2 Samuel 21
David Avenges the Gibeonites 1There was a famine during David’s reign that lasted for three years, so David asked the LORD about it. And the LORD said, “The famine has come because Saul and his family are guilty of murdering the Gibeonites.”
2So the king summoned the Gibeonites. They were not part of Israel but were all that was left of the nation of the Amorites. The people of Israel had sworn not to kill them, but Saul, in his zeal for Israel and Judah, had tried to wipe them out. 3David asked them, “What can I do for you? How can I make amends so that you will bless the LORD’s people again?”
4“Well, money can’t settle this matter between us and the family of Saul,” the Gibeonites replied. “Neither can we demand the life of anyone in Israel.”“What can I do then?” David asked. “Just tell me and I will do it for you.”
5Then they replied, “It was Saul who planned to destroy us, to keep us from having any place at all in the territory of Israel.
6So let seven of Saul’s sons be handed over to us, and we will execute them before the LORD at Gibeon, on the mountain of the LORD.
10Then Rizpah daughter of Aiah, the mother of two of the men, spread burlap on a rock and stayed there the entire harvest season. She prevented the scavenger birds from tearing at their bodies during the day and stopped wild animals from eating them at night. 11When David learned what Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, had done, 12he went to the people of Jabesh-gilead and retrieved the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan. (When the Philistines had killed Saul and Jonathan on Mount Gilboa, the people of Jabesh-gilead stole their bodies from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hung them.) 13So David obtained the bones of Saul and Jonathan, as well as the bones of the men the Gibeonites had executed.
14Then the king ordered that they bury the bones in the tomb of Kish, Saul’s father, at the town of Zela in the land of Benjamin. After that, God ended the famine in the land.
Battles against Philistine Giants
15Once again the Philistines were at war with Israel. And when David and his men were in the thick of battle, David became weak and exhausted.
16Ishbi-benob was a descendant of the giants
18After this, there was another battle against the Philistines at Gob. As they fought, Sibbecai from Hushah killed Saph, another descendant of the giants.
19During another battle at Gob, Elhanan son of Jair
20In another battle with the Philistines at Gath, they encountered a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all, who was also a descendant of the giants.
21But when he defied and taunted Israel, he was killed by Jonathan, the son of David’s brother Shimea.
22These four Philistines were descendants of the giants of Gath, but David and his warriors killed them.