2 Sam. 21:1-14
Now that the kingdom of Israel was again restored after terrible and well-merited trials had assailed it, we might think that a period of peaceful prosperity would begin; but instead, Israel is visited by a new plague. I do not doubt that this famine may have taken place at some other time during his reign, for it says: "There was a famine in the days of David" (2 Sam. 21:1), but whenever the Spirit of God inverts the order of an account He has a specific purpose for this, as we see at the end of Judges and in hundreds of incidents in the Gospels.
God's government cannot ignore evil, whatever it may be, and it judges it all the more severely when the congregation is in a relatively good condition. Many years had passed since Saul's bloody deed; this king's history does not mention it; the people had perhaps forgotten it, perhaps it was also unknown to David, but God had not forgotten it and this deed still remained before His eyes. The congregation of Israel had not been implicated in the crime; Saul who had committed it had died long ago; why then call it to mind again? Here it is a matter of a very important principle in God's ways, whether toward His ancient people or toward the Church. The people are jointly liable for Saul's act, for it took place on the territory of the congregation of Israel. The violation of pledges and of an oath made in the name of the Lord (Josh. 9:18) rendered the people guilty of the sin which their leader had committed. Generation had followed generation since the time of that act; the people might appeal to their ignorance in the matter—but the crime remained, and God in His time calls it to remembrance.
Do not similar events take place in our days and do they not speak to the consciences of saints? Little does it matter how much time has elapsed: the Assembly is jointly liable for the iniquity which it has let be committed, and it remains defiled by an act against which it has not protested.
The reader knows the history of the Gibeonites. We can read it in Joshua 9. The Amorites had used trickery in order to be received by the congregation of Israel and thus escape the judgment of their people. God considered that which the congregation had bound as bound; they could not revoke their oath. No doubt by placing the Gibeonites in a relationship of slavery to the people God's grace had freed Israel from the consequences of a false step taken lightly and in ignorance, but the consequences of a decision made according to the flesh remained permanently. Saul judged otherwise, for a man in the flesh always does exactly the opposite of what the Spirit would instruct one to do. And still Saul was full of "zeal for the children of Israel and Judah" (2 Sam. 21:2), but it was a zeal that, alas, was only too closely allied to hatred against the Lord's anointed. Saul of Tarsus too was full of a zeal which made him the persecutor of Christ in His Assembly. In our days we also may be zealous for our own nation or for our church without God having any part in the matter.
Once Saul would have sacrificed his own son, Israel's deliverer, for sake of the rash oath which he had made (1 Sam. 14:24,44). Now this same Saul despised the oath by which Joshua and the princes of Israel had bound themselves in the name of the Lord with regard to the Gibeonites.
The famine rages for three consecutive years: blow upon blow falls upon the congregation of God. By this trial David's conscience is brought to seek out the cause: "David inquired of Jehovah" (2 Sam. 21:1). This was his only resource and God answered him immediately: "It is for Saul, and for his house of blood, because he slew the Gibeonites" (2 Sam. 21:1). "His house of blood!" When the son of Gera, pursuing a humbled David, had cried out after him: "Away, away, thou man of blood and man of Belial! Jehovah has returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul... for thou art a man of blood," God had recorded these insults of this man of the house of Saul; but now the time had come for Him to express His thought about this outrage: God characterizes Saul's house as "bloody" and justifies the house of David.
After having inquired of the Lord to learn the reason for this chastisement, David should no doubt have continued to inquire of Him regarding the manner of rendering justice to the Gibeonites. Instead of this he consults the Gibeonites, who demand seven men from Saul's family "and we will hang them up to Jehovah in Gibeah" (2 Sam. 21:6). David consents to this for, whatever his weakness might be, judgment was necessary. Mephibosheth is spared. David who had treated him earlier with apparent severity here shows that he always bore him on his heart. David was not a man to forget his oaths. Had he not sworn to Jonathan: "Jehovah be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed forever" (1 Sam. 20:42)?
Rizpah's two sons and the five sons of Michal (or Merab) the daughter of Saul (cf. 1 Sam. 18:19) are delivered up to the Gibeonites. Their procedure—one can hardly be surprised at their indifference to the prescriptions of the law—is not in accord with the ordinance given in Deuteronomy: "And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou have hanged him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day (for he that is hanged is a curse of God); and thou shalt not defile thy land, which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance" (Deut. 21:22-23).
The "barley harvest" might be an excuse for thus disobeying the injunctions of Scripture, but excuses do not justify disobedience. It is likely however, according to the account, that they were removed from the gallows and left exposed on the rock instead of receiving burial.
Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the mother of two of these, (already mentioned earlier in the matter of the quarrel between Abner and Ishbosheth (2 Sam. 3:7), performs an act of piety that makes her name deserve to live on in the memory of believers. She makes herself guardian of the seven corpses. The motive for her devotedness is not that her two sons are among the condemned, for she watches over the five others as well as over the corpses of her own sons. She is concerned about the posterity of the one who had been "the chosen of Jehovah" (2 Sam. 21:6). She shows her piety toward her husband and master's house. Moreover Rizpah is a woman of faith. She guards their bodies from all profanation and watches over them, the sackcloth of mourning she spreads for herself being her only means of carrying out this painful task. Thus she combines her mourning with her watchful piety toward the dead. At least their burial must be honorable. She does not want to leave them as food for the birds of the heavens by day or for the beasts of the field by night as though they were criminals and reprobates. So it is that the nations will act toward God's people (Psa. 79:2), but this is not how the Lord had commanded nor how one should act in Israel!
Rizpah's faith is rewarded: "It was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done" (2 Sam. 21:11). This woman's deed is worthy of being registered in the king's heart. In the midst of her mourning, what joy! She has found a heart that understands her and that delights to reward her—grace answering to her desires. Saul's descendants' bones are united with those of their fathers in the sepulcher of Kish. This woman was on God's path and obtained the answer her faith craved.
Henceforth the Lord can be favorable to the land, for judgment has been executed, but grace also has run its course; for in His ways God never stops at judgment, but rather judgment prepares the way for the triumph of grace.