A message the Lord God gave
to Gad the prophet for King David:
And the LORD spake unto Gad, David's seer, saying, Go and tell David, saying, Thus saith the LORD, I offer thee three things: choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee. So Gad came to David, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Choose thee Either three years' famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes, while that the sword of thine enemies overtaketh thee; or else three days the sword of the LORD, even the pestilence, in the land, and the angel of the LORD destroying throughout all the coasts of Israel. Now therefore advise thyself what word I shall bring again to him that sent me. 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. So the LORD sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men. 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 threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the LORD stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces. And David said unto God, Is it not I that commanded the people to be numbered? even I it is that have sinned and done evil indeed; but as for these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, O LORD my God, be on me, and on my father's house; but not on thy people, that they should be plagued. Then the angel of the LORD commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the LORD in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite.-1 Chronicles 21:9-18***David was the 8th son born to Jesse, an Israelite from the tribe of Judah. Over a decade after David was born, Samuel the priest, prophet and judge from the tribe of Levi anointed David to reign as king over the Israelites in the Promised Land, according to the will of the Lord God. From David's earliest days, the Lord God gave David the victory. The divinely inspired Scriptures of the Holy Bible reveal that whether David was facing a lion, a bear, Goliath the gigantic Philistine, or enemy troops, David was victorious. Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, was the reigning ruler. Sometime after Jonathan, Saul's son, made a covenant with David, and the Israelite women sang of David higher than they sang of Saul, and Saul tried to kill David, and David married Saul's daughter Michal, and Saul told others, including Jonathan, to kill David, Michal helped David escape from their home. After Saul's self-inflicted death on the battlefield, men from the tribe of Judah anointed 30-year-old David, and he began to reign only over the tribe of Judah. Saul's son Ishbosheth (Eshbaal) reigned over the other Israelite tribes. After Ishbosheth was murdered, the Israelite elders went to David and David made a covenant with them. The elders anointed David. and 37 1/2-year-old David became the 2nd king to reign over all of the Israelites. While reigning, David conquered the fortress of the Jebusites, and David and his army defeated the Arameans (Syrians), the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites, Amalekites, and the Philistines. Some of David's warriors exhibited remarkable strength and stamina and several of David's men single-handedly killed hundreds of enemies. David was provoked into having a count taken of all the able-bodied fighters throughout the kingdom. After David was presented with the numbers from the count, David was troubled and acknowledged he had sinned. David prayed to the Lord God, and the Lord God sent Gad the prophet to deliver a message to David. Over 900 years after Solomon, the 2nd son born to David and Bathsheba, became the 3rd king to reign over all of the Israelites, Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, was born. Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, a virgin, and Jesus was born into the tribe of Judah to Mary and her husband Joseph when Mary was a virgin.-Genesis 11:26-50:26, Exodus, Numbers 20:1-29, 27:12-23, Deuteronomy 31:1-30, 32:44-52, 34:1-12, Joshua 1:1-4:24, 23:1-24:33, Judges 1:1-2:23, Ruth, 1 Samuel 1:1-3:21, 8:1-31:13, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings 1:1-11:43, 1 Chronicles 1:1-34, 2:1-17, 3:1-24, 10:1-29:30, 2 Chronicles 1:1-9:31, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts 1:1-26
Reference Information:
seer = hozeh/chozeh/chazah = gazer, beholder in vision
Reference Scripture:
(Beforetime in Israel, when a man went to enquire of God, thus he spake, Come, and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer.)-1 Samuel 9:9