2 Samuel - Chapter 21

The great famine

^{1 ①} There was famine during the reign of David for three consecutive years and David consulted Yahweh. The answer was, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and his family because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

²The Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but descendants of the Amorites. Although the Israelites had sworn to spare them, Saul had attempted to wipe them out on behalf of the people of Israel and Judah. ³So David called the Gibeonites and asked them, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I repay you that you may bless the people of Yahweh?” ⁴The Gibeonites answered him, “Our quarrel with Saul and his family is not over silver or gold, nor is it our task to put any Israelite to death.” The king asked again, “Tell me then what I shall do for you”; ⁵and they replied,“That man slaughtered us and planned our destruction so that we would no longer occupy any place in Israel. ⁶Surrender seven of his sons to us so that we may hang them up before Yahweh at Gibeon on the mountain of Yahweh.” To this, the king said, “I will surrender them.”

⁷David spared Mepibaal, son of Jonathan, Saul’s son, because of the oath David and Jonathan took before Yahweh. ⁸But he took the two sons of Rizpah, daughter of Aiah whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mepibaal; and the five sons of Merab, daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel, son of Barzillai the Meholathite. ⁹He delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites who hanged them on the mountain of Yahweh where all seven perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest at the beginning of the barley harvest.

¹⁰Then Rizpah, daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens. She did not allow the birds of the air to come on them by day or the beasts of the field by night. ¹¹When David was told what Rizpah, Aiah’s daughter and Saul’s concubine, had done, ¹²he asked the men of Jabesh-gilead for the bones of Saul and those of his son Jonathan. (They had taken them from the wall of Bethshan where the Philistines had nailed them when they killed Saul on Gilboa.) ¹³So David had brought up from there the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan, and the bones of those who had been hanged were gathered. ¹⁴All of them were buried in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish their father. When all that the king had commanded was done, God had pity on the land.

¹⁵The Philistines waged war again with Israel, and David went down together with his servants to fight against them. When David was already tired, ¹⁶Ishbibenob, one of the descendants of the giants whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of bronze and who had put on a new sword, thought of killing David. ¹⁷But Abishai, son of Zeruiah, came to his help, at tacking and killing the Philistine. Then David’s men urged him, “You shall not join us anymore in battle lest the lamp of Israel be extinguished.”

¹⁸After this, there was more fighting with the Philistines at Gob; there Sibbecai the Hushathite, slew Saph, one of the descendants of the giants. ¹⁹There was another battle with the Philistines at Gob where Elhanan, son of Jaareoregim, the Bethlehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was the size of a weaver’s beam. ²⁰In another encounter at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, numbering twenty-four in all. He too was a descendant of the giants. ²¹When he taunted Israel, Jonathan, son of Shimei, David’s brother, slew him. ²²All four descendants of the giants fell by the hand of David and his guards.