For those of us who like to see chapter and verse with their citations...
Numbers 24:17 ("but not near")
Genesis 49:10 ("the one to whom it belongs")
Deuteronomy 18:15 ("like me")
It certainly is interesting that the author is using gemetria (if that's a sure conclusion--it looks good the way you tell it).
Is the author doing more than being clever? Does he see these as "messianic" and see their reference as something other than King David? (I know that you aren't saying that they
were originally 'messianic', but I'm still a little curious ...
would you say that?)
Deuteronomy 17:14-15
When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, and you possess it and live in it, and you say, 'I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me,' you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses, one from among your countrymen you shall set as king over yourselves; you may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not your countryman.
Consider it an open question.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown