The name Ornan (אָרְנָן, also Araunah in 2 Samuel 24) refers to a Jebusite who owned a threshing floor on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. After David's sinful census brought a plague upon Israel, God directed David to build an altar on Ornan's threshing floor. David purchased the site and insisted he would not offer to God what cost him nothing.
The threshing floor of Ornan is one of the most theologically charged locations in the Bible. It sits on Mount Moriah — the very mountain where Abraham bound Isaac as a sacrifice (Genesis 22:2). Solomon later built the Temple on this same threshing floor (2 Chronicles 3:1). Three converging events mark this spot: Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac, David's altar and purchase, and Solomon's Temple. David's declaration — 'I will not sacrifice to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing' — remains a piercing call to costly, wholehearted worship.