📖WEB · 1 Chronicles 21:11
What does 1 Chronicles 21:11 mean?
"So Gad came to David, and said to him, “Yahweh says, ‘Take your choice:"
— 1 Chronicles 21:11 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
David said to God, “I have sinned greatly, in that I have done this thing. But now put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly.”
Yahweh spoke to Gad, David’s seer, saying,
“Go and speak to David, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.”’”
So Gad came to David, and said to him, “Yahweh says, ‘Take your choice:
either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days the sword of Yahweh, even pestilence in the land, and Yahweh’s angel destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.’”
David said to Gad, “I am in distress. Let me fall, I pray, into Yahweh’s hand; for his mercies are very great. Don’t let me fall into man’s hand.”
So Yahweh sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.
Explanation
This verse is a brief narrative link in a larger, weighty story, so understanding it requires seeing what surrounds it. In plain language, it simply says that the prophet Gad came to King David and told him that God was giving him a choice — the beginning of an offer that God extends because of something David had done wrong. The verse itself is transitional, but it introduces one of the most sobering moments in David's reign.
The context is essential. First Chronicles was written after the Babylonian exile, likely by a group of priestly editors compiling Israel's history to remind the returning community of God's covenant faithfulness and the importance of proper worship, kingship, and obedience. This particular chapter recounts how David, prompted by Satan (or, in the parallel account in 2 Samuel 24, by God's anger), ordered a census of Israel's fighting men. This act reflected pride and
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