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[324]
When the prophet had heard this, he declared it to God; who thereupon
sent a pestilence and a mortality upon the Hebrews; nor did they die after
one and the same manner, nor so that it was easy to know what the distemper
was. Now the miserable disease was one indeed, but it carried them off
by ten thousand causes and occasions, which those that were afflicted could
not understand; for one died upon the neck of another, and the terrible
malady seized them before they were aware, and brought them to their end
suddenly, some giving up the ghost immediately with very great pains and
bitter grief, and some were worn away by their distempers, and had nothing
remaining to be buried, but as soon as ever they fell were entirely macerated;
some were choked, and greatly lamented their case, as being also stricken
with a sudden darkness; some there were who, as they were burying a relation,
fell down dead, without finishing the rites of the funeral. Now there perished
of this disease, which began with the morning, and lasted till the hour
of dinner, seventy thousand. Nay, the angel stretched out his hand over
Jerusalem, as sending this terrible judgment upon it. But David had put
on sackcloth, and lay upon the ground, entreating God, and begging that
the distemper might now cease, and that he would be satisfied with those
that had already perished. And when the king looked up into the air, and
saw the angel carried along thereby into Jerusalem, with his sword drawn,
he said to God, that he might justly be punished, who was their shepherd,
but that the sheep ought to be preserved, as not having sinned at all;
and he implored God that he would send his wrath upon him, and upon all
his family, but spare the people.
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