1 Chronicles 21:22

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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) Then (and) David said to Oman, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build.—Literally, Pray give me the place of the threshingfloor. Samuel, “And Araunah said Why is my lord the king come to his servant? And David said, To purchase from thee the threshingfloor, to build,” &c.

Grant it me for the full price.—Literally, At a full price give it me. These words are not in Samuel. (Comp. Genesis 23:9—Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of Machpelah.) The recollection of that narrative may have caused the modification of the present. The last clause is word for word as in Samuel.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:1-30 David's numbering the people. - No mention is made in this book of David's sin in the matter of Uriah, neither of the troubles that followed it: they had no needful connexion with the subjects here noted. But David's sin, in numbering the people, is related: in the atonement made for that sin, there was notice of the place on which the temple should be built. The command to David to build an altar, was a blessed token of reconciliation. God testified his acceptance of David's offerings on this altar. Thus Christ was made sin, and a curse for us; it pleased the Lord to bruise him, that through him, God might be to us, not a consuming Fire, but a reconciled God. It is good to continue attendance on those ordinances in which we have experienced the tokens of God's presence, and have found that he is with us of a truth. Here God graciously met me, therefore I will still expect to meet him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

It has been observed that it is only in books of a late period that Angels are brought forward as intermediaries between God and the prophets. This, no doubt, is true; and it is certainly unlikely that the records, from which the author of Chronicles drew, spoke of Gad as receiving his knowledge of God's will from an angel. The touch may be regarded as coming from the writer of Chronicles himself, who expresses the fact related by his authorities in the language of his own day (see Zechariah 1:9, Zechariah 1:14, Zechariah 1:19; Zechariah 2:3; Zechariah 4:1; Zechariah 5:5; etc.); language, however, which we are not to regard as rhetorical, but as strictly in accordance with truth, since Angels were doubtless employed as media between God and the prophet as much in the time of David as in that of Zechariah.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

20, 21. Ornan was threshing wheat—If the census was entered upon in autumn, the beginning of the civil year, the nine and a half months it occupied would end at wheat harvest. The common way of threshing corn is by spreading it out on a high level area, and driving backwards and forwards upon it two oxen harnessed to a clumsy sledge with three rollers and some sharp spikes. The driver sits on his knees on the box, while another person is employed in drawing back the straw and separating it from the grain underneath. By this operation the chaff is very much chopped, and the grain threshed out.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

See Chapter Introduction

Geneva Study Bible

Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an {k} altar therein unto the LORD: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people.

(k) This he did by the command of God, 1Ch 21:18, or else it would have been abominable, unless he had either God's word, or revelation.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. the place of this threshing floor] The expression implies perhaps that David bought more than the mere area of the threshingfloor.

for the full price] Genesis 23:9 (R.V.).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - The place of this threshing-floor; i.e. the place on which the threshing-floor was made. It was the level summit of the middle elevated ground of the eastern ridge on which Jerusalem was situate (1 Chronicles 11:4-7). 1 Chronicles 21:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

ארנן ויּשׁב, "and Ornan turned him about," is translated by Berth. incorrectly, "then Ornan turned back," who then builds on this erroneous interpretation, which is contrary to the context, a whole nest of conjectures. ויּשׁב is said to have arisen out of ויּשׁקף, the succeeding המּלאך out of המּלך, עמּו בּניו ערבּעת out of עליו עברים עבדיו (2 Samuel 24:20), "by mistake and further alteration." In saying this, however, he himself has not perceived that 2 Samuel 24:20 (Sam.) does not correspond to the 1 Chronicles 21:20 of the Chronicle at all, but to the 1 Chronicles 21:21, where the words, "and Araunah looked out (ישׁקף) and saw the king," as parallel to the words, "and Ornan looked (יבּט) and saw David." The 1 Chronicles 21:20 of the Chronicle contains a statement which is not found in Samuel, that Ornan (Araunah), while threshing with his four sons, turned and saw the angel, and being terrified at the sight, hid himself with his sons. After that, David with his train came from Zion to the threshing-floor in Mouth Moriah, and Araunah looking out saw the king, and came out of the threshing-floor to meet him, with deep obeisance. This narrative contains nothing improbable, nothing to justify us in having recourse to critical conjecture.