The difference between these two scriptures is immense. David had fallen into sin in yielding to the temptation of Satan to number Israel; and, governed by will and pride, he had forgotten the ordinance that every man was to give a ransom for his soul when they were numbered, “that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.” (Exodus 30:12) God, therefore, was displeased, but He loved His servant David, and He sent Gad, after the king had confessed his iniquity, to offer him one of three methods of chastisement—three years’ famine, three months to be destroyed before his foes, or three days the sword of the Lord, even the pestilence, in the land. God could accept the confession of His servant’s sin, and restore his soul, but governmentally He must deal with this flagrant transgression. It was to the offer, Gad was commissioned to make, that David replied, “I am in a great strait: let me fall now into the hand of the Lord; for very great are His mercies: but let me not fall into the hands of man.” It is evident from these words that, if the Lord knew David, David also knew the Lord, apprehended the nature of the stroke about to fall upon him, and could count on “His mercies” in using the rod. In other words, he accepted the chastisement, and preferred to receive it directly from the Lord’s hand; and he thus could say, “Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord.” But when we come to the epistle to the Hebrews, it is not a saint falling into temptation, but apostates, that were before the mind of the writer, those who had once been with the people of God, professors of Christianity, who had “sinned willfully” after having received the knowledge of the truth—for whom there remained no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation which should devour the adversaries. (vss. 26, 27) It is such the writer warns that vengeance belongs to the Lord, that He will judge His people—all who profess to be such —and that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; for to fall into the hands of God in this way would involve irremediable destruction. It is one thing, therefore, to fall into the hands of the Lord, like David, for chastening, for governmental dealing, and another thing to fall into the hands of the living God for unmitigated judgment as His adversaries—and this is the difference between these two scriptures. E. D.