When you are interceding for your lost loved ones, do you ever feel like you’re just wasting time? Do you feel like Rizpah, like you’re just covering for the dead? Does it feel like the people you are interceding for are a lost cause? Do you wonder if the Lord is really listening? Well, He hasn’t answered yet, so… Yeah. We’ve been there, haven’t we?
We pray, because we’re told to pray, but inside our faith is waning because it’s been SOOOO long we’ve been interceding and we don’t see anything happening. Sometimes they even get WORSE!!! And we are so close to the end now.
Today, we are going to revisit Rizpah’s story in the Old Testament. I am kinda fascinated with her and why her story was important enough to be mentioned in the Bible, so I want us to talk about her again today. Any time you see a short little story in the Bible that just pops up out of nowhere and doesn’t seem important, dig deeper, because, like the Prayer of Jabez, there’s something there or it wouldn’t have been included.
Rizpah lived in the time of King Saul and David. She was one of King Saul’s concubines.
Smith’s Bible Dictionary defines a concubine as:
The state of concubinage is assumed and provided for by the law of Moses. A concubine would generally be either
(1.) a Hebrew girl bought of her father;
(2.) a Gentile captive taken in war;
(3.) a foreign slave bought; or
(4.) a Canaanitish woman, bond or free.
Free Hebrew women also might become concubines.
There is an interesting story about some of King David’s concubines in the Bible where during the time when he was running away from Absalom, David left ten concubines to take care of the palace. Absalom raped the women in a tent on the roof of the palace, in the sight of all Israel. When King David returned to his palace, he separated the women into a house by themselves.
I always feel sad for those concubines when I read that story – they had to live as widows for the remainder of their lives since they were now considered too impure for the King’s use, and through no fault of their own. The good side of that is at least they were provided for.
Concubines had few choices. They could not get a bill of divorce like a wife could. A concubine's children were legitimate, but were doubtless considered secondary in rank to the children born from a wife.
Rizpah was the daughter of Aiah. She was a Royal Concubine, a concubine to King Saul. Regular men could also have concubines if they chose to. The qualifying factor was they must be able to support them for the remainder of their lives. Rizpah had two sons for King Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth.
I always thought of concubines as just babymakers for the Kings in that day. Wives were generally chosen as a physical mark of an alliance between two kingdoms, whereas concubines were actually chosen for their outstanding beauty and intelligence, and were more likely to actually be loved and desired. So Rizpah would have been both beautiful AND smart. Which means she wasn’t just some side chick.
There are two stories involving Rizpah in the Bible. In one, Abner, cousin to King Saul takes a fancy to Rizpah and he is later accused of having relations with her in an attempt to take the Kingdom. The Bible does not specify whether Rizpah had any choice in this.
In the other story that we are talking about today, there is a famine for 3 years and King David asked the Lord about it.
The Lord told King David the famine was due to King Saul breaking the covenant made with the Gibeonites when he tried to exterminate them due to his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah. We can see from this that covenant breaking was serious business in Biblical times.
So King David goes to the Gibeonites and says sorry and What can I do to make this right. They said give us 7 sons of King Saul who did all this. Of course David does not choose any of Jonathan’s sons, as they were in covenant.
What he DOES do is choose both of Rizpah’s sons among the seven.
So here is poor Rizpah, now widowed with King Saul dead, and now her sons are to be hanged TOO??? I cannot even imagine that poor woman’s anguish. I can’t even comprehend that level of grief. She had nothing left.
So after they are executed by hanging, their bodies are left to rot shamefully out in public as part of the punishment for something they themselves did not do, and it’s more than Rizpah can stand.
So she starts a vigil. She spreads sackcloth on a rock and she stays on that rock fighting off every type of devourer from her precious sons’ bodies. Night and day she fights them back.
Rizpah fought off the assailants from her sons in death as she had not been able to do for them in life; she protected them as well as she was able.
2 Samuel 21:9 KJV
And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the LORD: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.
2 Samuel 21:10 KJV
And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.
2 Samuel 21:11 KJV
And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.
2 Samuel 21:12 KJV
And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabeshgilead, which had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa:
2 Samuel 21:13 KJV
And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son; and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.
2 Samuel 21:14 KJV
And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin in Zelah, in the sepulchre of Kish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was intreated for the land.
Boldly Intercede...pretty bold to pray over the dead! Like hershels group! Bold intercession is what gets the King's notice!
Psalm 126:6 KJV
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing (means to LIFT UP – which is what we do in intercession – we LIFT UP those we love before the Throne of God) precious seed (H2233 – zer-eh’ – meaning seed or CHILD), shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
SEED HERE IS TRANSLATED CHILD IN SOME VERSES, AND CLEARLY INDICATES CHILDREN OR OFFSPRING IN OTHERS:
Genesis 3:15 KJV
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. That verse is, of course, the Lord cursing the devil for tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 12:7 KJV
And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seedH2233 will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him. Abram’s SEED were his children that would come after him.
Genesis 37:7 KJV (first mention of sheaves shows sheaves can represent people – the words of Joseph, sharing his dream with his brothers).
For, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.
Having her son’s bones buried with the former king’s by the current king was likely one of the greatest honors that could possibly have happened. But it DID happen – because Rizpah interceded for them. She kept them COVERED until finally the KING himself noticed her anguish and her faith that more would be done for them. She couldn’t bring them back, but at least she could make sure they were given a dignified burial.
But our children are still ALIVE. We can still INTERCEDE! We can hope for FAR MORE than poor Rizpah could.
Those loved ones you’ve been praying and praying and praying for – the Lord wants you to know today – He knows you’re tired and He knows you grow weary of going before the Throne again and again and again, and it feels as if nothing is happening.
We all know what that feels like. You feel like you carried your sheaves in there again and again but come our empty handed!
There are People that we’ve been just wearing ourselves out in intercession over…You now, I was that person in the past…a lot of people went before the Throne day after day after weary day carrying my name before I was saved and I’m sure some of them were like – Hey can you save this chick, Lord? I know she looks like a lost cause, but you ARE God! And He saved me! He answered them. And Most of all He honored my mother’s prayers I believe.
I believe He has called us women to intercession especially, Because like Rizpah, WE will get the job done. We will get out there in bad weather or good, and spread out our sackcloth on the rock. We don’t care who sees our puffy eyes or tear streaked faces! We will COVER our children and we will believe for Him to take notice of them and of our pain and our anguish. We will cry out their names before His Throne day after day after day. Night after night after night, as we refuse to let the devourers take them. We will beat back the devourers as we cover them and claim them for the Kingdom of God. We will believe for them to be saved! WE WON’T GIVE UP!! We will WEAR OUT the carpet that runs down to the Throne of God as we keep carrying our sheaves to lift up before Him again and again and again! Because He is THEIR ONLY HOPE – He is OUR ONLY HOPE!!
WORD!! There are some mothers that on THIS MOTHER’S DAY you are going to begin to see the change you have long desired in your children!! The Lord says to you, Women of God – Lift them up even higher before Me each day!! Lift them up and PRAISE ME – Praise My Holy Name for I am MIGHTY to save!!!!!! MIGHTY!!!!! I can draw their hearts to me in an instant – can you believe Me to??? I have seen your tears and heard the cry of your hearts and today I AM ANSWERING YOU !!!
I refuse to believe ANYTHING but that BOTH of my children will be saved before they leave this earth!!! I am standing on the inerrant Word of my Holy God for it!
Psalm 126:6 KJV
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
