Once David has captured the old Jebusite stronghold that he will name Jerusalem, he still has a need. His people are ravaged by a plague which he believes has been caused by his ill-timed census, and he needs to offer sacrifice to the Lord.

The threshing floor of Araunah looks like a likely spot, and David approaches the owner, explaining that he has come to buy the site so he can build an altar to his God. Araunah demurs, not because he does not want to sell, but perhaps because he is attempting to placate this new conqueror. He offers instead to give the land to David, as well as his oxen for the sacrifice and their wooden yokes for fuel. It is an offer beyond generosity, and David refuses it!

David's answer is a classic: "I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing." He reaches into his pouch and gives Araunah 50 shekels, a considerable sum of money, and the deal is completed. This is the place where Solomon will later build the Temple. For now, an altar becomes the focus of the supplications to the Lord.

David's answer to Araunah deserves our rumination. It is too easy to give what has not cost us anything, and this vignette offers a further clue to the complex character of this king. His gifts to God must come at a price, not standing on the
generosity of a stranger, but at some cost to him personally.

If, as some scholars think, the name Araunah means ruler in Hurrian (a group of early Syrian settlers), then this threshing floor is not an ordinary piece of real estate belonging to a simple Jebusite. This is a business deal in which Araunah, representing a culture that could date itself back to the 3rd millennium BC, and David, upstart ruler of a newly confederated set of tribes, face each other across a hilltop that will later be called Mount Zion. Each recognizes the dignity, history and humanity of the other.

What a lesson from the Iron Age.

Bible reference: 2 Samuel 24: 10-25