When David saw the angel striking down the people, he said to the LORD, “Surely I, the shepherd, have sinned and acted wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please, let Your hand fall upon me and my father’s house.”
Seeing the angel striking the people, David says he has sinned and asks that the hand fall on him and his father’s house instead.
It presents David as confessing guilt and interceding for the people.
15So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from that morning until the appointed time, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. 16But when the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand now!” At that time the angel of the LORD was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 17When David saw the angel striking down the people, he said to the LORD, “Surely I, the shepherd, have sinned and acted wickedly. But these sheep, what have they done? Please, let Your hand fall upon me and my father’s house.”