1 Chronicles 20–24: A Threshing Floor & the Temple

Read the Bible in 2011 ◊ Week 36: Tuesday

“At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, he offered sacrifice there. For the tabernacle of the LORD, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering were in the high place at Gibeon at that time. But David could not go before it to inquire of God, for he was terrified by the sword of the angel of the LORD.”
1 Chronicles 21:28–30

Tuesday’s Bible reading is 1 Chronicles 20–24. These chapters continue the record of David’s reign, including the census that was done because of his pride, the resulting plague and his preparation for the building of the temple and the ministry of the Levites.

David purchases the threshing floor of Ornan for the site of the Temple because it was there he was commanded by the angel of the Lord to build an altar for a sacrifice to the Lord because of the plague. In commenting on the census and the following plague, H. L. Ellison writes:

“…here it is not told as a story in itself but simply as an account of how the site of the future Temple came to be bought.”¹

This site is later identified as being on Mount Moriah.

“Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.”
2 Chronicles 3:1

Moriah is the district to which Abraham was commanded to go and sacrifice his son Isaac on a mountain the Lord would choose.

“Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.” Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son. Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.””
Genesis 22:9–14

In his commentary on Genesis, Derek Kidner writes:

“Moriah reappears only in 2 Chronicles 3:1, where it is identified as the place where God halted the plague of Jerusalem and where Solomon built the Temple. In New Testament terms, this is the vicinity of Calvary.”²

A site where a ram provides the substitution for death; a site where a killing plague is stopped and where the sacrificial system of the Temple will teach that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
2 Corinthians 5:21

“In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.”

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¹H. L. Ellison, “1 and 2 Chronicles,” The New Bible Commentary: Revised, D. Guthrie, J. A. Motyer, eds., A. M. Stibbs, D. J. Wiseman, contributing eds., p. 379.
²Derek Kidner, Genesis, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, p. 143.