Study Desk

And there came to be a famine, in the days of David, for three years, year after year, so then David sought the face of Yahweh, - and Yahweh said - It respecteth Saul and his house, as to bloodshed, in that he put to death the Gibeonites.

The king therefore called the Gibeonites, and said unto them (now, the Gibeonites, were, not of the sons of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, with whom, the sons of Israel, had entered into an oath, and Saul had sought to smite them, in his jealousy for the sons of Israel and Judah) -

wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites - What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make propitiation, so that ye may bless the inheritance of Yahweh?

And the Gibeonites said unto him - It is not a matter with us of silver or gold, with Saul or with his house, neither would we have a man put to death in Israel. And he said, - What do ye say I should do for you?

Then said they unto the king, The man who consumed us, and who thought to have destroyed us from taking a place within any of the bounds of Israel,

let there be delivered up to us - seven men of his sons, and we will crucify them unto Yahweh in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Yahweh. And the king said, I, will deliver them up.

But the king had pity upon Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, Saul's son, - because of the oath of Yahweh that was between them, between David and Jonathan, Saul's son.

So the king took the two sons of Rizpah daughter of Aiah, whom she had borne to Saul, even Armoni and Mephibosheth, - and the five sons of Michal daughter of Saul, whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai, the Meholathite;

and delivered them up into the hand of the Gibeonites, and they crucified them in the mountain, before Yahweh, so they seven fell together, - they being put to death in the first days of harvest, in the beginning of the barley harvest.

Then Rizpah daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it out for herself, on the rock, from the beginning of harvest, until water poured out upon them from the heavens, - and suffered neither the birds of the heavens to rest on them by day, nor the wild beasts of the field, to devour them by night.

And it was told David, - what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, Saul's concubine, had done.

So David went and fetched the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the owners of Jabesh-gilead, - who stole them from the broadway of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day when the Philistines had smitten Saul in Gilboa;

and he brought up from thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, - and they gathered together the bones of them who had been crucified;

so they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the land of Benjamin, in Zelah, in the grave of Kish his father, thus did they all that the king commanded, - and God suffered himself to be entreated for the land, after this.