Kings II 24:14

14 And David said to Gad, On every side I am much straitened: let me fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his compassions very many; and let me not fall into the hands of man.

Kings II 24:14 Meaning and Commentary

2 Kings 24:14

And he carried away all Jerusalem
The inhabitants of it; not every individual of them, but the chief of them, the more honourable, rich, and useful; for the poorer sort were left, as afterwards expressed:

and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten
thousand captives;
which was the number of them in the whole; the particulars are after delivered:

and all the craftsmen and smiths;
besides the nobles and the soldiers, he took all the artificers that exercised any handicraft trade or business; carpenters and blacksmiths, as some interpret these two words; so that there were none left to make arms for them; the last word may be rendered "enclosers", and are by some interpreted of enclosers of jewels in metals, as gold and silver:

none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land;
who were left to till it, and to dress the vines; see ( 2 Kings 25:12 ) .

Kings II 24:14 In-Context

12 Thus saith the Lord, I bring three things upon thee: now choose thee one of them, and I will do to thee.

13 And Gad went in to David, and told him, and said to him, Choose to befall thee, whether there shall come upon thee three years famine in thy land; or that thou shouldest flee three months before thine enemies, and they should pursue thee; or that there should be three days mortality in thy land. Now then decide, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me.

14 And David said to Gad, On every side I am much straitened: let me fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his compassions very many; and let me not fall into the hands of man.

15 So David chose for himself the mortality: and the days of wheat-harvest; and the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from morning till noon, and the plague began among the people; and there died of the people from Dan even to Bersabee seventy thousand men.

16 And the angel of the Lord stretched out his hand against Jerusalem to destroy it, and the Lord repented of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, enough now, withhold thine hand. And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing-floor of Orna the Jebusite.

Footnotes

• [a]. things are very narrow to me.