^21:7The king had mercy on Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, in light of the Lord’s oath that had been taken between David and Jonathan son of Saul. ^21:8So the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah whom she had born to Saul, and the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab¹⁰ whom she had born to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite. ^21:9He turned them over to the Gibeonites, and they executed them on a hill before the Lord. The seven of them¹¹ died¹² together; they were put to death during harvest time—during the first days of the beginning¹³ of the barley harvest.

^21:10Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest until the rain fell on them,¹⁴ she did not allow the birds of the air to feed¹⁵ on them by day, nor the wild animals¹⁶ by night. ^21:11When David was told what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, Saul’s concubine, had done, ^21:12he¹⁷ went and took the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan¹⁸ from the leaders¹⁹ of Jabesh Gilead. (They had secretly taken²⁰ them from the plaza at Beth Shan. It was there that Philistines²¹ publicly exposed their corpses²² after²³ they²⁴ had killed Saul at Gilboa.) ^21:13David²⁵ brought the bones of Saul and of Jonathan his son from there; they also gathered up the bones of those who had been executed.

^21:14They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin at Zela in the grave of his father Kish. After they had done everything²⁶ that the king had commanded, God responded to their prayers²⁷ for the land.

Read in Logos

2 Samuel 21:14: 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.

Footnotes

10 The reads “Michal” here, but two Hebrew manuscripts read “Merab,” along with some manuscripts. Cf. 1 Sam 18:19.
11 The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew in reading שְׁבַעְתָּם (shéva’tam, “the seven of them”) rather than שִׁבַעְתִּים (shiva’tim, “seventy”).
12 Heb “fell.”
13 The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew in reading בִּתְחִלַּת (bithkhillat, “in the beginning”) rather than תְחִלַּת (tékhillat, “beginning of”).
14 Heb “until water was poured on them from the sky.”
15 Heb “rest.”
16 Heb “the beasts of the field.”
17 Heb “David.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation.
18 Heb “the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son.” See also v. 13.
19 Heb “lords.”
20 Heb “stolen.”
21 Against the , this word is better read without the definite article. The reading is probably here the result of wrong word division, with the letter ה (he) belonging with the preceding word שָׁם (sham) as the he directive (i.e., שָׁמָּה, samah, “to there”).
22 Heb “had hung them.”
23 Heb “in the day.”
24 Heb “Philistines.”
25 Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
26 Many medieval Hebrew have here כְּכֹל (kékhol, “according to all”).
27 Heb “was entreated.” The verb is an example of the so-called niphal tolerativum, with the sense that God allowed himself to be supplicated through prayer (cf. §51.c).