Intertextuality Pair

Acts 1:26 → Leviticus 16:8

Allusion

Later text

Acts 1:26BSB

Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.

Earlier text

Leviticus 16:8BSB

After Aaron casts lots for the two goats, one for the LORD and the other for the scapegoat,
+ 2 more earlier texts

Earlier text

Numbers 26:55BSB

Indeed, the land must be divided by lot; they shall receive their inheritance according to the names of the tribes of their fathers.

Earlier text

Proverbs 16:33BSB

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.
Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:33

Significance

The apostles “cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias” (Acts 1:26) — the last recorded use of a practice woven through Israel’s life: the lot that apportioned the land (Numbers 26:55), the lot that on the Day of Atonement chose between the two goats (Leviticus 16:8), and the proverb that grounds them all — “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (Proverbs 16:33). The lot is not chance but a means of submitting a decision to God’s sovereign disposal, fitting for a choice the eleven had no authority to make alone. It is telling that the practice appears here for the last time in Scripture: once the Spirit is poured out at Pentecost, the church is led not by lot but by the indwelling Spirit of the ascended Christ. The lot points beyond itself to the God who rules every outcome — the same God who, on the Day of Atonement it recalls, ordained the true and final sacrifice in Christ.

Found via
Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type
Allusion
Connection Method(s)
Analogy

▸ The Day of Atonement

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