2 Samuel 24:18-25--David Builds an Altar

2 Samuel 24:18-25
English Standard Version

David Builds an Altar
18 And Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, raise an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David went up at Gad's word, as the LORD commanded. 20 And when Araunah looked down, he saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. And Araunah went out and paid homage to the king with his face to the ground. 21 And Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be averted from the people.” 22 Then Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Here are the oxen for the burnt offering and the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood. 23 All this, O king, Araunah gives to the king.” And Araunah said to the king, “May the LORD your God accept you.” 24 But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. 25 And David built there an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the LORD responded to the plea for the land, and the plague was averted from Israel.

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Last time we talked about how David chose the consequences that would befall the nation as a consequence of his sin when he took a census of the people against the will of the LORD.  While the curse has been satisfied (the LORD told His angel to stop killing people because enough blood had been shed), atonement still needs to be made for David's sin now.  Remember there is no Temple, and the entire Tabernacle still has not been rebuilt, so the LORD tells David where to go to make his offering on a stone or earthen altar which had not been cut by any iron tool.

David was to go up to the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite (where we know the angel of the LORD is standing overlooking Jerusalem, for He was ready to attack it next, but the LORD stopped Him),. and David is to build an altar there.  David goes to the very place that the prophet Gad has commanded and when he gets there, Araunah came out to pay homage to the king (to bow down before him as a servant would do to his master at that time.  The lower you bowed, the more respect you were showing, and Araunah bowed so that his face was on the ground.  This man loved, respected and honored king David though he was a Jebusite that should have been completely destroyed in the Conquest).

David explains to Araunah that he needs to buy Araunah's threshing floor so that he can set up and altar and make a sacrifice on his threshing floor so that the plague that has come over the nation would be stopped.  Araunah not only loved the king, but it seemed like he feared the LORD as well and wanted to offer David (and the LORD) that land and wood and the animals for the sacrifice, but David refused this offer by saying, "No, but I will buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing."  I think this is one of the most important quotes to remember out of this passage for sure, and maybe out of all of David's life.  He has come to a point where he realized that an acceptable and pleasing offering to the LORD is going to be costly.

As we spoke of yesterday, one day it will be the LORD who says to us that He will not offer a sacrifice up for our sins which costs Him nothing, and He will offer up His own Son, Jesus, the Christ, in close proximity to where this happened, and probably in the same nearby place where Abraham offered up Isaac on Mount Moriah.  David bought the threshing floor, oxen, their yokes and threshing sledges to break up for the wood for the offering for an amount of 50 shekels of silver (assuming this is the measure of weight and not the silver coins by the same name that became popular in Israel in the inter-testemental period, this is roughly 1 pound and 4 ounces of silver).  In today's market, that much silver would be worth $429.34 as of the date and time of this article.  I would say that Araunah still gave David a great deal, though he honored David's wish of making him pay something.  I say it was a great deal, because Araunah likely just lost his entire business by no longer having a threshing floor on which to thresh his grain, no longer having a team of oxen by which to help plow and harvest the fields, and no sledge to help with this labor either.  It seems like he was the one making the big sacrifice here and getting almost nothing in return for it, but he understood how important this matter was for the king to make atonement for himself and for the sins of the people so that this plague would stop killing those he loved--even he was a Jebusite, he loved the LORD very much.  We should not just automatically judge the people of the Bible or anyone today by their nationality or ethnicity, for we've seen that Uriah the Hittite as one of the most valiant and trusted of David's mighty men who had more honor and integrity than David did.  We also know that the LORD used Rahab of Jericho and Ruth the Moabite to be a part of David's family tree (and ultimately Jesus was born from this family).  This Jebusite understood a high price needed to be paid for the atonement of all the people--a people that weren't even "his" people by blood, but it seems they were by faith, and he was willing to sacrifice everything to save them.  What a great image we get from this Jebusite that was willing at first to give up everything and get nothing in return for it.

The LORD responded favorably to the burnt offerings and peace offerings that David offered on behalf of himself and the people of Israel that day, and the plague that would have been as devastating as the plagues that we read about that was against Egypt in the book of Exodus was averted.  That probably makes us scratch our heads a bit to try to understand why such severe judgment came on all of Israel over this one act of King David, but the LORD completely knew David's heart at the time and knew both why he wanted to do this and why he refused to listen to the wise council of Joab.  Bad decisions by the shepherd end up affecting the sheep, and this was a lesson for David in just how severe of an issue the sin in his life was and that it needed to be dealt with in a very serious way.

This concludes the records of King David as told in the books of 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.  We will get more details from the priests when we read 1 Chronicles, but we will continue on into the book of 1 Kings next which will pick up where we left off and talk about the story of Solomon.  2 Kings after that will talk about the divided nations of Israel and Judah and the beginning of all the prophets that LORD needed to send to these kings to instruct them and the people because they were starting to become more and more like the nations around them.  I hope you'll continue with me as I seek to continue to read through and study the Old Testament this year.