18 And the angel of Jehovah commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up and rear an altar to Jehovah in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite. 19 And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of Jehovah. 20 And Ornan turned back and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. 21 And David came to Ornan, and Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshing-floor, and bowed himself to David with [his] face to the ground. 22 And David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of the threshing-floor, that I may build an altar in it to Jehovah: grant it to me for the full money, that the plague may be stayed from the people. 23 And Ornan said to David, Take it to thee, and let my lord the king do that which is good in his sight: see, I give the oxen for the burnt-offering, and the threshing-sledges for wood, and the wheat for the oblation; I give it all. 24 And king David said to Ornan, No; but I will in any case buy [them] for the full money; for I will not take that which is thine for Jehovah, to offer up a burnt-offering without cost. 25 And David gave to Ornan for the place in shekels of gold the weight of six hundred [shekels]. 26 And David built there an altar to Jehovah, and offered up burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and called upon Jehovah; and he answered him from the heavens by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering. 27 And Jehovah spoke to the angel; and he put up his sword again into its sheath.
28 At that time when David saw that Jehovah had answered him in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, then he sacrificed there. 29 And the tabernacle of Jehovah, which Moses had made in the wilderness, and the altar of burnt-offering, were at that time in the high place at Gibeon. 30 But David could not go before it to inquire of God; for he was afraid because of the sword of the angel of Jehovah.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Chronicles 21:18-30
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David's numbering the people.
No mention is made in this book of David's sin in the matter of Uriah, neither of the troubles that followed it: they had no needful connexion with the subjects here noted. But David's sin, in numbering the people, is related: in the atonement made for that sin, there was notice of the place on which the temple should be built. The command to David to build an altar, was a blessed token of reconciliation. God testified his acceptance of David's offerings on this altar. Thus Christ was made sin, and a curse for us; it pleased the Lord to bruise him, that through him, God might be to us, not a consuming Fire, but a reconciled God. It is good to continue attendance on those ordinances in which we have experienced the tokens of God's presence, and have found that he is with us of a truth. Here God graciously met me, therefore I will still expect to meet him.