2 Samuel 21:1-13

The Gibeonites Avenged 1During the reign of David, there was a famine for three successive years; so David sought the face of the LORD . The LORD said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.” 2The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not a part of Israel but were survivors of the Amorites; the Israelites had sworn to spare them, but Saul in his zeal for Israel and Judah had tried to annihilate them.)

3David asked the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? How shall I make atonement so that you will bless the LORD ’s inheritance?”

4The Gibeonites answered him, “We have no right to demand silver or gold from Saul or his family, nor do we have the right to put anyone in Israel to death.” “What do you want me to do for you?” David asked. 5They answered the king, “As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel,

6let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and their bodies exposed before the LORD at Gibeah of Saul—the LORD ’s chosen one.” So the king said, “I will give them to you.” 7The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath before the LORD between David and Jonathan son of Saul. 8But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, whom she had borne to Saul, together with the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab, Two Hebrew manuscripts, some Septuagint manuscripts and Syriac (see also 1 Samuel 18:19); most Hebrew and Septuagint manuscripts Michal whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

9He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed them and exposed their bodies on a hill before the LORD . All seven of them fell together; they were put to death during the first days of the harvest, just as the barley harvest was beginning. 10Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not let the birds touch them by day or the wild animals by night. 11When David was told what Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, had done, 12he went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead. (They had stolen their bodies from the public square at Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them after they struck Saul down on Gilboa.)

13David brought the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed and exposed were gathered up.