ContradictionsReading order 359Bible context 2 min read
How much did David pay for the threshing floor?
The purchase accounts give different amounts and metals, while describing the purchased property with different precision.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Minor
- A local detail in a story, chronology, or inventory.
The payments differ drastically in amount and metal, but the later purchase's unspecified boundaries leave property scope uncertain.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
David pays fifty silver shekels for the floor and oxen
And the king said unto Araunah, Nay; but I will surely buy it of thee at a price: neither will I offer burnt offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing. So David bought the threshingfloor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.
2 Samuel 24:24
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:2 Samuel 24
David pays six hundred gold shekels for the place
So David gave to Ornan for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.
1 Chronicles 21:25
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:1 Chronicles 21