Araunah

Araunah (Hebrew: אֲרַוְנָה ʾǍrawnā) was a Jebusite mentioned in the Second Book of Samuel, who owned the threshing floor on Mount Moriah which David purchased and used as the site for assembling an altar to God. The First Book of Chronicles, a later text, renders his name as Ornan (אָרְנָן ʾOrnān).

Biblical narrative

The narrative concerning Araunah appears in both 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. The Samuel version is the final member of a group of narratives which together constitute the "appendix" (2 Samuel 21–24) of the Books of Samuel, which do not fit into the chronological ordering of the rest of Samuel. In the Samuel narrative, Yahweh was angry again both with the Israelites and David, King of Israel, who imposed a census on the Israelites, an order Joab reluctantly carried out. According to the version of the narrative presented in the Books of Chronicles, it was Satan who incited David to take the census. Yahweh regarded David's action as a sin, and so punished him, sending Gad the prophet to offer David a choice between three punishments:

Seven years of famine (which counts the 4 years of famine that already happened before the census was completed per 2 Samuel 21:1), or (put more symmetrically) 3 more years of famine, as in 1 Chronicles 21:12 and in the Septuagint translation of 2 Samuel;

Three months of fleeing from an invader;

Three days of plague from the Angel of the Lord.

David indicated that instead of falling into the hands of men, he would rather fall into the hands of God's mercy and discretion. An angel was sent to spread a plague. However, when the angel reached Jerusalem, God ordered the angel to stop; at this point, the angel was at Araunah's threshing floor, which David noticed.