ContradictionsReading order 51Bible context 2 min read
How many years of famine?
The punishment choices match in their other durations but give different lengths for the offered famine.
- Textual conflict
- Direct contradiction
- The quoted passages make incompatible claims about the same subject under the same conditions. Little additional inference is needed.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
Gad offers seven years of famine in one account and three in the corresponding three-option punishment speech.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Gad offers David seven years of famine
So Gad came to David, and told him, and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in thy land? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies, while they pursue thee? or that there be three days’ pestilence in thy land? now advise, and see what answer I shall return to him that sent me.
2 Samuel 24:13
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:2 Samuel 24
Gad offers David three years of famine
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.