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1 Chronicles 21:1-22:1

The Place Where the Plague Was Stayed

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The Place Where the Plague Was Stayed

1 Chronicles 21:1-22:1

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The Place Where the Plague Was Stayed

1 Chronicles 21:1-22:1

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About this song

This song belongs to the 1 Chronicles collection. One recording is available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

Bible book
1 Chronicles
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1 Chronicles
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[Verse 1] Satan stands against Israel and provokes David to number the people. Joab questions why the king would bring guilt upon Israel. Joab reports the totals of Israel and Judah's swordsmen. David confesses that he has done very foolishly. [Pre-Chorus] The people drew near, but not by careless way, Holiness ordered every word and day. [Chorus] The Place Where the Plague Was Stayed, keep the covenant in view, Every word and ordered service true. From altar, ark, and house the witness rose, The holy God alone the ending knows. [Verse 2] The destroying angel reaches Jerusalem. God restrains the judgment at Ornan's threshing floor. David and the elders see the angel with drawn sword and fall in sackcloth. Gad commands David to build an altar on the threshing floor. [Bridge] Ornan bows and offers the place, oxen, tools. David insists on paying the full price and gives six hundred shekels of gold. Fire from heaven consumes the offerings, and the angel sheathes the sword. David identifies the site as the house of God and altar of burnt offering. [Final Chorus] The Place Where the Plague Was Stayed, keep the covenant in view, Every word and ordered service true. From altar, ark, and house the witness rose, The holy God alone the witness shows. [Outro] The lamps burned low, the ordered service stayed. The covenant remembered every vow that had been made.

Named in this songDavidJoabJerusalemAltar of burnt offering

About the passage

1 Chronicles 21: A drawn sword above the future temple site

1 Chronicles 21 is the dark hinge on which the temple preparations turn. A military census becomes trespass, and the chapter refuses to let the opening reference to Satan dissolve David’s responsibility. He overrides Joab, receives the count, confesses his own sin, and then watches the measured strength of Israel collapse under plague. Seventy thousand die before the destroying angel is restrained above Jerusalem. Only after that restraint does David purchase Ornan’s threshingfloor, build an altar, and receive an answer by fire. The order is crucial: mercy interrupts destruction before the king pays for the site. The chapter ends with the angel’s sword sheathed and David sacrificing where judgment stopped, too afraid to go to Gibeon. Catastrophe, mercy, sacrifice, and the future temple site become inseparable in the book’s memory.

Study 1 Chronicles 21 in depth

1 Chronicles 22: The king who will not build still prepares

The first words of 1 Chronicles 22 turn Ornan’s threshingfloor into a construction site: “This is the house of the LORD God.” David then devotes himself to a building he has been told not to build. That paradox shapes the chapter. He gathers stoneworkers, iron, brass, cedar, wealth, and skilled labor because Solomon is young and the work is immense. He also explains the distinction between their reigns. David has been a man of war; Solomon is to be a man of rest, and temple construction belongs to that different setting. Yet materials are not the only preparation. Solomon needs wisdom to keep the law, courage to act, and leaders willing to help him. The chapter refuses to treat a mountain of resources as sufficient. The house requires obedience, cooperation, and a successor who actually takes up the commission.

Study 1 Chronicles 22 in depth