2 Samuel 4:12

12 Then ¹David commanded the young men, and they killed them and cut off their hands and feet and hung them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth ²and buried it in the grave of Abner in Hebron.

2 Samuel 4:12 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 4:12

And David commanded his young men, and they slew them
He ordered some of his guards about him to fall on them, and put them to death; and they accordingly did:

and cut off their hands and their feet;
their hands, which had smote Ishbosheth, and cut off his head; and their feet, which had been swift to shed his blood, and made haste to bring his head so many miles to David; this was what the Jews call measure for measure:

and hanged [them] up over the pool in Hebron;
not their hands and their feet, but the trunks of their bodies, thus mutilated; so Theodoret; though others think their hands and their feet were hung up, and not their bodies, because dead bodies were not to hang upon the tree more than a day; they were hung up over the fish pool in Hebron, because a public place, and where they were the more exposed to their shame, and the terror of others:

but they took the head of Ishbosheth, and buried [it] in the sepulchre
of Abner in Hebron;
by order of David no doubt, who it seems had made, or ordered to be made, a sepulchre, for Abner, see ( 2 Samuel 3:38 ) ; all which David did to show his regard to the family of Saul, his abhorrence of such execrable murders, and to remove all suspicion of his being concerned in them, and to conciliate the minds of the Israelites to him.

2 Samuel 4:12 In-Context

10 when one told me, saying, 'Behold, Saul is dead,' and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and killed him in Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news.

11 "How much more , when wicked men have killed a righteous man in his own house on his bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hand and destroy you from the earth?"

12 Then David commanded the young men, and they killed them and cut off their hands and feet and hung them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in the grave of Abner in Hebron.

Cross References

• 1. 2 Samuel 1:15
• 2. 2 Samuel 3:32