File:David Prays for Mercy.jpg

Summary
David Prays for Mercy

II Samuel 24:18-25

24:18. Gad came to David that day, and said: Go up, and build an altar to the Lord in the thrashingfloor of Areuna the Jebusite.

24:19. David went up according to the word of Gad which the Lord had commanded him.

24:20. Areuna looked, and saw the king and his servants coming towards him:

'''24:21. and going out he worshipped the king, bowing with his face to the earth, and said: Wherefore is my lord the king come to his servant? David said to him: To buy the thrashingfloor of you, and build an altar to the Lord, that the plague, which rages among the people, may cease.'''

24:22. Areuna said to David: Let my lord the king take, and offer, as it seems good to him: you have here oxen for a holocaust, and the wain, and the yokes of the oxen for wood.

24:23. All these things Areuna as a king gave to the king: and Areuna said to the king: The Lord your God receive your vow.

'''24:24. The king answered him, and said: Nay, but I will buy it of you, at a price, and I will not offer to the Lord my God holocausts free cost. So David bought the floor, and the oxen, for fifty sicles of silver:'''

24:25. David built there an altar to the Lord, and offered holocausts and peace offerings: and the Lord became merciful to the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel.

 21:18. The angel of the Lord commanded Gad to tell David, to go up, and build an altar to the Lord God in the thrashingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

21:19. David went up, according to the word of Gad, which he spoke to him in the name of the Lord.



21:20. Now when Ornan looked up, and saw the angel, he and his four sons hid themselves: for at that time he was thrashing wheat in the floor.

21:21. As David was coming to Ornan, Ornan saw him, and went out of the thrashingfloor to meet him, and bowed down to him with his face to the ground.

21:22. David said to him: Give me this place of thy thrashingfloor, that I may build therein an altar to the Lord: but thou shalt take of me as much money as it is worth, that the plague may cease from the people.

21:23. Ornan said to David: Take it, and let my lord the king do all that pleaseth him: and moreover the oxen also I give for a holocaust, and the drays for wood, and the wheat for the sacrifice: I will give it all willingly.

21:24. King David said to him: It shall not be so, but I will give thee money as much as it is worth: for I must not take it from thee, and so offer to the Lord holocausts free cost.

21:25. So David gave to Ornan for the place, six hundred sicles of gold of just weight.

Six hundred sicles, etc. . .This was the price of the whole place, on which the temple was afterwards built; but the price of the oxen was fifty sicles of silver. 2 Kings 24.24.

21:26. He built there an altar to the Lord: and he offered holocausts, and peace offerings, and he called upon the Lord, and he heard him by sending fire from heaven upon the altar of the holocaust.

21:27. The Lord commanded the angel: and he put up his sword again into the sheath.

21:28. David seeing that the Lord had heard him in the thrashingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, forthwith offered victims there.

21:29. But the tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses made in the desert, and the altar of holocausts, was at that time in the high place of Gabaon.

21:30. David could not go to the altar there to pray to God: for he was seized with an exceeding great fear, seeing the sword of the angel of the Lord.