Ornan

Ornan is the Jebusite at whose threshing-floor the angel of Yahweh halts as the plague that follows David's census reaches Jerusalem. He sells the floor to David for an altar; on that same site Solomon afterward builds the temple. The parallel narrative in Samuel calls him Araunah.

The Threshing-Floor and the Halted Angel

In Chronicles the destroying angel is stopped at Ornan's threshing-floor: "And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, Yahweh looked, and he repented of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now let down your hand. And the angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (1Ch 21:15). The Samuel parallel uses the alternative name: "And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, Yahweh repented of the evil, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, It is enough; now let down your hand. And the angel of Yahweh was by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite" (2Sa 24:16).

David Buys the Floor

In both accounts the prophet Gad sends David up to rear an altar at the same floor (1Ch 21:18; 2Sa 24:18). Ornan, threshing wheat with his four sons, sees the angel, then sees the king coming, and bows himself with his face to the ground (1Ch 21:20-21). He offers floor, oxen, and threshing-implements at no cost: "Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes: look, I give [you] the oxen for burnt-offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal-offering; I give it all" (1Ch 21:23). David refuses to take it freely — "I will not take that which is yours for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt-offering without cost" (1Ch 21:24) — and pays "six hundred shekels of gold by weight" (1Ch 21:25). The Samuel account records the same exchange under the name Araunah and gives the price as "fifty shekels of silver" (2Sa 24:24); David there builds the altar, offers burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, "and Yahweh was entreated for the land, and the plague was stopped from Israel" (2Sa 24:25).

The Site of the Temple

Chronicles closes the episode with David's recognition of the place: "At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there" (1Ch 21:28). The next stage is explicit. The temple Solomon builds rises on the same site: "Then Solomon began to build the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem on mount Moriah, where [Yahweh] appeared to David his father, which he made ready in the place that David had appointed, in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (2Ch 3:1).