1 Chronicles 21:18 - Meaning and Application

Here the dispute ends, and after David’s repentance, his peace with God is restored. Though God had been angry with him, that anger is now turned away.

First, the plague was stopped. In 1 Chronicles 21:15, God halted the angel’s work of judgment. When David repented, God also turned from the judgment and told the destroying angel to stop and put away his sword (1 Chronicles 21:27).

Second, David was told to build an altar in the threshing floor of Ornan, also called Araunah, a Jebusite landowner. The angel gave this message to the prophet Gad, and Gad passed it on to David. The same angel who had carried out God’s judgment now helped begin the way back to peace, because angels do not delight in days of grief. God could have given the command to David directly, but he chose to send it through the prophet, honoring the prophetic office. In the same way, the angel announced the revelation of Jesus Christ to John, and John passed it on to the churches. David being told to build an altar was a clear sign of reconciliation, because if God had meant to destroy him, he would not have called for a sacrifice from his hands.

Third, David quickly bought the threshing floor from Ornan, because he would not offer God anything that cost another man nothing. Ornan, acting generously, offered it freely, both out of respect for the king and because he had seen the angel himself (1 Chronicles 21:20). That sight terrified him, and he and his four sons hid, unable to bear the brightness of the angel’s glory and afraid of his drawn sword. When people truly feel the fear of the Lord, they do what they can in their own place to support worship and to help bring about reconciliation so God’s wrath may turn away.

Fourth, God showed that he accepted David’s offerings on that altar. He answered David from heaven by fire (1 Chronicles 21:26). The fire that could rightly have fallen on the sinner fell on the sacrifice instead and consumed it. Then the destroying sword was put back in its sheath. In this, Christ was made sin for us and became a curse for us, and it pleased the Lord to crush him, so that through him God might be to us not a consuming fire, but a Father who has made peace with us.

Fifth, David kept on offering sacrifices there. The bronze altar that Moses had made was at Gibeon (1 Chronicles 21:29), and that was where Israel normally offered sacrifices. But David was so shaken by the sight of the angel’s sword that he could not go there (1 Chronicles 21:30). The matter was urgent, because the plague had already begun. Aaron had to move quickly, even to run, to make atonement (Numbers 16:46-47), and this case was just as urgent. David had no time to go to Gibeon, and he dared not leave the angel standing over Jerusalem with his sword raised, in case the final blow came before he returned.

So, in kindness to David, God told him to build an altar there and made an exception to his law about one central altar because of the present distress. He accepted the sacrifices offered on this new altar, which was not set up against the old one, but alongside it. The signs of unity mattered less here than unity itself. Even after the crisis passed, David seems to have kept sacrificing there as long as he lived, though the altar at Gibeon was still in use, because God had already approved the sacrifices there and shown that he accepted them (1 Chronicles 21:28). It is wise to keep going where we have seen clear signs of God’s presence and have found by experience that he is truly with us. "Here God graciously met me, and so I will keep looking to meet with him here."