THIS MIGHT SURPRISE YOU

David buys the threshing floor where the temple will later stand. In which book does he pay six hundred shekels of gold for it?

The answer

1 Chronicles. "So David paid Ornan six hundred shekels of gold by weight for the site" (1 Chronicles 21:25). In 2 Samuel the seller is called Araunah, and "David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver" (2 Samuel 24:24).

Why it’s interesting

Chronicles keeps this story, plague and all, because the floor becomes the site of the temple (1 Chronicles 22:1), the building the book cares about most. Its census counts run differently too: 1,100,000 and 470,000 against Samuel's 800,000 and 500,000 (21:5; 2 Samuel 24:9). And in Chronicles alone, fire from heaven answers David's offering on the new altar (21:26).

Scholarly consensus

Learn the Bible.

Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.