00:00In just three days, 70,000 people died from a mysterious plague in ancient Israel.
00:07That's more than 23,000 deaths every single day.
00:11The terrifying event is recorded in 2 Samuel 24.
00:16It began when King David ordered a census of Israel.
00:21Soon afterward, the prophet Gad presented him with three possible punishments—
00:25famine, defeat by enemies, or three days of devastating pestilence.
00:31David chose the pestilence.
00:33Then disaster struck.
00:36According to the biblical account, 70,000 people died before the plague was finally stopped.
00:42But what was this mysterious disease?
00:45Some researchers have suggested bubonic plague, the same disease associated with the infamous Black Death, centuries later.
00:52However, there is no scientific evidence confirming this theory.
00:57The Bible never identifies the pathogen, describing it only as a deadly pestilence.
01:02Was it an ancient epidemic?
01:04Or divine judgment as the biblical account portrays it?
01:07The mystery remains.
