2 Samuel

Chapters

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7
8. 8
9. 9
10. 10
11. 11
12. 12
13. 13
14. 14
15. 15
16. 16
17. 17
18. 18
19. 19
20. 20
21. 21
22. 22
23. 23
24. 24

In the maps

• 2 Samuel 6:2

  David arises and goes to the hill country of Judah to bring up the ark of God. This is the first of the four parallels Pitre finds between 2 Samuel 6 and the Visitation: Mary likewise 'arose and went' into the hill country of Judah (Luke 1:39). Luke is quietly retelling the procession of the ark, with Mary as the new ark carrying the Lord.

• 2 Samuel 6:6

  Uzzah puts out his hand to steady the ark and is struck dead, and David is seized with fear: 'How shall the ark of the LORD come to me?' (v. 9). Pitre uses the scene to show the holy dread that surrounded the ark, then points out that Elizabeth voices almost the same words when Mary arrives. Luke wants his readers to feel toward the new ark the reverence Israel felt toward the old.

• 2 Samuel 6:9

  After Uzzah's death, David asks in awe how the ark of the LORD could possibly come to him. Pitre's second parallel: Elizabeth greets Mary with nearly the same sentence, substituting 'the mother of my Lord' for 'the ark of the LORD.' The echo identifies Mary as the ark and signals the reverence due to her as the bearer of God's presence.

• 2 Samuel 6:11

  The ark remains three months in the house of Obed-edom in Judah, and the LORD blesses his whole household. Pitre's fourth parallel: Mary remains about three months in Elizabeth's house in Judah, and blessing fills it. The oddly specific 'three months' is an ark allusion, and the accumulation of four parallels is too much to be coincidence.

• 2 Samuel 6:12

  Hearing that the Ark has blessed Obed-edom's house, David resumes the procession, this time carrying the Ark properly and with rejoicing. Pitre notes that the blessing on the household is the reason the Ark moves again (pp 48–49). Luke's Visitation echoes this: Mary's three-month stay brings blessing on Elizabeth's house, and Elizabeth greets her as 'blessed among women.'

• 2 Samuel 6:15

  David dances and leaps before the ark with all his might, and the whole house of Israel brings it up with shouting. Pitre's third parallel: when Mary arrives, the child John leaps in Elizabeth's womb and Elizabeth exclaims with a loud cry. The Greek of Luke and of the Septuagint share the vocabulary of leaping and loud acclamation before the ark.

• 2 Samuel 6:17

  David brings the Ark into Jerusalem and sets it inside the tent he has pitched for it. Pitre makes this the second step of his three-step Assumption argument (p 62): Jesus is the new David; David's first priority as king was to bring the Ark up into the sanctuary; so the new David, ascended to the heavenly Jerusalem, brings the true Ark — his mother — into the heavenly temple.

• 2 Samuel 6:23

  Michal 'had no child until the day of her death.' Pitre calls this the most striking of his examples for what 'until' means in biblical language (p 101): it describes a period of time and implies nothing about what happens afterward, since Michal did not begin bearing children after she died. So Matthew 1:25, 'Joseph knew her not until she had borne a son,' cannot be used to prove that relations began afterward — a point on which, Pitre notes, Protestant and Catholic scholars agree.

• 2 Samuel 7:12

  God covenants with David that his seed will sit on an everlasting throne. Gabriel echoes this promise word for word when he tells Mary her son will receive 'the throne of his father David' and reign 'for ever' (Luke 1:32–33). Pitre's logic follows: because Jesus is the Davidic king for ever, the Davidic office of queen mother is fulfilled, permanently, in the mother of the king.