What Does II Samuel 24:22 Mean?

Araunah offers his property freely: "And Araunah said unto David, Let my lord the king take and offer up what seemeth good unto him: behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice, and threshing instruments and other instruments of the oxen for wood." The Jebusite offers not only the land but the animals for sacrifice and the wooden instruments for fuel, providing everything that the altar requires. The generosity of the Gentile farmer is remarkable: a non-Israelite provides the material foundation for the worship that will save Israel.

The threshing instruments converted to fuel for the altar is a powerful image of transformation: the tools of agriculture become the instruments of worship, and the ordinary business of the threshing floor is converted into the sacred business of sacrifice. The transformation of the secular into the sacred is accomplished by the crisis that brings the king to the farmer's door, and the providence that connects the plague to the threshing floor converts the workplace into a sanctuary.

The Lord Jesus transforms every ordinary life into a living sacrifice: "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." The threshing instruments that Araunah offered for the fire anticipate the daily lives that believers offer to God, and the conversion of the ordinary into the sacred is the ongoing work of the Spirit in the lives of those who worship in spirit and in truth.