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The Mount of Olives in YEHOVAH God’s Plan 5

Then David said to Ornan, “Grant me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an
ALTAR on it to YEHOVAH. You shall grant it to me at the full price, that the plague may
be withdrawn from the people....(Verse 22)

So David gave ORNAN six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the place (Verse 25).

And David built there an ALTAR to YEHOVAH, and offered burnt offerings and peace of-
ferings, and called on YEHOVAH; and He answered him from heaven by fire on the altar of
burnt offering.

This threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite, purchased by David for 600 shekels of gold be-
came the site for the Tabernacle; and eventually David’s son, Solomon, would replace the portable
Tabernacle with the more permanent Temple on Mount Moriah -- see II Chronicles 3:1. Writes Pe-
ter A. Michas: “It is highly significant that gold was used to purchase this particular site because
gold represents deity in the Bible. Indeed, the Divine Presence, as manifested by the Shekinah
(Glory Cloud), dwelled in the Holy of Holies on top of Mount Moriah” (The Rod of an Almond
Tree in God’s Master Plan, p.82).

However, as we will see, this was not the ONLY site that David was instructed to purchase
for the express purpose of erecting an altar to YEHOVAH. According to II Samuel 24:

The Berean Voice March-April 2003