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When God heard his supplication, he caused the pestilence to cease,
and sent Gad the prophet to him, and commanded him to go up immediately
to the thrashing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, and build an altar there
to God, and offer sacrifices. When David heard that, he did not neglect
his duty, but made haste to the place appointed him. Now Araunah was thrashing
wheat; and when he saw the king and all his servants coming to him, he
ran before, and came to him and worshipped him: he was by his lineage a
Jebusite, but a particular friend of David's; and for that cause it was
that, when he overthrew the city, he did him no harm, as we informed the
reader a little before. Now Araunah inquired, "Wherefore
is my lord come to his servant?" He answered, to buy of him the
thrashing-floor, that he might therein build an altar to God, and offer
a sacrifice. He replied, that he freely gave him both the thrashing-floor
and the ploughs and the oxen for a burnt-offering; and he besought God
graciously to accept his sacrifice. But the king made answer, that he took
his generosity and magnanimity loudly, and accepted his good-will, but
he desired him to take the price of them all, for that it was not just
to offer a sacrifice that cost nothing. And when Araunah said he would
do as he pleased, he bought the thrashing-floor of him for fifty shekels.
And when he had built an altar, he performed Divine service, and brought
a burnt-offering, and offered peace-offerings also. With these God was
pacified, and became gracious to them again. Now it happened that
Abraham 1came
and offered his son Isaac for a burnt-offering at that very place; and
when the youth was ready to have his throat cut, a ram appeared on a sudden,
standing by the altar, which Abraham sacrificed in the stead of his son,
as we have before related. Now when king David saw that God had heard his
prayer, and had graciously accepted of his sacrifice, he resolved
to call that entire place The Altar of all the People, and to build
a temple to God there; which words he uttered very appositely to what was
to be done afterward; for God sent the prophet to him, and told him that
there should his son build him an altar, that son who was to take the kingdom
after him.
2
1 What Josephus adds here is very remarkable, that this Mount Moriah was not only the very place where Abraham offered up Isaac long ago, but that God had foretold to David by a prophet, that here his son should build him a temple, which is not directly in any of our other copies, though very agreeable to what is in them, particularly in 1 Chronicles 21:25, 28; 22:1, to which places I refer the reader.
2 THAT DAVID MADE GREAT PREPARATIONS FOR THE HOUSE OF GOD; AND THAT, UPON ADONIJAH'S ATTEMPT TO GAIN THE KINGDOM, HE APPOINTED SOLOMON TO REIGN.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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