2 Samuel 21

2Sa 21:1-9.

THE

THREE

YEARS'

FAMINE FOR THE

GIBEONITES

CEASE BY

HANGING

SEVEN OF

SAUL'S

SONS.

1. the Lord answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because

he slew the Gibeonites--The sacred history has not recorded either the

time or the reason of this massacre. Some think that they were

sufferers in the atrocity perpetrated by Saul at Nob

(1Sa 22:19),

where many of them may have resided as attendants of the priests; while

others suppose it more probable that the attempt was made afterwards,

with a view to regain the popularity he had lost throughout the nation

2. in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah--Under pretense of

a rigorous and faithful execution of the divine law regarding the

extermination of the Canaanites, he set himself to expel or destroy

those whom Joshua had been deceived into sparing. His real object seems

to have been, that the possessions of the Gibeonites, being forfeited

to the crown, might be divided among his own people (compare

1Sa 22:7).

At all events, his proceeding against this people was in violation of a

solemn oath, and involving national guilt. The famine was, in

the wise and just retribution of Providence, made a national

punishment, since the Hebrews either assisted in the massacre, or did

not interpose to prevent it; since they neither endeavored to repair

the wrong, nor expressed any horror of it; and since a general

protracted chastisement might have been indispensable to inspire a

proper respect and protection to the Gibeonite remnant that

survived.

6. Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang

them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul--The practice of the Hebrews,

as of most Oriental nations, was to slay first, and afterwards to

suspend on a gibbet, the body not being left hanging after sunset. The

king could not refuse this demand of the Gibeonites, who, in making it,

were only exercising their right as blood-avengers; and, although

through fear and a sense of weakness they had not hitherto claimed

satisfaction, yet now that David had been apprised by the oracle of the

cause of the long-prevailing calamity, he felt it his duty to give the

Gibeonites full satisfaction--hence their specifying the number seven,

which was reckoned full and complete. And if it should seem unjust to

make the descendants suffer for a crime which, in all probability,

originated with Saul himself, yet his sons and grandsons might be the

instruments of his cruelty, the willing and zealous executors of this

bloody raid.

the king said, I will give them--David cannot be charged with doing

this as an indirect way or ridding himself of rival competitors for the

throne, for those delivered up were only collateral branches of Saul's

family, and never set up any claim to the sovereignty. Moreover, David

was only granting the request of the Gibeonites as God had bidden him

do.

8. the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up

for Adriel--Merab, Michal's sister, was the wife of Adriel; but

Michal adopted and brought up the boys under her care.

9. they hanged them in the hill before the Lord--Deeming themselves not

bound by the criminal law of Israel

(De 21:22, 23),

their intention was to let the bodies hang until God, propitiated by

this offering, should send rain upon the land, for the want of it had

occasioned the famine. It was a heathen practice to gibbet men with a

view of appeasing the anger of the gods in seasons of famine, and the

Gibeonites, who were a remnant of the Amorites

(2Sa 21:2),

though brought to the knowledge of the true God, were not, it seems,

free from this superstition. God, in His providence, suffered the

Gibeonites to ask and inflict so barbarous a retaliation, in order that

the oppressed Gibeonites might obtain justice and some reparation of

their wrongs, especially that the scandal brought on the name of the

true religion by the violation of a solemn national compact might be

wiped away from Israel, and that a memorable lesson should be given to

respect treaties and oaths.

2Sa 21:10, 11.

RIZPAH'S

KINDNESS UNTO THE

DEAD.

10. Rizpah . . . took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the

rock--She erected a tent near the spot, in which she and her servants

kept watch, as the relatives of executed persons were wont to do, day

and night, to scare the birds and beasts of prey away from the remains

exposed on the low-standing gibbets.

2Sa 21:12-22.

DAVID

BURIES THE

BONES OF

SAUL AND

JONATHAN IN

THEIR

FATHER'S

SEPULCHER.

12. David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan

his son, &c.--Before long, the descent of copious showers, or perhaps

an order of the king, gave Rizpah the satisfaction of releasing the

corpses from their ignominious exposure; and, incited by her pious

example, David ordered the remains of Saul and his sons to be

transferred from their obscure grave in Jabesh-gilead to an honorable

interment in the family vault at Zelah or Zelzah

(1Sa 10:2),

now Beit-jala.

15-22. Moreover the Philistines had yet war again with Israel--Although

the Philistines had completely succumbed to the army of David, yet the

appearance of any gigantic champions among them revived their courage

and stirred them up to renewed inroads on the Hebrew territory. Four

successive contests they provoked during the latter period of David's

reign, in the first of which the king ran so imminent a risk of his

life that he was no longer allowed to encounter the perils of the

battlefield.