What is the significance of 1 Chronicles 21:7–13?

The Lord gives David three options of how Israel may be judged. “Three things I offer you; choose one of them, and I will do it to you.”

Paralleling 2 Samuel 24:12–16, this passage reveals that the Lord gives people genuine alternatives and then responds to their choices. If the future is unalterably settled in God’s mind, however, these alternatives are merely charades. God could just as well have unilaterally declared the curse he knew David would choose.