Read 2 Samuel 24 here (text coming …) or at Bible Gateway.
The Hebrew paragraphs:
24:1-2 {s} David moved to number the people of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba
24:3-10a {p} The captains of the army numbered 1,300,000 men of war/ David’s heart con-demned him
24:10b-11a {p} David confessed and repented of his sin
24:11b-13 {s} YHVH offers David a choice between three judgments
24:14-16 {s} Plague for three days/ YHVH relented from destruction
24:17 {p} David: I have sinned, but not these sheep; let Your hand be against me
24:18-23a {s} David instructed to erect an altar on the site where the angel stood
24:23b-25 {p} David did so, YHVH heeded the prayers for the land and stayed the plague
The Strong Themes:
24:1-10a {s+p} David numbered 1,300,000 men of war of Israel, but his heart condemned him
24:11b-17 {s+s+p} David: Let the judgment ordained against the sheep be against me
24:18-25 {s+p} David erected an altar and offered sacrifices/ the land healed, the plague stayed
2 Sam 21:1-24:25 Chiastic Structure
2 Sam 1:1-24:25 Reverse Parallelism
The Strong Theme from verses 11b-17 absolutely brought me to tears this morning. David, in an act which prophesies of Messiah, asks for the penalty for sin ordained against the sheep, be against him and not against them. This substitutionary “death” is a recurring Pattern for Prophetic Types in Scripture:
“Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since his life is bound up in the lad’s life, it will happen, when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die. So your servants will bring down the gray hair of your servant our father with sorrow to the grave. For your servant became surety for the lad to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father forever.’ Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad as a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers. For how shall I go up to my father if the lad is not with me, lest perhaps I see the evil that would come upon my father?” Gen 44:30-34
Judah, speaking to Joseph (who looks like an Egyptian nobleman after all, and not as Judah remembered him) asked to be made a substitute for Benjamin, who was decreed to become a slave. In asking to be made a slave instead, he is essentially ending the previous life he had known, so that slavery is a metaphor for death in Scripture.
Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, “You have committed a great sin. So now I will go up to YHVH; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” Then Moses returned to YHVH and said, “Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.” Exo 32:30-32
After the sin of the golden calf, Moses asked to become a substitute for the judgment which Israel had brought upon themselves.
These acts by David, Judah, and Moses prefigure the ultimate act of propitiation by Messiah:
And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. 1 Joh 2:2
Propitiation is the act of satisfying God’s righteous anger against sin, uniquely fullfilled through the atoning sacrifice of Messiah’s death on the cross. It was the means by which God’s justice was satisfied, thus turning away His wrath from sinners and reconciling them to Himself.
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