PLATE II PLAGUE OF ASHDOD. BY N. POUSSIN
Photograph by Giraudon, Paris (Face Page 18)
PLATE III PLAGUE OF DAVID. BY P. MIGNARD
(Face Page 19)
One other Biblical[40] pestilence, the [plague of David], presents to us another and more enduring image of pestilence, and represents also a stage at which religion has superseded magic. David, in punishment for his presumption in numbering the people, is given the choice of seven years of famine, three months of fleeing before his enemies, or three days of pestilence. He chose the last, and seventy thousand of his people perished. ‘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.’ ‘And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it,’ God checked him by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite. ‘And the Lord commanded the angel; and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.’ Then the prophet Gad told David to set up an altar in the threshing-floor of Araunah. So David bought it and set up an altar and offered sacrifice to God, and the plague was stayed: on the site of this altar Solomon built the Temple.