In the previous blog post, we saw that David purchased Araunah’s threshing floor and built an altar there. Solomon, David’s son, later built the temple on the same site. The description we find of this connects Araunah’s threshing floor with another important event.
2 Chronicles 3
1 Now Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where he appeared to David his father, whom David had prepared at the site of the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite
Moriah
The place where Solomon built the temple is the threshing floor of Araunah (>Ornan), but it is also the same as Mount Moriah. It appears only once other time in the Bible, in Genesis 22, where Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac.
This story, too, is rich in symbolism. Abraham was commanded to sacrifice the son of promise (Gen. 17:19), his only son (Heb. 11:17), and this happened on the third day (Gen. 22:4). At the moment Abraham raised his hand, an angel of God stopped him (Gen. 22:1-12), and Isaac did not die.
Resurrection
Isaac was the son through whom God would fulfill His promises to Abraham. The Epistle to the Hebrews indicates that Abraham believed that if he were actually forced to kill Isaac, God would also raise him from the dead (Heb. 11:17-19). Abraham believed in resurrection. In the letter to the Galatians, Paul explains that the promised seed of Abraham is ultimately not Isaac, but Christ (Gal. 3:16). This makes it clear that Isaac is a foreshadow, a type, of Christ.
Kingdom
The temple is the symbol of God’s dwelling place on earth (Ex. 25:8) and is a picture of the Kingdom, which begins in Jerusalem. When Christ returns, He will establish His Kingdom worldwide, starting with Israel. The meeting of Boaz and Ruth on the threshing floor is a picture of this.
The threshing floor represents Zion, the center of the Messiah’s rule (Ps. 2:6; 110:2). In the future, the nations will come up to Jerusalem, and there the true Boaz will enter into judgment with them.
Micah 4
11 Now many nations are gathered against you. They say, “Let her be defiled, and let our eyes look upon Zion.”
12 But they do not know the plans of the LORD. They do not understand His counsel, how He has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.
God Gathers the Nations
The nations will gather against Yahweh and His Messiah (Ps. 2:1-3). They do not want Him as King. They think they are carrying out their own plans, but it is God himself who gathers them like sheaves on the threshing floor. There their resistance will be broken (Ps. 2:9; 110:5-7). His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will purge His threshing floor, and He will gather His wheat into His barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire (Matt. 3:12).