There is famine in Israel for the third year in a row. We were told in the first part of Chapter 21 that David consulted the Lord about the reason for the famine and was informed that the famine occurred because of "Saul and his blood-stained house, because he put the Gibeonites to death." This incident is not recorded in the Bible but at some time during Saul's reign he slaughtered some of the Gibeonite people with whom Israel has a treaty. In our last study session we found David asking the Gibeonites what could be done to satisfy their sense of justice.
"They answered the king, 'As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel, let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and their bodies exposed before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul---the Lord's chosen one.' So the king said, 'I will give them to you.'" (2 Samuel 21:5-6) King Saul is dead and nothing can be done to him in return for his sinful treatment of people who were at peace with him and who were pledged to serve as Israel's subjects. The Gibeonites ask for seven of his descendants in his place. In my background study I was surprised to find commentaries by some scholars who assume these seven men were innocent citizens. I cannot imagine David agreeing to such a thing. I cannot imagine the Lord giving His stamp of approval to such a thing, and He evidently does because He removes the famine from the land later in the chapter. I must side with those who believe the seven descendants of Saul took part in his sinful slaughter of many of the Gibeonites. If that were not so, I don't see how any justice is being served. Two wrongs don't make a right, as the saying goes.
Who are the seven men the Gibeonites will put to death? They are the two sons of Rizpah, one of Saul's concubines, and the five sons of Merab, Saul's oldest daughter. There is no reason for believing any of these men could not have been old enough to have participated in the slaughter of the Gibeonites. We know Saul's sons by his chief wife were all well into adulthood by the time he died. His sons by his concubines likely were adults too by the time he died. The sons of Saul's daughter Merab may also have been in their teens to early twenties before he died. You'll recall that Saul promised Merab in marriage to the man who could kill Goliath, but he went back on his word and gave her to someone other than David. David then spent several years in King Saul's employ (we don't know exactly how many years) and then it's estimated he lived at least ten years in exile while Saul sought his life. Considering that Merab got married and began bearing children not long after David killed Goliath, and if Saul's slaughter of the Gibeonites took place during the final years of his reign, Merab's sons could very well have been involved in the incident. They could even have continued their grandfather's oppression of the Gibeonites after Saul's death. The Gibeonites accused the house of Saul of not only killing many of their people but also of giving them "no place anywhere in Israel", so even after the death of Saul his descendants may have continued persecuting the Gibeonites.
David does not hand Saul's grandson Mephibosheth over to the Gibeonites because he made a promise to Mephibosheth's father Jonathan never to wipe his family line out. But David allows them to have another Mephibosheth, a son of Saul's concubine Rizpah, and Rizpah's other son who was named Armoni. "The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan son of Saul. But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah's daughter Rizpah, whom she had borne to Saul." (2 Samuel 21:7-8a) This isn't the first time we've heard of Rizpah. In 2 Samuel 3:7 we found Saul's son Ish-Bosheth accusing his army general, Abner, of having illicit relations with her. This was evidently not true, judging by the way Abner became angry enough to desert Ish-Bosheth and give his loyalty to David, but it was a lie Ish-Bosheth tried to use to discredit Abner whose power and popularity in Israel was making the illegitimate King Ish-Bosheth very nervous.
David allows the two sons of Rizpah to be arrested "together with the five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite. He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed them and exposed their bodies on a hill before the Lord. All seven of them fell together; they were put to death during the first days of the harvest, just as the barley harvest was beginning." (2 Samuel 21:8b-9) I am of the opinion that David agreed to the execution of these men because they were guilty of killing and oppressing the Gibeonites. But we will learn in a moment that he let the bodies remain out in the open for several months. It was wrong for David to let the dead bodies to be displayed past the evening of the day the men were executed because the Lord said, "If someone is guilty of a capital offense is put to death and their body exposed on a pole, you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight. Be sure to bury it that same day." (Deuteronomy 21:22-23a)
Rizpah keeps a vigil over the bodies of her sons until David does the right thing. "Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not let the birds touch them by day or the wild animals by night." (2 Samuel 21:10) The men were executed at the beginning of the barley harvest. The rain that pours down is believed to be what is referred to as the "later rains" in the Bible and these occurred in late fall. If that's the case, then the bodies of the men were on display for approximately six months. This loving mother cannot bear the thought of scavengers ravaging the dead bodies of her sons and she keeps vigil by their bodies for as long as six months! Even if the rain mentioned in verse 10 is not the later rain that came in the fall, it's clear that the men's bodies were left out in the open for far longer than just one day because she's protecting them both day and night. This means she camped there with them and that she endured the smell of decay and that she endured the heat and the cold. It means one or more people must have helped her by delivering jugs of water and baskets of food so her vigil wouldn't be interrupted.
David was wrong to allow the bodies to be left in the open for a long period of time because the Lord clearly stated this was not to be done. On one hand we might give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't know they were left out; the men were executed in Saul's hometown of Gibeah which lay seven miles from where David resides at Jerusalem. In our day we can travel seven miles in only a few minutes and we can get news from thousands of miles away in an instant, but this wasn't true in David's day. But even if we assume he didn't know the bodies were going to be left out for a long period of time, it was his business as the king to ascertain exactly what the Gibeonites meant when they asked him to allow them to "let their bodies be exposed before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul". I tend to think David knew the bodies were left unburied but that he didn't know about Rizpah's vigil for quite some time. This may be because none of his officials placed any importance on the grief of a concubine of a dead king who had hated David and had wanted David dead. But as soon as word gets to David about this woman's grief, his heart is struck with pity for her. His conscience bothers him because he either knowingly allowed the bodies to remain in the open or because he wasn't keeping close enough tabs on the situation at Gibeah to know about the exposed bodies.
"When David was told what Aiah's daughter Rizpah, Saul's concubine, had done, he went and took the bones of Saul and Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead." (2 Samuel 21:12a) He retrieves the bones of Saul and Jonathan so they can be buried with Saul's two sons by Rizpah and with Saul's five grandsons by his daughter Merab in the tomb of Saul's father. When Saul and Jonathan (along with Saul's sons Abinadab and Malki-Shua) died on Mount Gilboa in battle with the Philistines, the Philistines hung the bodies of these four men on the walls of the city of Beth Shan. But the men of Jabesh Gilead, whose city Saul saved from the Ammonites very early in his reign, came and retrieved the bodies and buried them in the territory of Jabesh. This is what the author is referring to when he says, "(They had stolen their bodies from the public square at Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them after they struck Saul down on Gilboa.)" (2 Samuel 21:12b) The passage he's referring to can be found in 1 Samuel 31. David has the bones of Saul and Jonathan, (and perhaps the bones of Abinadab and Malki-Shua too but the author doesn't say so), brought from Jabesh to a location called Zela where Saul's father is buried. There the bones of these men are interred along with the remains of the seven men executed by the Gibeonites. "David brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed and exposed were gathered up." (2 Samuel 21:13)
The author mentioned that the seven men were executed at the beginning of the barley harvest. Was there a barley harvest at all since Israel was in the third year of a famine? If there was a harvest it must have been a meager one. It could be there was no harvest at all and that what the author means is that the men were executed at the time when barley harvest normally began. It appears as if the famine was brought about by drought and not by diseases of the crops because the arrival of the later rain seems to coincide with the end of the famine. "They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul's father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer on behalf of the land." (2 Samuel 21:14)
I think the seven descendants of Saul must have participated with him in the slaughter of many of the Gibeonites and in the persecution (which may have been ongoing after Saul's death) of the remaining Gibeonites. Otherwise I can't see why David would have agreed to their execution. I also can't see why God would have withheld rain from the land until these men were executed. Evidently David was remiss not to have done something about these men's crimes. If it were not the case that these men were guilty and had been allowed to live at large instead of being brought to justice for capital crimes, I can't imagine why the Lord would have sent a famine on the land to compel something to be done. I think David was fully aware of what Saul and these men had done but, for reasons unknown to us, had never taken action. No public appeal or outcry had ever been made to him on behalf of the slain Gibeonites by the citizens of Israel, though the slaughter should have outraged them on behalf of the people with whom they had made a treaty in the name of the Lord. Because no action was taken to bring the guilty men to justice, the Lord got everyone's attention by sending a famine. By the third year David began to suspect the famine was discipline from the Lord and not merely a naturally occurring drought.
The Bible doesn't tell us the famine came to a complete stop until after all the bodies are buried in the tomb. I'm inferring from this that the Lord waited for His word about exposed bodies of criminals to be obeyed. He very clearly stated in Deuteronomy 21 that bodies of executed criminals were to be buried before nightfall of the day they were executed. I believe the drought would have continued if David hadn't recognized his guilt in not enforcing that law. You may recall from 2 Samuel 2:6 that David thanked the men of Jabesh Gilead who retrieved the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall at Beth Shan, saying, "The Lord bless you for showing this kindness to Saul your master by burying him." (2 Samuel 2:5b) Saul may have been a mortal enemy of David but David was still concerned about respect being shown to the man who once wore the crown. David was concerned about the Lord's laws being followed. When he felt ashamed of himself after hearing of Rizpah's vigil over the bodies of her sons, he had reason to feel ashamed, because if he was deeply concerned over the body of Saul who hated him, he should have been equally concerned over the bodies of Saul's sons and grandsons. But to David's credit he corrects the situation as soon as he realizes he's in the wrong. As we've said before, David makes several big mistakes on the pages of the Bible but he's always quick to repent of them as soon as he's confronted by his errors.
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