Ornan was a Jebusite who lived during the time of David. He is also recorded as Araunah. When David was punished by God for the sin of taking a census, Ornan owned a threshing floor on Mount Moriah. An angel of God stood in his threshing floor, and David purchased the threshing floor for a price and built an altar there.
1 Chronicles 21:15David) lifted up his eyes, and saw Yahweh’s angel standing between earth and the sky, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces.1 Chronicles 21:16David said to God, “Isn’t it I who commanded the people to be counted? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O Yahweh my God, be against me, and against my father’s house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.”1 Chronicles 21:17Then Yahweh’s angel commanded Gad to tell David) that David should go up and raise an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.1 Chronicles 21:18David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spoke in Yahweh’s name.1 Chronicles 21:19Ornan) turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat.1 Chronicles 21:20As David)) came to Ornan), Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing floor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground.1 Chronicles 21:21Then David said to Ornan, “Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar to Yahweh on it. You shall sell it to me for the full price, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”1 Chronicles 21:22Ornan said to David, “Take it for yourself, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his eyes. Behold, I give the oxen for burnt offerings, and the threshing instruments for wood, and the wheat for the meal offering. I give it all.”1 Chronicles 21:23King David said to Ornan, “No; but I will most certainly buy it for the full price. For I will not take that which is yours for Yahweh, nor offer a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”1 Chronicles 21:24So David gave to Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place.1 Chronicles 21:25David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings, and called on Yahweh; and he answered him from the sky by fire on the altar of burnt offering.1 Chronicles 21:26Then Yahweh commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath.1 Chronicles 21:27At that time, when David saw that Yahweh had answered him in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.1 Chronicles 21:28For Yahweh’s tabernacle, which Moses made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon.
2 Samuel 24:16David spoke to Yahweh when he saw the angel who struck the people, and said, “Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father’s house.”2 Samuel 24:17Gad came that day to David, and said to him, “Go up, build an altar to Yahweh on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”2 Samuel 24:18David went up according to the saying of Gad, as Yahweh commanded.2 Samuel 24:19Araunah looked out, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. Then Araunah went out, and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground.2 Samuel 24:20Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy your threshing floor, to build an altar to Yahweh, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”2 Samuel 24:21Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Behold, the cattle for the burnt offering, and the threshing instruments and the yokes of the oxen for the wood.2 Samuel 24:22All this, O king, does Araunah give to the king.” Araunah said to the king, “May Yahweh your God accept you.”2 Samuel 24:23The king said to Araunah, “No; but I will most certainly buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to Yahweh my God which cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.2 Samuel 24:24David built an altar to Yahweh there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So Yahweh was entreated for the land, and the plague was removed from Israel.
2 Chronicles 3:1He began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign.