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“Choose what you will: either three years of famine, or three months of devastation by your foes while the sword of your enemies overtakes you, or else three days of the sword of the Lord, pestilence on the land, with the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel.” 1 Chron 21:11–12

David was moved by Satan to number the people. How often have we taken prideful stock of our possessions, successes, or allies? (And, more likely than not, we have found that the stock was much lower than we expected! Perhaps the Lord protects us more than we imagine.) The people of Israel were many, but whatever flush of gratification David felt, it was quickly pushed aside. He had other things to think about: Gad the seer appeared with a peculiar dilemma for him.

Some of my readers will remember the old Choose Your Own Adventure books. Perhaps you recall agonizing over which course to take. Well, here was a real puzzler for David. He must choose his own exaction. He casts himself upon the Lord, asking only that he not be given into the hands of men. And the Lord chooses pestilence. It is the severest, but shortest, of the three. This tells us something about the God whose “mercy is very great” (v 13).

By the end of the matter, David is doing a very noble thing by calling for the judgment to fall upon him instead of the people (v 17). This whole situation makes us think of our beloved Savior, who took upon himself (and himself alone) all our judgment. His too was a suffering of three, but one that David couldn’t handle, even had he wished. It was too pointed, too concentrated: not three years, three months, or even three days. It was three hours of God’s wrath. “Third time pays for all.”