Verses 11-15
YHWH Offers David Three Alternative Chastisements: Famine, War Or Punishment (2 Samuel 24:11-15 ).
In response to David’s prayer YHWH offers him a choice from three alternative chastisements, seven years of famine, three months of defeat by an enemy or three days of pestilence. David rejects the central one because he would rather that Israel were in God’s hands rather than man’s, but seemingly leaves YHWH to choose between the other two, and the result was that YHWH sent a three day pestilence from which seventy clans/families died.
Analysis.
a And when David rose up in the morning, the word of YHWH came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, “Go and speak to David, ‘Thus says YHWH, I offer you three things, choose for yourself one of them, that I may do it to you’.” (2 Samuel 24:11-12).
b 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 enemies while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land?” (2 Samuel 24:13 a).
c “Now obtain yourself advice and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me” (2 Samuel 24:13 b).
b And David said to Gad, “I am in a great strait. Let us fall now into the hand of YHWH, for his mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man” (2 Samuel 24:14).
a So YHWH sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the time of assembly, and there died of the people from Dan even to Beer-sheba seventy thousand (or ‘family units of’) men (2 Samuel 24:15).
Note that in ‘a’ YHWH offers a choice of three alternative chastisements, and in the parallel a three day pestilence came on Israel from which seventy thousand/family units died. In ‘b’ the details of the offer are made and in the parallel David declares that his preferred choice is to fall into the hand of God rather than into the hand of men. Centrally in ‘c’ he is called on to provide the answer that Gad is to give to YHWH Who sent him.
‘ And when David rose up in the morning, the word of YHWH came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying,’
David having made his confession to YHWH, the next morning, when David woke up, YHWH was giving His prophetic word to Gad. It would be a severe one.
“ Go and speak to David, ‘Thus says YHWH, I offer you three things, choose for yourself one of them, that I may do it to you’.”
YHWH told Gad that David was to have a choice of three alternatives of which he would have to choose one, which would then fall on him. Notice that YHWH speaks as though it is David himself will suffer (‘that I may do it to YOU’), for he will truly suffer when his people suffer. But as we already know the chastisement is not just because of his sin, but for the sins of the whole of Israel (2 Samuel 24:1). What the choices involve we learn in the next verse.
‘ 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 enemies while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now obtain yourself advice and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”
So Gad came to David and offered him the three choices. He could choose between his people suffering seven years of famine, three months of continual defeat from an enemy, or three days of pestilence. The threefoldness of the offer emphasises the completeness of the chastisement. The numbers seven and three both indicate completeness, with seven adding an extra emphasis on the divine aspect of that completeness (the Chronicler actually changes the seven to three in order to make three threes (1 Chronicles 21:12), but he would not have seen himself as in any way altering the sense of the passage for such numbers were used adjectivally in order to indicate, in this case, completeness, not in order to be taken literally. Compare the use of seven and three in Genesis for ‘a longer’ and ‘a shorter’ journey. Numbers in ancient days were used much more freely in order to express ideas, rather than being used mathematically as we would use them). The first choice would take time to settle in and become noticeable, but once the stores of food were low it would begin to bite and would result in prolonged suffering and many dying, and leave the people in the hands of unscrupulous corn merchants. It would be far worse than the three years famine of 2 Samuel 21:1. The second would involve three months of war with all the problems that went along with it such as the destruction of crops as well as the death, rape and misery of a good number of Israelites. The third would be sharp but short and would be very much more in the hands of YHWH. David was therefore to take advice from his counsellors and then give to Gad the answer that he could convey to the One Who had sent him. (It must again be stressed that this chastisement was not just the result of David’s sin, but of the sins of the whole of Israel).
‘ And David said to Gad, “I am in a great strait. Let us fall now into the hand of YHWH, for his mercies are great, and let me not fall into the hand of man.”
David naturally found the choice a great burden. None of the alternatives were palatable, and they all tore him apart. But in the end he chose rather to fall into the hand of a YHWH Whose mercies were great, than into the hand of men who would show no mercy. In this he was emphasising his trust in the grace and mercy of God. Famine would leave the people in the hands of the corn chandlers, with himself mainly untouched. War would leave people at the mercy or otherwise of their enemies. Pestilence, however, put all on an equality and could strike from the highest to the lowest
‘ So YHWH sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the time of assembly (or ‘an appointed time’), and there died of the people from Dan even to Beer-sheba seventy thousand men.’
YHWH responded by sending what was to be a three day pestilence on Israel through the Angel of YHWH (2 Samuel 24:16). It was, through the mercy of God, cut short. It commenced in the morning and went on ‘to the time of assembly’ or ‘to an appointed time’. And the result of the pestilence was that there were a great many deaths in seventy clans/wider families of Israel, with clans from one end of the country to the other being affected. Israel was being given a short, sharp warning of what would happen if they continued to ignore God’s requirements for their lives.
“To the time of assembly” or ‘to an appointed time’ raises problems for us (although probably not to the first readers) as to what exactly is meant. With the article the word for assembly could have referred to a set time (‘the appointed time’), but here there is no article which takes away the definiteness of the statement and leaves it more open. It may therefore be deliberately vague and mean ‘an appointed time’ i.e. whichever time that YHWH would appoint and choose. Or it may mean that it would continue until the assembly of Israel had been called together in order to weigh up and deal with the emergency, which would take two or three days, at which point they could appeal to YHWH (the problem with that is that it did not happen as far as we know). Or it may have in mind David’s assembling of his courtiers at the threshing-floor of Araunah. Or it may refer to a feast that was about to take place (compare the usage in Hosea 9:5; Hosea 12:9), or possibly even to the time for assembling at evening prayers on the third day.
Be the first to react on this!
