1st Chronicles 21:13 And David said unto Gad, I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are his mercies: but let me not fall into the hand of man.
Finally, David decides that the stakes are too great if he were to choose either number one or two devils, and thus, with his back against a wall, and with only bad options before his face, he decides to choose a better devil, meaning that the third option of falling into The Lord’s hands seemed to be the only viable path forward, since David believed it would produce the least amount of damage.
And even though the number of resulting casualties may seem high, the other two devils, or bad options would have resulted in significantly more fatalities, multiplied many times over, for if God is merciful as David claims, and indeed He is, yet 70,000 men fell dead, one can only imagine what the final death toll would have been if David had chosen differently.
The reason why this Bible study is so grim is because it contains information that greatly disturbs persons, as they consider the fallout, in collateral damage to individuals, and families, who seem to have nothing to do with David’s executive order to Joab, and the decision by the army general to knowingly do that which he himself confessed was wrong.
1st Chronicles 21:14 So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 15 And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the Lord beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.
May The Lord add His blessing to the study of His word. God bless!