CHRONICLES
CHAPTER 21
David sins by numbering Israel—The Lord sends pestilence upon the people—David sacrifices and the plague is stayed.
2 And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beer-sheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it.
3 And Joab answered, The LORD make his people an hundred times so many more as they be: but, my lord the king, are they not all my lord’s servants? why then doth my lord require this thing? why will he be a cause of trespass to Israel?
4 Nevertheless the king’s word prevailed against Joab. Wherefore Joab departed, and went throughout all Israel, and came to Jerusalem.
5 ¶ And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men that drew sword: and Judah was four hundred threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword.
8 And David said unto God, I have sinned greatly, because I have done this thing: but now, I beseech thee, do away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.
10 Go and tell David, saying, Thus saith the LORD, I offer thee three things: choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee.
12 Either three years’ famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me.
13 And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the LORD; for very great are his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man.
15 And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.
16 And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.
17 And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed; but as for these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, O LORD my God, be on me, and on my father’s house; but not on thy people, that they should be plagued.
18 ¶ Then the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the LORD in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.
20 And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.
21 And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshingfloor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.
22 Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the LORD: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people.
23 And Ornan said unto David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: lo, I give thee the oxen also for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meat offering; I give it all.
24 And king David said to Ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the LORD, nor offer burnt offerings without cost.
25 so David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
[ David purchased it from Ornan for 600 shekels of gold. ]
26 And David built there an altar unto the LORD, [ David builds an altar to the Lord for burnt offerings. But he built it over a threshing floor, a place the beasts of the field would trample across the sacred floor. This is the same spot that Abraham built the altar on which he planned to sacrifice Isaac. And this makes complete sense since Mount Moriah is God’s sanctuary. Let's look at the threshing floor that stood on the site before David purchased the land because you know it seems a bit unfathomable that God would let the beasts of the field trample across the sacred land. That is until we learn about the symbolic nature of the threshing floor. See during the Jebusite period threshing floors were used to process grain you know to separate the wheat from the chaff. Generally, these threshing floors were located on elevated windy sites, you know, usually on the top of a hilltop where the wind would come and then that would aid the winnowing process. The threshing floor itself was usually a circular flat surface made either of hard packed earth or of stone. It needed to be sturdy enough to withstand the trampling of animals The threshers spread the sheaves across the circular stone surface, and then they attached a threshing sledge, a wooden board that had stones on the bottom. And then they would tie that to a pair of oxen. And then they drove the oxen around the threshing floor in the form of a circle until the wheat separated from the chaff. And then when they were done, they would toss the mixture into the air and then the wind would blow away the chaff. Now there are a number of symbolic inferences that we can make here, right? From the final judgment, where God’s gonna purge the wheat from the tares, to the grain itself in God’s role as the bread of life. But for the purposes of today’s episode, I wanna focus on the circular motion of the oxen. See, when the threshers drive the oxen around the threshing floor, which is made of stone, mind you, they do so in a circular motion. which naturally generates this mound in the center. The oxen in effect circumambulate a center, symbolically representing the sacred center where God resides, the sacred center of all things. It’s another way of pointing us that this is his holy temple. ] and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called upon the LORD; and he answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt offering.
28 ¶ At that time when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.