The Way
The Threshing Floor of Araunah
I will not offer a sacrifice that costs me nothing
Story
At a time when the Lord's anger burned against Israel again, David ordered Joab, “Go through all Israel and count the people.” Joab objected: “Why does the king want to do this?” But the king's word prevailed. After nine months and twenty days the numbers came in: eight hundred thousand fighting men in Israel, five hundred thousand in Judah. Faced with those numbers, David's conscience struck him. David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly.”
The next morning the prophet Gad came and delivered the word of the Lord: “Choose one: famine, three months of fleeing from your enemies, or three days of plague.” David answered, “Let me fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great, and not into human hands.” A plague swept through the land, and seventy thousand died from Dan to Beersheba. When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem, the Lord relented and said to the angel, “Enough. Withdraw your hand.”
At that moment the angel was standing by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. When David saw the angel, he cried out to the Lord, “I am the one who sinned. What have these sheep done?” As Gad had told him, David went up there, and Araunah bowed low and offered to give him the threshing floor and the oxen for nothing. David shook his head: “I will not offer burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” David bought the threshing floor for fifty shekels of silver and built an altar, and the plague stopped.
Walk this scene on the map →Words of God and David
Enough. Withdraw your hand.
I am the one who has sinned. I am the one who did wrong. These sheep, what have they done? Let your hand fall on me and on my father's house.
No, I insist on paying for it. I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing.
Let my lord the king take whatever he thinks best and offer it. May the Lord your God accept you with favor.
The sayings are fresh renderings of the original meaning in today's language. Text: 2 Sam 24:1–25
Background
Chronicles records that this threshing floor was on Mount Moriah and that Solomon built the temple on that very spot. It is thought to be the same land of Moriah where Abraham went up to offer Isaac.
Pause and Reflect
In what I give to God, am I putting my own comfort and benefit first?