Question:
Can you please harmonize 2 Samuel 24:24 and 1 Chronicles 21:25: (1) the names, and (2) the price paid for the threshing floor?
Answer:
We’ll answer the second query first: Two separate transactions are recorded in the scriptures cited. (a) Fifty shekels of silver were paid for the actual threshing floor and the oxen. “So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.” 2 Samuel 24:24. And (b) six hundred shekels of gold were given for the entire place, or property, within which the threshing floor was located. “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. . . So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.” 1 Chronicles 21:22, 25.
Fifty shekels of silver was far too low a price for the entire land. Compare the four hundred shekels of silver Abraham paid for the field of Machpelah (See Genesis 23). The six hundred shekels of gold were paid for the entire hill on which Solomon afterward built the temple. See 2 Chronicles 3:1.
Regarding the difference in names, “Araunah” and “Ornan” are merely two forms of the same name in Hebrew.
Seeming contradictions in Holy Writ usually melt away under the scrutiny of the exact wording and the context of the queried passages.
