price — David refused a free gift. He paid for the floor himself, as Christ gave His own life.
- Sacrifice — David's prayers did not sheathe the sword. The offering God accepted did, so Israel was spared in righteousness.
- Substitute — God turned down David's offer to be struck in the people's place. Only David's Son and Lord could be the substitute in full.
- People — judgment reached only as far as a threshing floor, where grain is parted from chaff. It left a Jebusite farmer alive — a picture of Gentiles saved by grace.
And Araunah said to David, Let my lord the king take and offer up that which is good in his sight see, [here are] oxen for the burnt-offering, and the threshing-sledges and implements of the oxen for wood.
David has confessed his sin in counting the people, seventy thousand have died, and the prophet Gad has sent him to build an altar on a threshing floor outside the city. Araunah, the Jebusite who owns that ground, offers the king everything for free — so why does David refuse?
Araunah makes his offer while judgment still hangs over the city. God had stopped the destroying angel, but nothing was settled yet.
For now, further judgment was only held back, not finally averted, because the angel's sword was still drawn. Until the sword went back in its sheath, who could be sure the dreadful visitation was over? But how could that happen? Neither Gad, nor David, nor all the elders of Israel in council could have ventured to say. God would not keep them in suspense for a single day. He alone could decide, and reveal, on what terms that dreaded sword could be sheathed.
The owner of the floor is a Jebusite, one of the land's older peoples, not an Israelite. He does not bargain.
When Araunah sees the king and his servants coming, he willingly takes the lowly place. He bows before the king and asks why he has come to a man so insignificant. When David wants to buy the threshing floor, Araunah offers it to him without charge, along with oxen for sacrifice and wood for its burning.
David had to send for nothing. The oxen were already standing there for the offering, the threshing tools for the fire. One writer traces that supply past Araunah to God Himself.
He required the sacrifice. He made that known, and David found everything ready to his hand, through the willingness of Ornan indeed, but surely through the goodness of God.
(Araunah is called Ornan in the parallel account in 1 Chronicles 21.)
David turns the offer down and insists on paying. The point is not politeness but ownership. What a man lays on God's altar must be his own.
Ornan, full of good will, but ignorant, would like to be able to contribute to this work. David does not allow him to do so; he alone will offer God a sacrifice that he pays for out of what he has, but which will cost Ornan nothing. David does not wish to give to God what belongs to another, but what is his own, just as Christ gave His own life. Ornan's threshing sledges are not used to consume the sacrifice, as he had wished: God consumes it with fire from heaven.
There is a picture here. The man who caused the disaster pays for the cure himself.
We find an interesting scene between David and Ornan, who was willing that all should be given; but no — it must be David's gift, not a Jebusite's… How striking! The man who had brought all the trouble — the guilty king, but the type of the Holy One of Israel — the type of Him who gave up His life a ransom for many.
Commentators differ on how to judge this exchange. One writer looks at the two meanings of the Jebusite's name and reaches a different verdict.
He had two names. Araunah means "the Lord is firm," and Ornan means "strong." Was he one of those weak Jebusites who had become strong in the sense of the Lord's firmness and faithfulness to His own word and name? It would seem so. In the knowledge of God he seems for the moment to have been greater than David… It is a pity that David spoiled the beauty and grace of that by insisting on paying for all he got.
David bought this ground for a single sacrifice. It became far more than that.
David bought the floor, put up an altar, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. Then the Lord commanded, and the angel put his sword away. David said that this was the house of the Lord God, and this the altar of burnt offering for Israel (1 Chronicles 22:1). The place where the sacrifice was accepted was to be the spot where Israel would worship. True worship rests on the acceptance of the sacrifice.
- Crisis — the angel had stopped, but his sword was still drawn. God alone could set the terms for putting it away.
- Gift — Araunah, a Jebusite outsider, offers the floor, the oxen and the wood for nothing. Everything the altar needs is already on that hill.
- Refusal — David will not build on another man's money. The offering must be his own, which commentators read as a picture of Christ giving His own life.
- Dispute — one writer reads it the other way. He holds that Araunah's free giving was the greater grace, and that David's payment spoiled it.
- Worship — God's own fire consumed the sacrifice, and the bought ground became the place where Israel worshipped. Accepted sacrifice still comes first.
All these things, O king, doth Araunah give to the king. And Araunah said to the king, Jehovah thy God accept thee.
The plague is over, and the angel's sword stopped at a working threshing floor owned by a Jebusite. David comes to buy the site, and its owner hands him everything for nothing — the floor, the oxen, the wooden sledges — with a blessing on top.
The man who owns the ground is not an Israelite. He belongs to the people who held Jerusalem before David took it. Commentators see this as the point where the story turns.
Government has done its needful work, and now the story of divine grace begins. And where should grace be shown as God would show it, but in the case of one of the chief of sinners? Araunah is a Jebusite, one of the Canaanite peoples of the land, long since under the curse. He is a Jebusite, a "treader down" of God's royal city.
His two names carry meanings that fit the moment:
He had two names. Araunah means "Jah is firm," and Ornan means "strong." And the sword of judgment stopped at the threshing floor of this Jebusite. Was he one of those weak Jebusites who had become strong in the sense of Jehovah's firmness and faithfulness to His own word and name? It would seem so.
Araunah does not bargain. He hands over everything and asks God to accept the king. One writer traces that willingness back to God Himself:
God has spared Israel by His grace, and He has drawn the Gentile to Himself in such a way that his heart is opened with desire to give up his own possessions.
The offer is generous, yet David turns it down and pays:
Ornan, full of good will, but ignorant, would like to be able to contribute to this work. David does not allow it. He alone will offer God a sacrifice. He will pay for it out of what he has, and it will cost Ornan nothing. David does not wish to give to God what belongs to another, but what is his own, just as Christ gave His own life. Ornan's threshing sledges are not used, as he had wished, to burn the sacrifice. God consumes it with fire from heaven. That is His character in judgment, but it is also the sign that He has fully accepted the sacrifice.
One writer looks past David at that altar to Christ Himself:
David before that altar, who buys and offers, so meeting the claim of God, is a type of our Lord who bought us with the great price and offered Himself.
Most writers admire David's insistence on paying. One reads the scene the other way round. Working from an older translation, in which Araunah gives "as a king," he puts the Jebusite ahead of the king:
In the knowledge of God he seems to have been for the moment greater than David, for it is recorded of him, "All these things did Araunah, as a king, give to the king." Pity that David spoilt the beauty and grace of that by insisting upon paying for all he got.
The book of 1 Chronicles records a different sum for the same purchase. One writer sees no contradiction there, but two sides of David's heart:
In 2 Samuel 24:24, David buys the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. In 1 Chronicles 21:25, David gives Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place. Comparing the two passages, far from showing any discrepancy, unfolds divine beauty. Righteousness valued the place at the first amount; grace "gave" the second. David had "set his affection to the house of God," and therefore "gave over and above." In Samuel, only the threshing floor and the oxen for sacrifice at the time of the plague are mentioned. In Chronicles the place — the whole temple hill — seems to be included.
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The ground Araunah offers is not kept as farmland. It becomes the permanent site of Israel's altar and, later, the temple.
The place where the sacrifice was accepted was to be the spot where Israel were to worship. It is on the acceptance of the sacrifice that true worship is based.
A few verses back, that same ground was a place of terror:
We can stand with sure feet upon the threshing floor of Ornan, which has now become a solid platform of grace. Approving fire from heaven consumes the offerings, and all judicial terrors are at an end.
- Judgment stops. The angel's sword halts at a threshing floor. From that moment the account moves from God's government to His grace.
- Grace reaches. It reaches a Jebusite, a man from the cursed nations who once held the city. Grace appears where you would least expect it.
- The gift. Araunah gives everything away. God opened his heart, so he parts with his own possessions and asks God to accept the king.
- The price. David still pays. He will not give God what belongs to someone else. Writers see in that a picture of Christ, who both bought and offered.
- The result. That bought ground becomes the site of the altar and the temple. From then on, worship rests on a sacrifice God accepted.
And the king said to Araunah, No; but I will in any case buy [them] of thee at a price neither will I offer up to Jehovah my God burnt-offerings without cost. And David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
A plague has just swept Israel because of David's sin. Now the king stands on Araunah's threshing floor, the open ground where farmers beat grain from the stalk. He refuses a gift that would have made his sacrifice free. The refusal decides both what worship costs and where God's house would later stand.
This was not ordinary ground. Judgment stopped here, mercy took over, and the place never lost that meaning.
The plague devoured thousands (2 Sam. 24). David sinned in the pride of his heart when he numbered the people, a painful contrast with the One he pictured. But even there mercy triumphs over judgment at Jerusalem, and the threshing floor of Araunah becomes the site of the altar to Jehovah, the meeting place of reconciliation for His people forever.
David's refusal was not rudeness. It rested on a principle about whose property belongs on God's altar.
David does not wish to give to God that which belongs to another, but that which is his own, just as Christ gave His own life. David acquires everything with his own resources: the place, the threshing floor, the altar, and the burnt offerings.
The account in 1 Chronicles names a much larger sum for the same ground.
Comparing the two passages shows no contradiction at all. It unfolds divine beauty. Righteousness valued the place at the smaller amount, while grace gave the larger. David had "set his affections to the house of God," and therefore "gave over and above." (Samuel names only the "threshing floor and the oxen" for sacrifice at the time of the plague. Chronicles seems to include "the place" — the whole temple hill.)
The same writer turns the price into a question for the reader.
Six hundred shekels of gold may seem a heavy price; but no one may offer burnt offerings for nothing. What a question, too, might we ask in passing: "How much did it cost to get our altar into its right place before God?"
The guilty king who pays the price and then presents the sacrifice is seen as a picture of Christ, who did both.
Araunah the Jebusite willingly offered the threshing floor and the sacrificial animals. But David would not consent. He paid fifty shekels of silver for the oxen and the threshing floor. Then the burnt offerings and peace offerings went up to Jehovah as a sweet aroma. And Jehovah answered by fire (1 Chron. 21:26). David stands before that altar. He buys and he offers, and so he meets the claim of God. In this he is a picture of our Lord, who bought us with the great price and offered Himself.
People often use this verse to argue that worship must hurt. But cost by itself is not the test.
Cain worshipped the true God, and he took some pains too. He offered what he had been toiling for in "the sweat of his brow." He was a "worker of the ground," and he "brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to Jehovah." He did not bring that which cost him nothing (2 Sam. 24:24); no, his worship cost more toil than Abel's. He came to God the natural way, offering the fruit of his own hard work. This is always the character of false worship.
Cost does belong to true worship. But what makes the gift acceptable does not come from us.
Worship, in order to be acceptable to God, must be of the nature of a sacrifice. Worship must cost us something. In a measure, we are poorer, in some way or the other, because we worship God. We give something to Him — not something of ourselves, but something of Him who lives in us, of Him who is always acceptable to God.
Commentators differ on whether David's insistence was wholly admirable. One writer thinks Araunah knew God better than David did at that moment.
In the knowledge of God, Araunah seems to have been greater than David for the moment. Scripture records of him, "All these things did Araunah, AS A KING, give to the king. And Araunah said to the king, The LORD your God accept you." It is a pity that David spoiled the beauty and grace of that by insisting on paying for everything he got.
- Cost — the sin. David's pride in numbering Israel cost thousands of lives. The plague drove him to the one place where he could find mercy.
- Cost — the ground. He would not build on borrowed land. What we lay on God's altar must be our own, as Christ gave His own life.
- Cost — the price. Fifty shekels of silver measured what righteousness required. Six hundred shekels of gold measured what a heart set on God's house gave over and above.
- Cost — the sacrifice. The king who buys and then offers pictures the Lord who paid the great price and offered Himself.
- Cost — the caution. Cain's worship cost more toil than Abel's, and it was still false worship. Acceptable worship costs the worshipper, but its value lies in Christ, not in the size of the bill.