Saturday 30th November
Read 2 Samuel 24:18-24a
“On that day Gad went to David and said to him, ‘Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.’ 19 So David went up, as the Lord had commanded through Gad. 20 When Araunah looked and saw the king and his officials coming towards him, he went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground.
21 Araunah said, ‘Why has my lord the king come to his servant?’
‘To buy your threshing-floor,’ David answered, ‘so that I can build an altar to the Lord, that the plague on the people may be stopped.’
22 Araunah said to David, ‘Let my lord the king take whatever he wishes and offer it up. Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and here are threshing-sledges and ox yokes for the wood. 23 Your Majesty, Araunah gives all this to the king.’ Araunah also said to him, ‘May the Lord your God accept you.’
24 But the king replied to Araunah, ‘No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.’” (NIVUK)
That location is rather important in Israel’s history. It is the site of the temple Solomon would build. It is the site where God showed mercy to Israel. The space devoted to negotiation for the site is because of its significance. To demonstrate that it was not stolen but purchased legitimately from the people who were there previously.
The negotiations are written in such a way as to bring a smile to the face of anyone hearing them, capturing as they do the traditional bartering practice of absurd offers and counter-offers before a price is settled upon. But a price was settled upon and that is the important point. David would not allow the site to be purchased without cost, particularly one that involves burnt offerings – those offered in payment for misused life.
David would have given up his own life if he could, but the subsequent history of Israel, after the temple was built, demonstrates that the king of the kingdom was not able to pay a price a high enough to atone for the sin of Israel. That would need to wait another 800 years.
