Day 78: 2 Samuel 24:18–25

Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David replied, “To buy the threshing floor from you in order to build an altar to the Lord, so the plague on the people may be halted” (v. 21).

The exact location of the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite was the most vital place in Israel’s history. Scripture says God grieved when the angel reached the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite and stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem. The Hebrew word for “grieve” in this passage is nacham. It carries the idea of breathing deeply as “a physical display of one’s feeling, usually sorrow, compassion, or comfort.”19 The word was used once before in 2 Samuel 12:24, where it meant “being consoled over the death of an infant child.”20

When the angel of the Lord stretched out his hand at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, God seemed to cry. He “panted” in grief somewhat like one “being consoled over the death of an infant child.”

I want to suggest that the primary reason God grieved as if over the death of a child at that exact location was related to an event that took place on that very soil many years before. In Genesis 22, Abraham obeyed God and almost sacrificed his son Isaac—in this very spot.

God did not coincidentally grieve at this exact spot generations later during David’s reign, then coincidentally direct an altar, and ultimately the temple of God, to be built there as well. Each occurrence was based on the vivid lesson God taught about substitutionary death at the same location. Look at the similarities!

The altar. God commanded that an altar for sacrifice be built by both Abraham and David—and ultimately by Solomon—on the same spot. Something at that location obviously represented sacrifice and substitution.

The timing. Genesis 22:10–12 tells us that when Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son, God intervened and stopped him. God then presented a sacrifice in his place. Consider the timing during David’s reign: 1 Chronicles 21:16 tells us “David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem.”

Of the same event, 2 Samuel 24:16 says,

When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.’” The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

In both cases, the moment God saw a sword raised to destroy life at this location, He intervened and accepted substitutionary sacrifices. That both of these events happened at the same place and at the moment a sword was being drawn is no accident.

When the angel of the Lord drew his sword at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, I believe God remembered a father who was willing in obedience to take the life of his dearly loved son. I believe God not only cried over the memory of Abraham and Isaac but over the gospel they foretold—“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16 kjv).

The day that Abraham offered Isaac portrayed the cross as the ultimate altar of sacrifice and the substitutionary death of the unblemished Lamb as the perfect sacrifice. Many years later, during David’s reign, God saw the angel raise his sword over the lives of His people at that same location, and He grieved and said “Enough!” Why? Because when God saw the threshing floor at Mount Moriah, He saw mercy—mercy that would finally be complete on Calvary when God would look on the suffering of His Son and be satisfied (Isa. 53:11). The legacy of sacrifice on Mount Moriah would continue from Abraham to David to Solomon because access to God is forever based on sacrifice and mercy.

As we conclude, we must meditate for a moment on David’s words as Araunah offered him the threshing floor free of charge. He said, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing” (v. 24).

Mount Moriah did not represent a cheap offering. The sacrifice depicted on that mountain throughout the ages was costly. Abraham’s sacrifice cost him dearly. God’s sacrifice cost Him severely. The chastened king’s sacrifice was costly as well. At the threshing floor of Araunah, the cost of sacrifice was counted—and God wept.

When faced in Scripture with something you don’t understand and when God seems cruel, never forget how God identifies Himself: “Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness’ ” (Exod. 34:5–6).

When you don’t know why, a personal history with God will tell you Who.