What Does 1 Chronicles 21:22 Mean?
Then David said to Ornan, Give me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar in it to the LORD. Give it to me for silver in full measure, that the plague may be held back from the people.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the LORD: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people.THE KEY
The Hebrew word translated “stayed” means “held back,” so the altar is where the plague’s force is restrained from the people.
THE MEANING
The verse places the community’s survival beside David’s insistence on paying the full price for the ground where he will build the altar. The plague is a force that can be held back from the people. The verse keeps both the cost and the restraint in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The need to protect the people does not make another person’s land cost nothing. David names the full price.
THE ROOT
וְתֵעָצַר
ve-teʿatser
GROWS FROM
עצר
To restrain, hold back, or shut in.
The Hebrew verb presents the plague as something held back from the people, not merely an event that ends. The root also appears in words for restraint and for a solemn assembly, connecting stopping with a deliberate gathering or holding in place.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāṣūr: Restrained, held back, or shut up.
עָצוּר
This form makes the force of “stayed” concrete: something is being held in check.
ʿaṣeret: A solemn assembly or gathering.
עֲצֶרֶת
The related word carries the sense of a gathering that suspends ordinary activity, echoing the verse’s image of a force brought to a halt.
מִזְבֵּחַ
mizbēaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter or offer a sacrifice.
The Hebrew name for the altar grows from the word for slaughter or sacrifice. Even as David seeks a place where the plague may be restrained, the altar’s name retains the physical cost of what happens there.
ALSO GROWS
zebaḥ: A sacrifice or sacrificial meal.
זֶבַח
It shares the altar’s root and makes the altar’s sacrificial purpose audible within its name.
zōvēaḥ: One who slaughters or offers a sacrifice.
זֹבֵחַ
This form names the act associated with the altar, keeping the verse’s intended offering in view.
THE PATTERN
A threat to the whole people is checked at a point of costly mediation.
And he stood between the dead and the living, and the striking was held back.And David built there an altar to the LORD, and offered burnt offerings and offerings of wholeness. So the LORD was entreated for the land, and the striking was held back from Israel.Nor do you reckon that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish.THE THREAD
And he stood between the dead and the living, and the striking was held back.The Hebrew word for “stayed” in both verses comes from עצר (ʿāṣar), meaning to restrain or hold back. Numbers makes the boundary visible: Aaron stands between the dead and the living, and the plague is restrained.
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