24:11,12
With David’s previous “big sin” God sent the prophet Nathan to convict him of sin. This time God sends the prophet Gad. The difference this time is that David is already aware of his sin and has repented, whereas in the Bathsheba and Uriah incident he was blind to his wrongdoing until Nathan came. This time Gad was sent to give David three options. As an aside, this demonstrates that sin has consequences, even when we repent. Now why did God give David three options? Surely He should just have imposed one? I think God was testing David’s heart.
24:13,14
So Gad presents David with the three options. The first is three years of famine, the second is three months of fleeing from his enemies, and the third is three days of plague. David would rather fall into the hands of the Lord than into the hands of men. So the second one was ruled out. David does not explicitly name the third, but that is the one that occurs. It should be noted that the first and third will directly affect all the people. The second one would have had an indirect effect. Yet David has chosen to suffer one that will affect all the people. This may seem unfair, but we should remember that the reason for the whole episode was that God’s anger burned against Israel (24:1).
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