2 Samuel 24:24 and 1 chronicle 21:24-25 gives conflicting information about the same event. One says ‘Araunah’ and ‘50 shekels of silver’ and the other says ‘Ornan’ and ‘600 shekels of gold’. How do you resolve this?

In both 2 Samuel 24:1-25 and 1 Chronicles 21:1-29 the Bible talks about the time King David ordered a census to know how many there are. This displeased God following which a pestilence ravaged Israel and took the life of seventy thousand people. When David repented, he was instructed by God through Gad to erect an altar on the threshing floor of a certain Jebusite. Here is where we see an apparent deviation in the narrative. While 2 Samuel 24:18 names the Jebusite as Araunah (Hebrew: אֲרַוְנָה), in 1 Chronicles 21:18 the name given is Ornan (Hebrew: אָרְנָן). There are two possible ways in which this “discrepancy” can be resolved. The first one would be that both Araunah and Ornan are two names of the same person. Other examples of the same person having more than one name would be: Moses’ father-in-law is known as Reuel and Jethro (Exodus 2:18; 3:1);  Jotham’s father was known both as Azariah (2 Kings 15:7) and Uzziah (2 Kings 15:32). Even today we see that the same person might go by different names. One’s full name might be James Bond. He may also be known as Jimmy among his friends or as Mr. Bond among co-workers and if he were to come to Kerala, his name in the native language Malayalam would be “yākkēāb” (യാക്കോബ്). The second possible explanation is that one of the names given in the scripture could be an orthographical variant of the other (variant spelling of the same name).  This is suggested in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (Word No: 728). As one can see, being referred to with two different names (Araunah and Ornan) is not necessarily a discrepancy in the Scripture.

Moving forward in the narrative we see David offering sacrifice to the Lord after paying Araunah (who was also known as Ornan) some amount of money. While writers of 2 Samuel ( according to Jewish tradition, the book was written by Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan) record that David paid fifty shekels of silver, the writer of 1 Chronicles (Jewish and Christian tradition identifies this author as the 5th century BC figure Ezra) documents that the amount was six hundred shekels of gold. Some consider this as an error of commission (error related to recording or posting of incorrect entries). If it was, then this could imply that there could be other such errors too. Which when taken to its logical conclusion could mean that whatever recorded in the Scripture is unreliable. At least this is how many perceive it. But is this really the case? The answer lies in 1 Chronicles 22:1 – Then David said, “Here shall be the house of the Lord God and here the altar of burnt offering for Israel.”

This means that David had not only bought the threshing floor but also the land surrounding it in order to build the Temple (which would later be done by his son Solomon).  According to 2 Chronicles 3:1 the Temple was built by King Solomon on Mount Moriah and the site is called the Temple Mount. The current area of the Temple Mount is approximately 37 acres. But it is known that King Herod the Great, in 19 BC, had more than doubled the area. So let’s be conservative and suppose that it was only 10 acres before the time of expansion. If we want to be further conservative we could assume that David bought just enough land to build the Temple building, but that is highly unlikely. 

From this we can say the following:

1. The account found in 2 Samuel 24 records only David’s purchase of the threshing floor and oxen.
2. On the other hand, the account in 1 Chronicles 21 records a higher price for the full purchase, including the surrounding land.

As we can see, the Biblical data presented do not contradict each other but rather are to be taken as complementary information.