A famine of three years, for the sin of Saul against the Gabaonites, at whose desire seven of Saul’s race are crucified. War again with the Philistines.

¹ And a famine occurred, during the days of David, for three years continuously. And David consulted the oracle of the Lord. And the Lord said: “This is because of Saul, and his house of bloodshed. For he killed the Gibeonites.”

² Therefore, the king, calling for the Gibeonites, spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the sons of Israel, but were the remnant of the Amorites. And the sons of Israel had sworn an oath to them, but Saul wished to strike them in zeal, as if on behalf of the sons of Israel and Judah.

³ Therefore, David said to the Gibeonites: “What shall I do for you? And what shall be your satisfaction, so that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord?”

⁴ And the Gibeonites said to him: “There is no quarrel for us over silver or gold, but against Saul and against his house. And we do not desire that any man of Israel be put to death.” The king said to them, “Then what do you wish that I should do for you?”

⁵ And they said to the king: “The man who unjustly afflicted and oppressed us, we ought to destroy in such manner that not even one of his stock may be left behind in all the parts of Israel.

⁶ Let seven men from his sons be given to us, so that we may crucify them to the Lord in Gibeon of Saul, formerly the chosen place of the Lord.” And the king said, “I will give them.”

⁷ But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord which had been made between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul.

⁸ And so the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom she conceived of Adriel, the son of Barzillai, who was from Meholath,¹

1. 21:8Of Michol: They were the sons of Merob, who was married to Hadriel: but they are here called the sons of Michol, because she adopted them, and brought them up as her own.(Challoner)

⁹ and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites. And they crucified them on a hill in the sight of the Lord. And these seven fell together in the first days of the harvest, when the barley is beginning to be reaped.

¹⁰ Then Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, taking a haircloth, spread it under herself on a rock, from the beginning of the harvest until water dropped from heaven upon them. And she did not permit the birds to tear them by day, nor the beasts by night.

¹¹ And it was reported to David what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.

¹² And David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of his son Jonathan, from the men of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had suspended them after they had slain Saul at Gilboa.

¹³ And he brought the bones of Saul, and the bones of his son Jonathan, from there. And they collected the bones of those who had been crucified.

¹⁴ And they buried them with the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan, in the land of Benjamin, to the side of the sepulcher of his father Kish. And they did all that the king had instructed. And after these things, God showed favor again to the land.

¹⁵ Then the Philistines again undertook a battle against Israel. And David descended, and his servants with him, and they fought against the Philistines. But when David grew faint,

¹⁶ Ishbibenob, who was of the ancestry of Arapha, the iron of whose spear weighed three hundred ounces, who had been girded with a new sword, strove to strike down David.

¹⁷ And Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, defended him, and striking the Philistine, he killed him. Then David’s men swore an oath to him, saying, “You shall no longer go out to war with us, lest you extinguish the lamp of Israel.”

¹⁸ Also, a second war occurred in Gob against the Philistines. Then Sibbecai from Hushah struck down Saph, from the stock of Arapha, of the ancestry of the giants.

¹⁹ Then there was a third war in Gob against the Philistines, in which Adeodatus, a son of the forest, a weaver from Bethlehem, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like the beam used by a cloth maker.¹²

1. 21:19The term ‘polymitarius’ refers to fine weaving, with many colors; whereas the term ‘texentium’ refers to the coarse weaving of fabrics.(Conte)
2. 21:19Adeodatus the son of the Forrest: So it is rendered in the Latin Vulgate, by giving the interpretation of the Hebrew names, which are Elhanan the son of Jaare.(Challoner)

²⁰ A fourth battle was in Gath. In that place, there was a lofty man, who had six digits on each hand and each foot, that is, twenty-four in all, and he was from the origins of Arapha.

²¹ And he blasphemed Israel. So Jonathan, the son of Shimei, the brother of David, struck him down.¹

1. 21:21Israel is not God, so how can anyone blaspheme against Israel? by saying something against Israel that implies something blasphemous against God.(Conte)

²² These four men were born of Arapha in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and his servants.