What Does 1 Chronicles 21:18 Mean in the King James?

Then the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the LORD in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

1 Chronicles 21:18 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

This verse in the Selah Decoded Version

THE KEY

The command to “go up” shares its Hebrew root with the burnt offering, the thing that rises, so David’s ascent already echoes the altar’s upward movement.

THE MEANING

David is directed to a particular threshing floor, where an altar is to be established. A place where grain is separated becomes a place of approach to the LORD; separation is not the end of what can happen there.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

This undoes the belief that a place of separation can hold only loss: here, that very ground receives an altar.

THE ROOT

לַעֲלוֹת

laʿalot

GROWS FROM

עלה

ʿ-l-h

to rise, ascend, or go up

The command to go up shares its root with ⁨עֹלָה⁩ (ʿolah), a burnt offering, literally, that which rises. English separates David’s ascent from the offering associated with the altar, while Hebrew lets both echo the movement of rising.

ALSO GROWS

ʿolah: burnt offering; that which rises

עֹלָה

Its shared root makes the upward movement toward the altar resonate with the rising offering.

maʿalah: ascent, step, or degree

מַעֲלָה

This branch carries the same root into the idea of a rising path or level, widening “go up” beyond a single physical movement.

מִזְבֵּחַ

mizbēaḥ

GROWS FROM

זבח

z-b-ḥ

to slaughter or offer sacrifice

The altar’s name grows from the act of sacrifice, so the verse prepares a place for offering rather than setting up an abstract sacred marker. At a threshing floor, where grain is separated from its stalk, the root places the altar’s act of giving over beside another kind of separation.

ALSO GROWS

zevaḥ: sacrifice

זֶבַח

This noun names what is offered at the mizbeach, joining the altar to the act it receives.

zōvēaḥ: one who sacrifices; sacrificing

זֹבֵחַ

This active form names the person performing the act, showing the root moving from the offering place to the one who offers.

THE PATTERN

An altar turns a place of offering into a meeting point where God comes near.

And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

Genesis 22:9 · KJVThe appointed place is marked by an altar and a life laid upon it, joining location with offering as the verse does.

An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.

Exodus 20:24 · KJVThe LORD ties the altar to his coming near, making the place of offering a concrete meeting point.

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:5 · KJVThe people become a house as they offer sacrifices, carrying the altar’s meeting pattern into communal life.

THE THREAD

Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.

2 Chronicles 3:1 · KJV

This verse names the threshing floor as the ground where the house of the LORD is built. The altar commanded there opens into architecture: the same place of separation becomes a place of dwelling.

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