1 Chronicles21:7–13

"I have played the fool": the rare verb that lands on kings verbal / quotation: confirmed

David's last word of confession is נִסְכַּלְתִּי (çâkal, H5528), a verb the Verifier finds in only eight verses of the whole canon. Two of the Verifier's candidates put the verb in the mouth of a prophet rebuking a reigning king: 1 Samuel 13:13, where Samuel tells Saul he has done foolishly, and 2 Chronicles 16:9, where Hanani brings the same charge against Asa. The other two candidates, Genesis 31:28 and Isaiah 44:25, are not royal at all. The shared lexeme is the recorded basis; the grouping of the two royal instances is our observation, not the Verifier's. What the rarity buys is this: the Chronicler did not reach for the ordinary word for sin twice. He put châṭâʼ first and çâkal last, so that the confession moves from missing the mark to having been made a fool, which is what counting your own strength does to a man.

1 Samuel 13:13 · 2 Chronicles 16:9 · Genesis 31:28 · Isaiah 44:25

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H5528 çâkal, rare (in 8 vv canon-wide), at 1 Samuel 13:13, 2 Chronicles 16:9, Genesis 31:28 and Isaiah 44:25. The tier rests on the rarity of the lexeme; no verse quotes another.

The same confession in two books: 1 Chronicles 21:8 and 2 Samuel 24:10 structural / thematic: confirmed

The Verifier records three shared lexemes between this verse and 2 Samuel 24:10: châṭâʼ (H2398), ʻâvôn (H5771) and the particle nâʼ (H4994). All three are common words, so the weight of the link is not lexical but narrative: these are the same confession told twice. Ellicott says the Chronicler's verse "is verbatim the same with its parallel" except for the substitution of God for Jehovah, the added "this thing," and the omitted divine name in the second half. K&D uses the same comparison to argue the Chronicler's independence rather than his error. We tier this structural and not verbal precisely because common vocabulary cannot carry a verbal claim on its own, even where the parallel is as close as this one.

2 Samuel 24:10

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H2398 châṭâʼ (in 220 vv), H5771 ʻâvôn (in 215 vv), H4994 nâʼ (in 375 vv). All common; the link rests on the acknowledged synoptic parallel (Ellicott, K&D, Pulpit) rather than on rare vocabulary.

Gad the seer: one title, four appearances structural / thematic: confirmed

חֹזֵה (chôzeh, H2374) is not a common designation: the Verifier places the lexeme in 17 verses, and three of its candidates are the other places where Gad carries it, 2 Samuel 24:11, 1 Chronicles 29:29 and 2 Chronicles 29:25. Cambridge makes the count explicit: Gad "is three times mentioned in Chron., each time as a "seer"." Pulpit sets the title against the rarer hārōʼeh, "the word of higher import," and observes that the Authorized Version flattens both into "seer" within a single verse at 1 Chronicles 29:29. Ellicott infers from that last passage that Gad may have written the original record of this census, which is his inference and not a statement of either text. The tier is structural: a recurring office title is a real lexical thread, but no one of these verses quotes another.

2 Samuel 24:11 · 1 Chronicles 29:29 · 2 Chronicles 29:25

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexemes H2374 chôzeh (in 17 vv) and H1410 Gâd (in 69 vv) at 2 Samuel 24:11, 1 Chronicles 29:29 and 2 Chronicles 29:25. Deliberately not tiered verbal: the shared item is a recurring title, not a quotation.

"Take for thyself": the late verb of receiving what God holds out verbal / quotation: confirmed

In v. 11 Gad does not tell David to select. He says קַבֶּל־לָךְ (qâbal, H6901), take, receive, admit. Ellicott: "Our "choose" ( take ) is a word of later use in Hebrew. The Syriac gives the same term ( qabbél ) ." The Verifier finds the lexeme in only twelve verses, among them Job 2:10, where the question is whether a man will receive evil from God as well as good, and 1 Chronicles 12:18, where what is received is men coming over to David, and Esther 4:4 and Exodus 36:12. Job 2:10 is the sharpest of these: the same rare verb, the same problem of accepting harm from the hand of God. The connection of sense between the two is our reading; what the Verifier certifies is the shared rare lexeme.

Job 2:10 · 1 Chronicles 12:18 · Esther 4:4 · Exodus 36:12

basis: Verifier: shared Hebrew lexeme H6901 qâbal, rare (in 12 vv canon-wide), at Job 2:10, 1 Chronicles 12:18, Esther 4:4 and Exodus 36:12. Rarity is the whole of the basis; neither verse cites the other, and the thematic pairing with Job 2:10 is our own.

Three years or seven: a number the witnesses do not agree on flagged: verify source

Where this verse offers three years of famine, the Masoretic text of 2 Samuel 24:13 offers seven. Ellicott prefers the Chronicler's reading as "harmonising with the three months and three days," and suggests Samuel's seven "perhaps originated in some scribe's memory of the famine described in Genesis 41:30." Pulpit says the Septuagint "indicates this to be but a corruption of a later text; for it reads "three," as here." Cambridge simply records both: "2 Sam., seven years of famine (LXX. however three , as Chron.)." Underneath sits a second, related dispute already noted at v. 12: K&D holds that nispeh is original to Chronicles, Ellicott that it is a corruption of Samuel's "thy flying," and Cambridge reports that "Some scholars would correct the text of Chron. into agreement with 2 Samuel 24:13 ." We flag rather than confirm this link: the connection between the verses is certain, but the text-critical basis on which our sources judge it is contested among those same sources, and none of them cites a manuscript directly.

2 Samuel 24:13 · Genesis 41:30

basis: Verifier bases for 2 Samuel 24:13 are common lexemes only (H1410 Gâd in 69 vv, H7969 shâlôwsh in 381 vv). The substantive link is text-critical and disputed within the brief's own sources: Ellicott, Pulpit and Cambridge report the Masoretic seven against the Septuagint and Chronicles three, and K&D and Ellicott contradict each other on nispeh. Provenance of the versional evidence is secondhand in every source here, so the link is flagged for verification.

Famine, sword, pestilence: a triad that runs to the last book structural / thematic: confirmed

The three options of v. 12 are not invented for David. Pulpit lists the pattern's other appearances: "The three inflictions of famine, sword, pestilence, are found not unfrequently elsewhere in Scripture (see Deuteronomy 28:21-25 ; Ezekiel 14:21 ; Revelation 6:4-8 )." Ellicott adds Ezekiel 5:17, Ezekiel 14:13-19 and Leviticus 26:25-26, and observes that "in the thought of those times pestilence and "the sword," or "angel of the Lord," would be suggestive of each other," comparing 2 Kings 19:35. The reach into Revelation 6 is a cross-Testament link and cannot be verified by shared Strong's numbers, since the Hebrew and Greek lexicons do not share identifiers; the basis is the recurring triad itself as recorded by Pulpit, and we tier it structural accordingly rather than verbal.

Leviticus 26:25-26 · Deuteronomy 28:21-25 · Ezekiel 14:21 · Revelation 6:4-8

basis: No shared Strong's basis is possible across Hebrew and Greek, so no verbal tier is available for the Revelation 6 leg. The recorded basis is the triad of famine, sword and pestilence as listed by Pulpit (Deuteronomy 28:21-25; Ezekiel 14:21; Revelation 6:4-8) and by Ellicott (Ezekiel 5:17; Ezekiel 14:13-19, 21; Leviticus 26:25-26).

The plague halted where the temple would stand ancient/widely-held

Matthew Henry reads this chapter as a unit and says what the unit is for: "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." The threshing floor that ends this chapter is named in 2 Chronicles 3:1 as the site of the house of the LORD. The connection is therefore not an allegory imposed on the narrative; it is the narrative's own outcome, and the Chronicler is building toward it, which is why Barnes says the angel clause of v. 12 exists to "prepare the way for the angelic appearance 1 Chronicles 21:16 , on which the author is about to lay so much stress." ⚙ The line runs forward: the place where a destroying angel was stopped by sacrifice became the place where sacrifice was made for a nation, and the New Testament's claim is that what happened there in figure happened once in fact. This reading of the site is ancient and widely held.

2 Chronicles 3:1 · 1 Chronicles 21:16

Made sin and a curse: the substitution Henry sees in an altar ancient/widely-held

Henry states it directly in his note on this chapter: "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." His two phrases are apostolic and prophetic language brought to this altar (Paul on Christ made sin for us, and Isaiah's servant whom it pleased the LORD to bruise), and Henry applies them to David's case without argument because for him the application is settled. ⚙ What the unit itself supplies is the shape Henry is filling: a guilty head, a struck people, a king whose own confession in v. 8 asks only that ʻâvôn be made to cross over from the servant, and a judgment that is not cancelled but redirected. The Christian reading is that the crossing over David asked for was granted elsewhere, at cost. We record it as the widely held reading of the church, and note that Henry is the only voice in this brief who states it.

2 Corinthians 5:21 · Isaiah 53:10 · Galatians 3:13

Into the hand of man: the choice David refused and the Son accepted novel

⚙ This reading is our own and we mark it novel: no commentator in this brief draws it. David's whole answer in v. 13 is a plea about hands. אֶפְּלָה־נָא בְיַד־יְהוָה, let me fall into the hand of the LORD, and then the deprecative ʼal: into the hand of ʼâdâm let me not fall. JFB gives the reason from experience, that human vengeance "had no bounds," while God "knows the kind, and regulates the extent, of chastisement." The Gospels place the Son in the position David begged to be spared: delivered into the hands of men, and also, at Gethsemane and on the cross, into the hand from which David expected many compassions. The typology is figural and not verbal, and it cannot be otherwise: the Hebrew yâd and the Greek of the passion narratives share no lexical identifier, and we have no ancient witness in this brief pairing the two texts. Offered as a reading to be tested, not as a demonstrated link.

Matthew 26:45 · Luke 23:46 · Hebrews 10:31