2 Samuel 4:10

10 when someone told me, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was a bearer of good news, I seized him and put him to death at Ziklag. That was his reward for his news!

2 Samuel 4:10 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 4:10

When one told me, saying, behold, Saul is dead
No more is related, not that he killed him, or assisted in killing him, only that he was dead; by which it appears, as Abarbinel thinks, that the Amalekite did not slay Saul, and that David did not put him to death on that account, but for what follows:

thinking to have brought good tidings;
which would have been very acceptable to David, that he would have rejoiced and exulted at it as he did; but he was mistaken; instead of that,

I took hold of him, and slew him at Ziklag;
that is, ordered one of his young men to lay hold on him, and slay him, as he did, ( 2 Samuel 1:15 ) ;

who [thought] that I would have given him a reward for his tidings;
a handsome present, as the Targum here, a gift, or raised him to some post of honour and profit.

2 Samuel 4:10 In-Context

8 They brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David at Hebron and said to the king, “Here is the head of Ish-bosheth son of Saul, your enemy who sought your life. Today the LORD has granted vengeance to my lord the king against Saul and his offspring.”

9 But David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the LORD lives, who has redeemed my life from all distress,

10 when someone told me, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was a bearer of good news, I seized him and put him to death at Ziklag. That was his reward for his news!

11 How much more, when wicked men kill a righteous man in his own house and on his own bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hands and remove you from the earth!”

12 So David commanded his young men, and they killed Rechab and Baanah. They cut off their hands and feet and hung their bodies by the pool in Hebron, but they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in Abner’s tomb in Hebron.