2 Samuel 21
1 And there was a famine in the days
of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the Lord.
And the Lord said, There is
aGr. iniquity.guilt upon Saul and his house because of his
bLit. the death of his bloods.bloody murder, whereby he slew the Gabaonites.
2 And king David called the
Gabaonites, and said to them;—(now the Gabaonites are not the children of
Israel, but are of the remnant of the Amorite, and
the children of Israel had sworn to them: but Saul sought to smite them in his
zeal for the children of Israel and Juda.)
3 And David said to the Gabaonites,
What shall I do to you? and wherewithal shall I make atonement, that ye may
bless the inheritance of the Lord?
4 And the Gabaonites said to him, We
have no question about silver or gold with Saul and
with his house; and there is no man for us to put to death in Israel.
5 And he said, What say ye? speak, and
I will do it for you. And they said to the king, The man who would have made
an end of us, and persecuted us, who plotted against us to destroy us, let us
utterly destroy him, so that he shall have no standing in all the coasts of
Israel. 6 Let one give us seven men of
his sons, and let us hang them up in the sun to the Lord in Gabaon of Saul, as
chosen out for the Lord. And the king said, I will give
them.
7 But the king spared Memphibosthe son
of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord that was between
them, even between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.
8 And the king took the two sons of
Respha the daughter of Aia, whom she bore to Saul, Hermonoi and Memphibosthe,
and the five sons of Michol daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Esdriel son of
Berzelli the Moülathite. 9 And he gave
them into the hand of the Gabaonites, and they hanged them up to the sun in
the mountain before the Lord: and they fell, even the seven together: moreover
they were put to death in the days of harvest at the commencement, in the
beginning of barley-harvest. 10 And
Respha the daughter of Aia took sackcloth, and fixed it for herself on the
rock in the beginning of barley harvest, until water dropped upon them out of
heaven: and she did not suffer the birds of the air to rest upon them by day,
nor the beasts of the field by night.
11 And it was told David what Respha
the daughter of Aia the concubine of Saul had done, [cHeb. omits the words in italics.and they were faint, and Dan the son of Joa of the offspring of the giants
overtook them.] 12 And David went and
took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the men of the
sons of Jabis Galaad, who stole them from the street of Bæthsan; for the
Philistines set them there in the day in which the Philistines smote Saul in
Gelbue. 13 And he carried up thence
the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and gathered the bones of
them that had been hanged. 14 And
they buried the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and the bones
of them that had been hanged, in the land of Benjamin in the hill, in the
sepulchre of Cis his father; and they did all things that the king commanded:
and after this God hearkened to the prayers of the
land.
15 And there was yet war between the
Philistines and Israel: and David went down and his servants with him, and
they fought with the Philistines, and David went.
16 And Jesbi, who was of the progeny
of Rapha, and the head of whose spear was three
hundred shekels of brass in weight, who also was girt with a club, even he
thought to smite David. 17 And Abessa
the son of Saruia helped him and smote the Philistine, and slew him. Then the
men of David swore, saying, Thou shalt not any longer go out with us to
battle, and thou shalt not quench the lamp of Israel.
18 And after this there was a battle
again with the Philistines in Geth: then Sebocha the Astatothite slew Seph of
the progeny of Rapha.
19 And there was a battle in Rom with
the Philistines; and Eleanan son of Ariorgim the Bethleemite slew Goliath the
Gittite; and the staff of his spear was as a weaver's
beam. 20 And there was yet a battle
in Geth: and there was
dGr. The original is Hebrew in Greek letters.a man of stature, and the fingers of his hands and the toes of his feet
were six on each, four and twenty in number: and he
also was born to Rapha. 21 And he
eOr, reproached.defied Israel, and Jonathan son of Semei brother of David, smote him.
22 These four were born descendants
of the giants in Geth, the family of Rapha; and they fell by the hand of
David, and by the hand of his servants.