2 Samuel 4:10

10 - when the messenger told me, 'Good news! Saul is dead!' supposing I'd be delighted, I arrested him and killed him on the spot in Ziklag. That's what he got for his so-called good 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 presented the head of Ish-Bosheth to David at Hebron, telling the king, "Here's the head of Ish-Bosheth, Saul's son, your enemy. He was out to kill you, but God has given vengeance to my master, the king - vengeance this very day on Saul and his children!"

9 David answered the brothers Recab and Baanah, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, "As surely as God lives - the One who got me out of every trouble I've ever been in

10 - when the messenger told me, 'Good news! Saul is dead!' supposing I'd be delighted, I arrested him and killed him on the spot in Ziklag. That's what he got for his so-called good news!

11 And now you show up - evil men who killed an innocent man in cold blood, a man asleep in his own house! Don't think I won't find you guilty of murder and rid the country of you!"

12 David then issued orders to his soldiers. They killed the two - chopped off their hands and feet, and hung the corpses at the pool in Hebron. But Ish-Bosheth's head they took and buried in Abner's tomb in Hebron.