24:10-15 It is well, when a man has sinned, if he has a heart within to smite him for it. If we confess our sins, we may pray in faith that God would forgive them, and take away, by pardoning mercy, that sin which we cast away by sincere repentance. What we make the matter of our pride, it is just in God to take from us, or make bitter to us, and make it our punishment. This must be such a punishment as the people have a large share in, for though it was David's sin that opened the sluice, the sins of the people all contributed to the flood. In this difficulty, David chose a judgment which came immediately from God, whose mercies he knew to be very great, rather than from men, who would have triumphed in the miseries of Israel, and have been thereby hardened in their idolatry. He chose the pestilence; he and his family would be as much exposed to it as the poorest Israelite; and he would continue for a shorter time under the Divine rebuke, however severe it was. The rapid destruction by the pestilence shows how easily God can bring down the proudest sinners, and how much we owe daily to the Divine patience.Go, and say unto David,.... Not my servant David, as Nathan was bid to say to him when it was in his heart to build an house for him, 2 Samuel 7:5; but now he had sinned and displeased the Lord, and therefore it is only plain David:

thus saith the Lord, I offer thee three things; or lay them before thee to consider of which thou wouldest have done; the Targum is,"one of three things I cast upon thee,''as a burden to bear; one of the three I will certainly inflict upon thee by way of chastisement:

choose thee one of them, that I may do it unto thee; here is mercy mixed with judgment; the Lord is angry, yet shows great condescension and goodness; a sovereign Being, who could have imposed what punishment he pleased, and even all the three after mentioned, yet resolves but on one, and leaves that to the option of David.