The Atonement, in association with the temple, had the power to protect the Israelites from plagues. The Lord gave “the Levites as a gift . . . to make an atonement for the children of Israel: that there be no plague among the children of Israel, when the children of Israel come nigh unto the sanctuary” (Num. 8:19). An example of how the Atonement stopped a plague is recorded in Numbers 16. As a consequence of the Israelites committing great sins against the Lord, He smote them with a plague, wherein fourteen thousand, seven hundred people died. To halt the plague, Aaron offered up incense, then he “made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed” (Num. 16:46–48).
The Lord sometimes allowed plagues to serve as punishments for immorality and sin during Old Testament times. For example, an Israelite male brazenly brought a Midianite woman into the Israelite camp for immoral purposes. His and others’ sexual sins and idolatrous practices resulted in a plague that killed twenty-four thousand Israelites (see Num. 25:1–14). To halt the plague and the resulting deaths, the priest Phinehas, Aaron’s grandson, “made an atonement for the children of Israel” (Num. 25:13), and because Phinehas did this, the Lord blessed him and his posterity.
As another example, King David asked Ornan to allow him to build an altar on Ornan’s threshingfloor in order to stop a plague. “Then David said to Ornan, Grant me the place of this threshingfloor, that I may build an altar therein unto the Lord: thou shalt grant it me for the full price: that the plague may be stayed from the people” (1 Chr. 21:22). The altar, of course, is a place of sacrifice and atonement. And a significant fact—this place of the threshingfloor later became the site of the temple of Solomon.