2 Samuel 24:20-25

20 Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants crossing over toward him; and Araunah went out and bowed his face to the ground before the king.

21 Then Araunah said, "Why has my lord the king come to his servant?" And David said, "To buy the threshing floor from you, in order to build an altar to the LORD, ¹that the plague may be held back from the people."

22 Araunah said to David, "Let my lord the king take and offer up what is good in his sight. Look, ²the oxen for the burnt offering, the threshing sledges and the yokes of the oxen for the wood.

23 "Everything, O king, Araunah gives to the king." And Araunah said to the king, "May the LORD your God ³accept you."

24 However, the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for ⁴I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing." So ⁵David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.

25 David built there an altar to the LORD and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. ⁶Thus the LORD was moved by prayer for the land, and the plague was held back from Israel.

2 Samuel 24:20-25 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND SAMUEL 24

In this chapter an account is given of David's numbering of the people, 2Sa 24:1-9; of the sense he had of his sin, and of his acknowledgment of it; and of the Lord's displeasure at it, who sent the prophet Gad to him, to propose three things to him, one of which he was to choose as a punishment for it, 2Sa 24:10-13; when he chose the pestilence, which carried off a great number of the people, 2Sa 24:14-17; and David was directed to build an altar to the Lord in the threshingfloor of Araunah the Jebusite, with whom he agreed for it, and built one on it, and offered upon it, and so the plague was stayed, 2Sa 24:18-25.

Cross References

• 1. Numbers 16:44-50
• 2. 1 Samuel 6:14; 1 Kings 19:21
• 3. Ezekiel 20:40, 41
• 4. Malachi 1:13, 14
• 5. 1 Chronicles 21:24, 25
• 6. 2 Samuel 21:14

Footnotes

• [a] Lit "gratuitously"