References (27)
And when the angel (messenger) stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord (Yahweh) regretted (repented, mourned-comforted) the evil and said to the angel who was destroying the people, "It is enough, stay your hand." And the angel (messenger) of the Lord (Yahweh) was at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
And Gad came to David that day and said to him, "Go up, set up an altar to the Lord (Yahweh) on the threshing floor of the Jebusite Aravnah."
And Araunah looked up and saw the king and his servants coming toward him, and Araunah went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.
And Araunah said, "Why has my lord the king come to his servant?" And David said, "To buy the threshing floor from you, to build an altar to the Lord (Yahweh), that the plague may be stayed from the people."
And Araunah said to David, "Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to you. Behold, here is the ox for a burnt offering, and the threshing implements and the oxen's tools for wood."
All this did the king give to the king [David], and Araunah said to the king [David], "May the Lord your God (Yahweh Elohim) be gracious to you (conditional grace – Hebr. ratsah)."
But the king [David] replied to Aravnah, "No, but I will buy it from you for a fixed price; I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God (Yahweh Elohim) that have cost me nothing." David bought the threshing floor and the ox for 50 shekels [0.6 kg] of silver. [A relatively small sum. Abraham bought Sarah's burial place for 400 shekels of silver (). Later, the price for all of Jerusalem becomes 600 shekels of gold, see .]
God (Elohim) sent an angel against Jerusalem to destroy (ruin, wipe out – Hebr. shachat) it. But when the angel was doing the destruction, the Lord (Yahweh) saw it and regretted (sorrow-comforted – Hebr. nacham) the evil, and he said to the angel who was destroying (the Destroyer; definite form of the verb to destroy – Hebr. ha-shachat): "It is enough. Withdraw your hand." The angel of the Lord (Yahweh) was then standing at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
[Ornan is the Hebrew spelling of Aravnah, which is the name used in the parallel passage in . The threshing floor was located at what is now called the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.]
The angel of the Lord commanded [the prophet] Gad to tell David to go and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. [Gad was David's seer, see ]
When Ornan turned around, he saw the angel. His four sons who were with him hid themselves. Ornan was threshing wheat
when David came to him. He looked up and saw David, and he came out from the threshing floor and fell on his face to the ground before David.
David said to Ornan, "Give me the place where you thresh your grain, so that I may build an altar to the Lord there. Give it to me for full payment, so that the plague may cease among the people."
Then Ornan said to David, "Take it, and my lord the king may do whatever he thinks best. See, I give you the livestock for burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for grain offerings. I give you all of it."
But King David replied to Ornan, "No, I will buy it for full payment. I will not offer what is yours to the Lord and sacrifice burnt offerings that I have received for free."
David gave Ornan 600 shekels [a total of 6.9 kg] of gold in full weight for [the entire] site. [In , a smaller sum of 50 shekels is stated, which is probably for the threshing floor itself; here, the price is for the entire area/site.]
When David saw that the Lord had answered him at the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered his sacrifice there.
Solomon began to build the house of the Lord (Yahweh) in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, on the site that David had prepared, the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
