What Does 1 Chronicles 21:24 Mean?
And King David said to Ornan, No, but I will truly buy it for the silver in full measure, for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, nor offer rising offerings without cost.
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
And king David said to Ornan, Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price: for I will not take that which is thine for the LORD, nor offer burnt offerings without cost.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for a burnt offering, עֹלָה (ʿōlāh, “that which rises”), shares its root with the parallel verse’s wording for what “costs” David: the offering’s ascent is tied to what has first risen to the giver.
THE MEANING
David’s name, דָּוִד (Dāwīd, “beloved”), places belovedness beside his refusal to claim another’s property as his own gift. What belongs to another does not become my offering merely because I present it to God. The verse makes the offering’s reality inseparable from what the giver personally places at stake.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a sacred act still counts as my gift when another person bears all of its cost.
THE ROOT
עֹלוֹת
ʿōlōt
GROWS FROM
עלה
Rise, ascend, go up.
English “burnt offerings” names what happens to the gift, while Hebrew עֹלוֹת (ʿōlōt, “rising offerings”) preserves its upward movement from עָלָה (ʿālāh, “to rise”). The parallel wording makes cost itself something that has “risen” to the giver, so the offering’s ascent and the giver’s stake share one image.
ALSO GROWS
ʿālāh: To rise, go up, ascend.
עָלָה
In the parallel verse, the thing that “doth cost” David is described with this same verb: it has not risen to him.
maʿălāh: Ascent, step, or upward place.
מַעֲלָה
This related word names an ascent directly, keeping the upward movement audible within the language of offering.
חִנָּם
ḥinnām
GROWS FROM
חנן
Show favor; extend benefit freely.
“without cost” in this verse is ḥinnām. Here חִנָּם (ḥinnām, “for nothing”) belongs to a word family that also names favor and showing favor. English gives the phrase its price sense, while Hebrew lets “for nothing” echo the language of freely extended favor.
ALSO GROWS
ḥēn: Favor, gracious acceptance.
חֵן
This related form names favor itself, bringing the language of gratuitous giving into the verse’s phrase “without cost.”
ḥānan: To show favor, act graciously.
חָנַן
The verb expresses favor as something extended, illuminating the word family behind “for nothing.”
THE PATTERN
An offering takes concrete shape in what is actually placed before God, whether a possession or a life.
But who am I, and what is my people, that we should hold the strength to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come from you, and from your hand have we given to you.For they all threw in out of their overflow, but she, out of her lack, threw in all that she had, even all her living.Therefore I urge you, brothers, through the compassions of God, to set your bodies beside God as a living sacrifice, set apart, well-pleasing to him, which is your true service.THE THREAD
And the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price. For I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God of what costs me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.In Samuel’s parallel, “that which doth cost me nothing” is framed with עָלָה (ʿālāh, “to rise/ascend”): it is what has not risen to David. The burnt offering is עֹלָה (ʿōlāh, “that which rises”), from the same root, binding what rises toward God to what has first risen to the giver.
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