Araunah was a Jebusite whose threshing floor (where grain was separated from chaff) was the scene of some significant events in biblical history. (Jebus was the name of an ancient Canaanite city that later became Jerusalem.)
The Lord stopped an angel from further inflicting Israel with a pestilence (disease or plague) after the death of 70,000 Israelites (2 Samuel 24:15–16). This plague from the Lord was the result of King David’s prideful census. Araunah's threshing floor marked the site of this event.
At the instruction of the prophet Gad, the repentant David purchased the floor to build an altar (2 Samuel 24:17–25). Araunah offered oxen and everything needed for the altar as a gift. David insisted on paying him, saying, "I will not offer to the LORD my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”" (2 Samuel 24:24).
A parallel account uses the Hebrew form Ornan for the Jebusite’s foreign name (1 Chronicles 21:15–16). The tabernacle and altar were too far away on the hill of Gibeon (1 Chronicles 21:27–30). This account says David was in too much of a hurry to go to the tabernacle to make his sacrifice.
David chose the threshing floor as the site for the temple (1 Chronicles 22:1). Solomon later built the temple there on Mount Moriah (2 Chronicles 3:1). The threshing floor marked the same area where God had commanded Abraham to go for the sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22:2).
Today, an important Muslim shrine called the Dome of the Rock stands where many believe Araunah's threshing floor once was.