14 They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. After that God was entreated for the land.
and Zelah, Eleph, and the Jebusite (the same is Jerusalem), Gibeath, [and] Kiriath; fourteen cities with their villages. This is the inheritance of the children of Benjamin according to their families.
David built there an altar to Yahweh, and offered burnt offerings and peace-offerings. So Yahweh was entreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel.
He said to them, "Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, 'Every man put his sword on his thigh, and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and every man kill his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor." The sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. Moses said, "Consecrate yourselves today to Yahweh, yes, every man against his son, and against his brother; that he may bestow on you a blessing this day."
and it shall be to him, and to his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.
When you are departed from me today, then you shall find two men by Rachel's tomb, in the border of Benjamin at Zelzah; and they will tell you, The donkeys which you went to seek are found; and, behold, your father has left off caring for the donkeys, and is anxious for you, saying, What shall I do for my son?
They buried Abner in Hebron: and the king lifted up his voice, and wept at the grave of Abner; and all the people wept.
David commanded his young men, and they killed them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth, and buried it in the grave of Abner in Hebron.
and Elijah said to them, Take the prophets of Baal; don't let one of them escape. They took them; and Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon, and killed them there. Elijah said to Ahab, Get you up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain.
The word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought. Judah mourns, and the gates of it languish, they sit in black on the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. Their nobles send their little ones to the waters: they come to the cisterns, and find no water; they return with their vessels empty; they are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads. Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed, they cover their heads. Yes, the hind also in the field calves, and forsakes [her young], because there is no grass. The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights, they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail, because there is no herbage. Though our iniquities testify against us, work you for your name's sake, Yahweh; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against you.
Then Yahweh was jealous for his land, And had pity on his people. Yahweh answered his people, "Behold, I will send you grain, new wine, and oil, And you will be satisfied with them; And I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.
Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me: and, behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, behold, it was the latter growth after the king's harvest. It happened that, when they made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, "Lord Yahweh, forgive, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small." Yahweh relented concerning this. "It shall not be," says Yahweh. Thus the Lord Yahweh showed me and, behold, the Lord Yahweh called for judgment by fire; and it dried up the great deep, and would have devoured the land. Then I said, "Lord Yahweh, stop, I beg you! How could Jacob stand? For he is small." Yahweh relented concerning this. "This also shall not be," says the Lord Yahweh.
So they took up Jonah, and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased its raging.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on 2 Samuel 21
Commentary on 2 Samuel 21 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 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 by that execrable outrage.
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.