ARAUNAH or OMAN. A Jebusite, at whose threshing floor the plague sent for numbering the people was, at David's intercession, stayed. Be offered the area as a site for Jehovah's altar, and only by constraint accepted David's pay (50 shekels of silver, 2 Samuel 24:18-24; 600 shekels of gold, 1 Chronicles 21:25. As 50 silver shekels is far too low a price for the whole land, if there be no transcriber's error here, which is possible, probably the 50 silver shekels were paid for the small floor, the oxen, and wood of the yokes only; the 600 gold shekels for the whole hill on which David afterward built the temple). Contrast his kingly spirit, "Behold, here be oxen for burnt sacrifice and threshing instruments for wood," with the groveling excuse of the man invited to the king's banquet (Luke 14:19).
        But compare Elisha's similar spirit when called of: God's prophet (1 Kings 19:21). Self sacrifice raises one from degradation low as that of the accursed Jebusites to be in Israel a "king and a priest unto God" (compare 2 Samuel 24:23 with Exodus 19:6; 1 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 2:9; Revelation 1:6; Revelation 5:10; Revelation 20:6). "These things did Araunah (as) a king give" hardly warrant the guess that he Was of the royal Jebusite race. Keil translates "all this giveth Araunah, O king, to the king," which suits the fact that Araunah gave it in intention, but his offer was not accepted (compare Matthew 8:11-12; 1 Corinthians 1:27). Josephus (Ant. 7:13, sec. 9) says Araunah was one of David's chief friends, and spared by him when he took the citadel (v. 7). Probably he made his friendship when fleeing before Saul, when also he made that of Uriah the Hittite, Ittai the Gittite, etc.