The Threshing Floor of Araunah

A Reflection on Mercy and the Freedom of God

The book of 2 Samuel ends with what many scholars call "appendices," bits of poetry and narrative that are tacked onto the end of the book. These appendices are found in 2 Samuel 21-24.

The last story from the appendices, found in Chapter 24, recounts the census David undertakes and God's judgment upon him for doing so. Explanations vary as to why God was angered by the census. For whatever reason, the census was judged as an act of hubris by David, a usurping of God's prerogatives as the True King of Israel.

David realizes his sin and confesses. God, through the prophet of Gad, gives David a choice of punishments: three years of famine, three years of being chased by enemies, or three years of plague. David chooses the plague. And so the destroying angel begins to work, killing 70,000 people.

But then something interesting happens. As the destroying angel approaches Jerusalem God changes his mind and says "Enough!":

When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. (2 Samuel 24.16)

David sees the angel stopped at the threshing floor of Araunah and asks for God to end the plague. David then buys the threshing floor, builds an altar on the spot, and offers sacrifices to God.

What I've always found interesting in this narrative is that God had already stopped before David's request and his sacrifices. Various translations of verse 16 read that God "relented," "repented," "changed his mind," and "felt sorry." The destruction stopped because something happened in the heart of God prior to any human appeal or sacrifice.

I think this is interesting because of why this story is included as an appendix to 2 Samuel. Specifically, the story was included to explain why the temple was built where it was built. The threshing floor of Araunah was on Mount Moriah where the temple was built:

Then Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David. (2 Chronicles 3.1)

I think this is interesting because, from this point forward, the temple becomes the location of sacrifice in ancient Israel. You would come to the temple to offer sacrifices so that God would forgive your sins. And because of those rituals you might be led to believe that God needs or requires these sacrifices in order to show and extend mercy.

And yet, in the primordial account of the threshing floor of Araunah we note that mercy wasn't triggered or effected by sacrifice. Mercy was found in the heart of God who relents and changes his mind. Mercy was found in a God who says "Enough!" to punishment, without needing sacrifices or blood. This is the same startling turn we find over and over again in the prophets. After a season of punishment there is a sudden, unpredicted, eucatastrophic turn. God simply says, "Enough!" Perhaps the classic example of this turn is Isaiah 40:

Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.

Israel's had been punished, twice over, and God says "Enough!" 

I find the events at the threshing floor of Araunah interesting for two reasons. 

First, as noted, what would later become the site of sacrifice in Israel's life was primordially associated with a moment of non-sacrificial mercy, pardon that flowed solely from the freedom of God. That insight is important as many visions of atonement posit the necessity of sacrificial appeasement, our pardon contingent upon some mechanism of forgiveness. But such a mechanism has never been true of God. Even the temple, with all its sacrifices, was built upon a site where God's pardon was extended from God's own freedom and prerogative. Nothing need happen for God to forgive. Mercy is the Lord's.

Second, no punishment can ever be considered final. God always has the prerogative to say "Enough!" If God exists there is always hope.