2 Samuel 21:1-14--David Avenges the Gibeonites

2 Samuel 21:1-14
English Standard Version

David Avenges the Gibeonites
21 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the LORD. And the LORD said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” 2 So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. 3 And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the LORD?” 4 The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” And he said, “What do you say that I shall do for you?” 5 They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, 6 let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them before the LORD at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the LORD.” And the king said, “I will give them.”

7 But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the oath of the LORD that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. 8 The king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; 9 and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the LORD, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest.

10 Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell upon them from the heavens. And she did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day, or the beasts of the field by night. 11 When David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, 12 David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa. 13 And he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan; and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged. 14 And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father. And they did all that the king commanded. And after that God responded to the plea for the land.

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For context, you'll probably want to look back at Joshua 9 before reading and studying today's passage.  We don't know exactly when Saul put Gibeonites to death, but we do know that his sons definitely waged war against the Gibeonites, and the LORD judges Saul's household for breaking the vow that Israel had made with Gibeon in Joshua 9.  Because there was a covenant made with Gibeon, the LORD called on David to enforce that covenant and to make sure that justice was done for Gibeon.  David goes to the people of Gibeon seeking atonement and they said that no amount of silver or gold would pay the price for the lives that were lost at the hand of Saul and his family, and they had no right to enforce justice for themselves since they were servants of the Israelites.  David asked them to speak clearly what it was that they wanted, and they said that they wished for seven of Saul's sons to be handed over to them and for them to be given permission to hang them as punishment for the crimes of Saul and his family against Gibeon.  The execution is to happen at Gibeah of Saul and David is to deliver the seven sons of Saul over to them.

The king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan because of the covenant that David had made with Jonathan and with Mephibosheth.  He would not break one vow to honor another.  Instead, David took two sons of Rizpah and five sons of Merab (both daughters of Saul) and gave them to the Gibeonites for execution that happened on the mountain they had named on the first day of the barley harvest.

Rizpah, the daughter of Saul, then publicly mourned publicly so that the king heard about it.  This was the mourning of a woman who had her father, brothers and now her sons taken from her and she could not bury any of them because their bones had been kept away by others.  David has compassion on her and decides to get the bones of Saul and Jonathan from the people Jabesh-gilead who had taken Saul and Jonathan's corpses down from the wall when the Philistines sought to desecrate their corpses, and he got the bones of the seven men just killed by the men of Gibeon, and he brought them back to the land of Benjamin so they could be buried with their ancestors in their family tomb.  So even though David executed judgment on the house of Saul for their sins, he did it in a way that showed some measure of compassion and mercy for those who remained.