2 Samuel 24:24

Hebrew Bible

22 Araunah told David, “My lord the king may take whatever he wishes and offer it. Look! Here are oxen for burnt offerings, and threshing sledges and harnesses for wood. 23 I, the servant of my lord the king, give it all to the king!” Araunah also told the king, “May the Lord your God show you favor!” 24 But the king said to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it from you! I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt sacrifices that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 pieces of silver. 25 Then David built an altar for the Lord there and offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings. And the Lord accepted prayers for the land, and the plague was removed from Israel.

1 Chronicles 21:25

Hebrew Bible

23 Ornan told David, “You can have it! My master, the king, may do what he wants. Look, I am giving you the oxen for burnt sacrifices, the threshing sledges for wood, and the wheat for an offering. I give it all to you. 24 King David replied to Ornan, “No, I insist on buying it for top price. I will not offer to the Lord what belongs to you or offer a burnt sacrifice that cost me nothing. 25 So David bought the place from Ornan for 600 pieces of gold. 26 David built there an altar to the Lord and offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings. He called out to the Lord, and the Lord responded by sending fire from the sky and consuming the burnt sacrifice on the altar. 27 The Lord ordered the messenger to put his sword back into its sheath.

 Notes and References

"... The Chronicler’s signature can also be seen in 1 Chronicles 21:7—‘He [God] struck Israel’. It can hardly be coincidence that the verb הכנ is used here in respect of God, whereas in the same episode of the Samuel narrative it has a bearing on David: ‘David was stricken to the heart’ (2 Samuel 24:10). Since the focus of the Chronicler’s narrative is to safeguard the future Temple site, two times the noun םוקמ is expressly used (1 Chronicles 21:22. 25), which does not occur in the source text (2 Samuel 24). The same noun will show up again in 2 Chronicles 3:1, where the Chronicler not only refers to the threshing-floor, but also to Mount Moriah as the site of the Solomonic Temple. One can understand why the Chronicler makes David pay such a huge amount of money to Ornan: ‘six hundred shekels of gold’ (1 Chronicles 21:25), whereas in 2 Samuel 24:24 the site is sold for ‘fifty shekels of silver’. The future Temple site is invaluable and the price for it should by any means exceed the amount of money that has been paid for other cultic sites, such as the ‘four hundred shekels of silver’ which Abraham paid for the cave of Machpela (Genesis 23:15) ..."

Beentjes, Pancratius Cornelis Tradition and Transformation in the Book of Chronicles (p. 56) Brill, 2008

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