1 In the days of David they were short of food for three years, year after year; and David went before the Lord for directions. And the Lord said, On Saul and on his family there is blood, because he put the Gibeonites to death.
The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah when there was no water. Judah is weeping and its doors are dark with sorrow, and people are seated on the earth clothed in black; and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up. Their great men have sent their servants for water: they come to the holes and there is no water to be seen; they come back with nothing in their vessels; they are overcome with shame and fear, covering their heads. Those who do work on the land are in fear, for there has been no rain on the land, and the farmers are shamed, covering their heads. And the roe, giving birth in the field, lets her young one be uncared for, because there is no grass. And the asses of the field on the open hilltops are opening their mouths wide like jackals to get air; their eyes are hollow because there is no grass. Though our sins give witness against us, do something, O Lord, for the honour of your name: for again and again we have been turned away from you, we have done evil against you. O you hope of Israel, its saviour in time of trouble, why are you like one who is strange in the land, and like a traveller putting up his tent for a night? Why are you like a man surprised, like a man of war who is not able to give help? but you, O Lord, are with us, and we are named by your name; do not go away from us. This is what the Lord has said about this people: Even so they have been glad to go from the right way; they have not kept their feet from wandering, so the Lord has no pleasure in them; now he will keep their wrongdoing in mind and send punishment for their sins. And the Lord said to me, Make no prayer for this people for their good. When they go without food, I will not give ear to their cry; when they give burned offerings and meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: but I will put an end to them by the sword and by need of food and by disease. Then I said, Ah, Lord God! see, the prophets say to them, You will not see the sword or be short of food; but I will give you certain peace in this place. Then the Lord said to me, The prophets say false words in my name, and I gave them no orders, and I said nothing to them: what they say to you is a false vision and wonder-working words without substance, the deceit of their hearts. So this is what the Lord has said about the prophets who make use of my name, though I sent them not, and say, The sword and need of food will not be in this land: the sword and need of food will put an end to those prophets. And the people to whom they are prophets will be pushed out dead into the streets of Jerusalem, because there is no food, and because of the sword; and they will have no one to put their bodies into the earth, them or their wives or their sons or their daughters: for I will let loose their evil-doing on them. And you are to say this word to them, Let my eyes be streaming with water night and day, and let it not be stopped; for the virgin daughter of my people is wounded with a great wound, with a very bitter blow. If I go out into the open country, there are those put to death by the sword! and if I go into the town, there are those who are diseased from need of food! for the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.
But as for me, I would make my prayer to God, and I would put my cause before him: Who does great things outside our knowledge, wonders without number: Who gives rain on the earth, and sends water on the fields:
Then the king said to the runners who were waiting near him, Put the priests of the Lord to death; because they are on David's side, and having knowledge of his flight, did not give me word of it. But the king's servants would not put out their hands to make an attack on the Lord's priests. Then the king said to Doeg, You are to put the priests to death. And Doeg the Edomite, turning on the priests and attacking them, put to death that day eighty-five men who took up the ephod. And Nob, the town of the priests, he put to the sword, all the men and women, children and babies at the breast, and oxen and asses and sheep.
Israel has done wrong, sinning against the agreement which I made with them: they have even taken of the cursed thing; acting falsely like thieves they have put it among their goods. For this reason the children of Israel have given way, turning their backs in flight before their attackers, because they are cursed: I will no longer be with you, if you do not put the cursed thing away from among you.
And the pride of your strength will be broken, and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass; And your strength will be used up without profit; for your land will not give her increase and the trees of the field will not give their fruit.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 2 Samuel 21
Commentary on 2 Samuel 21 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 21
The date of the events of this chapter is uncertain. I incline to think that they happened as they are here placed, after Absalom's and Sheba's rebellion, and towards the latter end of David's reign. That the battles with the Philistines, mentioned here, were long after the Philistines were subdued, appears by comparing 1 Chr. 18:1 with 20:4. The numbering of the people was just before the fixing of the place of the temple (as appears 1 Chr. 22:1), and that was towards the close of David's life; and, it should seem, the people were numbered just after the three years' famine for the Gibeonites, for that which is threatened as "three' years' famine (1 Chr. 21:12) is called "seven' years (2 Sa. 24:12, 13), three more, with the year current, added to those three. We have here,
2Sa 21:1-9
Here
2Sa 21:10-14
Here we have,
2Sa 21:15-22
We have here the story of some conflicts with the Philistines, which happened, as it should seem, in the latter end of David's reign. Though he had so subdued them that they could not bring any great numbers into the field, yet as long as they had any giants among them to be their champions, they would never be quiet, but took all occasions to disturb the peace of Israel, to challenge them, or make incursions upon them.