2 Samuel 24:7-17

7 and came to the stronghold of Tzor, and to all the cities of the Hivvi, and of the Kana`anim; and they went out to the south of Yehudah, at Be'er-Sheva.

8 So when they had gone back and forth through all the land, they came to Yerushalayim at the end of nine months and twenty days.

9 Yo'av gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to the king: and there were in Yisra'el eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword; and the men of Yehudah were five hundred thousand men.

10 David's heart struck him after that he had numbered the people. David said to the LORD, I have sinned greatly in that which I have done: but now, the LORD, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.

11 When David rose up in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying,

12 Go and speak to David, Thus says the LORD, I offer you three things: choose you one of them, that I may do it to you.

13 So Gad came to David, and told him, and said to him, Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? now advise you, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.

14 David said to Gad, I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great; and let me not fall into the hand of man.

15 So the LORD sent a pestilence on Yisra'el from the morning even to the time appointed; and there died of the people from Dan even to Be'er-Sheva seventy thousand men.

16 When the angel stretched out his hand toward Yerushalayim to destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, It is enough; now stay your hand. The angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Aravna the Yevusi.

17 David spoke to the LORD when he saw the angel who struck the people, and said, Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father's house.

2 Samuel 24:7-17 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND SAMUEL 24

In this chapter an account is given of David's numbering of the people, 2Sa 24:1-9; of the sense he had of his sin, and of his acknowledgment of it; and of the Lord's displeasure at it, who sent the prophet Gad to him, to propose three things to him, one of which he was to choose as a punishment for it, 2Sa 24:10-13; when he chose the pestilence, which carried off a great number of the people, 2Sa 24:14-17; and David was directed to build an altar to the Lord in the threshingfloor of Araunah the Jebusite, with whom he agreed for it, and built one on it, and offered upon it, and so the plague was stayed, 2Sa 24:18-25.