As several
commentators have observed, Perrin first shows the high probability that David
functioned as a king-priest during the times of his kinship. For example, wen
David brings the ark into Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6), he performs several actions
reflective of being a priest: (1) he makes sacrifices (vv. 13, 17), a function performed
by priests (Num. 3:6-8, 14-38; 4:47; etc.); (2) he wears an ephod (v. 14), a
piece of clothing ordinarily worn by priests (Exod. 28:4); (3) David erects the
tabernacle (v. 17), which was the ordinary task of Levitical priests (Num 1:51;
4:1-33); (4) finally, David blesses the people (v. 18), a usual priestly function
(Num. 6:22-27; Deut. 10:8; 21:5). In the same event narrated in 1 Chronicles
15-16, David is presented virtually as a high priest figure, who oversees the commencement
of the organization of the Levitical priests according to the various tasks that
they built: (1) In 15:3-15 Daivd commands the heads of the various Levitical
households to “[consecrate] themselves to bring up the ark” (15:14). (2) He
delegates various roles to different groups of Levites. Some are to sing and play
music (15:16-24; 16:41-42), others “to celebrate and to think and praise the
LORD” (16:4; see also 16:5-36), “to minister before the ark continually, as
every day’s work required” (16:37-38), and to “offer burnt offerings” (16:40).
Similarly,
on another occasion “David built . . . and later to the Lord, and he offered burnt
offerings and peace offerings,” which was a representative act on Israel’s behalf
averting a national plague (2 Sam. 24:25). That this was a priestly function is
further evident from observing that this was the place where the foundation of
Solomon’s temple was to be laid (2 Chron. 3:1). (See Perrin, Jesus the
Priest, 153-54, for David as a priest)
We can add
to Perrin’s portrait of David as a priest. First Chronicles narrates David’s preparations
for the temple that Solomon will build. David’s preparatory actions include all
the same elements found with the small-scale temple-building activities and
priestly activities of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which confirms that their building
activities were, indeed, miniature version of, or pointers to, a later
sanctuary:
1.
David began the preparations on a mountain (Mount Moriah).
2.
David experienced a theophany (he sees “the angel of the LORD standing
between earth and heaven”; so 1 Chron. 21:16; cf. 2 Chron. 3:1).
3.
At this site, “David built . . . an altar to the LORD” (1 Chron. 21:26).
4.
He “offered burnt offerings. . . . And he called to the LORD (1 Chron.
21:26).
5.
Furthermore, David called the place “the house of the LORD God” (1
Chron. 22:1) because this is the site of Israel’s future temple, to be prepared
by David and built by Solomon (1 Chron. 22; 2 Chron. 3:1).
Now we can
see more clearly that the altar-building activities of the patriarchs were
constructions of small-scale sanctuaries that find their climax with the
larger-scale construction of Israel’s temple. The episode in 1 Chronicles 21 particularly
mirrors the one with Jacob, where also God and angels appear to him and a link
between “earth” and “heaven” is underscored. The reason why David performed priestly
activities at this site was twofold: first, from that very site the temple of
Israel was to be built; second, the 1 Chronicles 21 passage goes on to say that
“the tabernacle . . . which Moses had made . . . and the later of burnt
offering were in . . .Gibeon at that time” (21:29). This latter point
implies not only that David was not able to travel there to offer sacrifices at
the properly designated cultic place but also that a transition from the
movable tabernacle to the permanent temple had begun. Mount Moriah was not
becoming the designated place for sacrifice because the temple would soon be
built there (Tg. Ps.-J. Gen. 2:7 says that God created Adam partly of “dust
from the site of the sanctuary,” which the writer then identifies with Mount
Moriah [Tg. Ps.-J. Gen. 3:23]) and David was there already performing priestly functions.
(G. K. Beale, Union with the Resurrected Christ: Eschatological New Creation
and New Testament Biblical Theology [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic,
2023], 205-6)