📖WEB · 1 Chronicles 21:22
What does 1 Chronicles 21:22 mean?
"Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to Yahweh on it. You shall sell it to me for the full price, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”"
— 1 Chronicles 21:22 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in Yahweh’s name.
Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
As David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to Yahweh on it. You shall sell it to me for the full price, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”
Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. Behold, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering. I give it all.”
King David said to Ornan, “No; but I will most certainly buy it for the full price. For I will not take that which is yours for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”
So David gave to Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.
Explanation
In this verse, David is speaking to Ornan (also called Araunah in 2 Samuel 24), a Jebusite who owned a threshing floor on a hill in Jerusalem. David asks to buy this piece of land so he can build an altar there and offer sacrifices to Yahweh, specifically so that a devastating plague striking Israel would come to an end. David insists on paying the full price rather than accepting the land as a gift, which Ornan had offered to give freely.
The context is significant. Earlier in 1 Chronicles 21, David had sinned by ordering a census of Israel out of pride and a desire to measure his military strength rather than trusting God. As a result, God sent a plague on Israel that killed seventy thousand people. When David saw the angel of the Lord standing at Ornan's threshing floor with a drawn sword over Jerusalem, he pleaded for mercy and was instructed by the prophet Gad to build an altar on that very spot. This verse captures the moment David negotiates for the land in order to obey that command and stop the plague through proper worship and sacrifice.
Theologically, this passage highlights several important truths. First, it shows that sin has real consequences, and that intercession and sacrifice were the means by which atonement was made under the old covenant. David's willingness to pay full price rather than accept a free gift reflects a principle he states explicitly in the following verses (v. 24): true worship costs something. He refuses to offer to God something that cost him nothing, because a sacrifice given without personal cost is not a genuine offering. This
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