2 Samuel 21:1–14

Gibeonite Revenge

¹Now there was ^aa famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and ^bDavid sought the presence of the Lord. And the Lord said, “It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

²So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the sons of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites, and ^athe sons of Israel ¹made a covenant with them, but Saul had sought to ²kill them in his zeal for the sons of Israel and Judah).

³Thus David said to the Gibeonites, “What should I do for you? And how can I make atonement that you may bless ^athe inheritance of the Lord?”

⁴Then the Gibeonites said to him, “^aWe have no concern of silver or gold with Saul or his house, nor is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” And he said, “I will do for you whatever you say.”

⁵So they said to the king, “^aThe man who consumed us and who planned ¹to exterminate us from remaining within any border of Israel,

⁶let seven men from his sons be given to us, and we will ¹hang them ^abefore the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, ^bthe chosen of the Lord.” And the king said, “I will give them.”

⁷But the king spared ^aMephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, ^bbecause of the oath of the Lord which was between them, between David and Saul’s son Jonathan.

⁸So the king took the two sons of ^aRizpah the daughter of Aiah, Armoni and Mephibosheth whom she had borne to Saul, and the five sons of ^1bMerab the daughter of Saul, whom she had borne to Adriel the son of Barzillai the ^cMeholathite.

⁹Then he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they ¹hanged them in the mountain before the Lord, so that the seven of them fell together; and they were put to death in the first days of harvest at ^athe beginning of barley harvest.

^10aAnd Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until ¹it rained on them from the sky; and ^bshe ²allowed neither the birds of the sky to rest on them by day nor the beasts of the field by night.

¹¹When it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done,

¹²then David went and took ^athe bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the open square of ^bBeth-shan, ^cwhere the Philistines had hanged them on the day ^dthe Philistines struck down Saul in Gilboa.

¹³He brought up the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from there, and they gathered the bones of those who had been ¹hanged.

¹⁴They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in ^aZela, in the grave of Kish his father; thus they did all that the king commanded, and after that ^bGod was moved by prayer for the land.