Did Gad offer David seven years of famine, or three?
Chronicles names the three years still to come; Samuel, the seven David would have borne in all, with the three just past and the year then passing.
The Passages
2 Samuel 24:13
1 Chronicles 21:11-12
See Also
2 Samuel 21:1
The Difficulty
After David numbered the people, the prophet Gad brought him a choice of three judgments. In Samuel the first is, “Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land?” (2 Samuel 24:13). In Chronicles it is, “Either three years’ famine; or three months to be destroyed before thy foes … or else three days the sword of the LORD” (1 Chronicles 21:12). Some modern versions (the NIV and ESV) change Samuel to “three years,” after the Septuagint; the Hebrew reads seven, and so does the KJV.
The Answer
Preferred: The two verses put the same judgment in different terms. Chronicles gives what the LORD was offering, three years’ famine still to come. Samuel asks how it would stand with David: “Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land?” The land had just been through “a famine in the days of David three years, year after year,” for Saul’s sin against the Gibeonites (2 Samuel 21:1), and the year of the numbering, which took “nine months and twenty days” (24:8), was itself barren or short of bread until the harvest. Three years more would make seven. Gill gives this answer.
So Chronicles counts the years ahead, and Samuel the whole famine David would have had to bear; both are true of the one offer.
Sources
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and in the current year, through the rains not falling in the proper time, the land was barren and unfruitful; or through the penury of the preceding years, the famine would be continued at least until the harvest; and then three years more now proposed made seven years
Checked against: Internet Archive scan of the first edition, 2026-10-28
