What Does 1 Chronicles 21:28 Mean?
At that time, when David saw that the LORD had answered him on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he slaughtered there.
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
At that time when David saw that the LORD had answered him in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there.THE KEY
The place where the answer is recognized becomes an altar because Hebrew ties sacrifice and altar to the same root.
THE MEANING
When the answer becomes visible to you, this verse holds seeing and response together: David sees that the LORD has answered him, and he sacrifices there. Recognition takes form at the very place the answer meets him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that seeing the answer completes the encounter: David’s recognition opens into an offering at that same place.
THE ROOT
וַיִּזְבַּח
wayyizbaḥ
GROWS FROM
זבח
To slaughter or offer in sacrifice.
“slaughtered” in this verse is wayyizbaḥ. English can make “sacrificed” sound like an action detached from its place. The same Hebrew root gives מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbēaḥ), “altar,” so the “there” is a place where the answer becomes an offering.
ALSO GROWS
zebaḥ: Sacrifice or sacrificial offering.
זֶבַח
The noun carries the same root as David’s act, joining the offering to the verb that describes it.
mizbēaḥ: Altar.
מִזְבֵּחַ
The root joins the act of sacrifice to the altar; David’s response makes the place itself an offering-place.
עָנָהוּ
ʿānāhû
GROWS FROM
ענה
To answer or respond.
“answered” in this verse is ʿānāhû. The answer is a response directed to someone, not a detached message. The verse places the LORD’s answer to David beside David’s own response at that very place.
ALSO GROWS
ʿānāh: To answer or respond.
עָנָה
This is the verb at the heart of the verse: the LORD responds to David.
maʿăneh: An answer or reply.
מַעֲנֶה
The related noun makes the response itself tangible, echoing the verse’s movement from the LORD’s answer to David’s offering.
דָּוִד
Dāwīd
GROWS FROM
דוד
Beloved; the name is associated with דּוֹד (dôd), “beloved.”
English presents David only as a name, while Hebrew carries the sense of “beloved” within it. The one who recognizes the answer is named by belovedness, placing the offering within a relationship of love.
ALSO GROWS
dôd: Beloved; also uncle.
דּוֹד
This word carries the beloved sense associated with David’s name.
dôdîm: Loves or caresses.
דּוֹדִים
This related form, used for “love” in Song of Solomon 1:2, shows the same consonant seed carrying affection.
THE PATTERN
What is received from God takes embodied form as an offering.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and look, behind him a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and raised him up as a rising offering in place of his son.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.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
Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, in Mount Moriah, where the LORD was seen by David his father, in the place David had set firm on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.The threshing floor where David sees the LORD’s answer and sacrifices is named as the place for the LORD’s house. The offering place opens into the temple site, carrying the encounter forward as a dwelling.
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