2 Samuel 21:1-7

1 There was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, It is for Sha'ul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Giv`onim.

2 The king called the Giv`onim, and said to them (now the Giv`onim were not of the children of Yisra'el, but of the remnant of the Amori; and the children of Yisra'el had sworn to them: and Sha'ul sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Yisra'el and Yehudah);

3 and David said to the Giv`onim, What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the LORD?

4 The Giv`onim said to him, It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Sha'ul, or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Yisra'el. He said, What you shall say, that will I do for you.

5 They said to the king, The man who consumed us, and who devised against us, [that] we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Yisra'el,

6 let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to the LORD in Gevah of Sha'ul, the chosen of the LORD. The king said, I will give them.

7 But the king spared Mefivoshet, the son of Yonatan the son of Sha'ul, because of the LORD's oath that was between them, between David and Yonatan the son of Sha'ul.

2 Samuel 21:1-7 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND SAMUEL 21

A famine being in the land three years, the Lord was inquired of, to know the reason of it; and it being answered, that it was on account of Saul's slaughter of the Gibeonites, they were summoned by David to know what satisfaction they required for the cruel usage of them, 2Sa 21:1-3; to which they replied, that they only desired seven of Saul's sons to be delivered up to them, to be hanged by them, which was granted, 2Sa 21:4-9; whose bones, with those of Saul and Jonathan, David buried in the sepulchre of their fathers, 2Sa 21:10-14; and the chapter is closed with an account of the various battles fought with the Philistines, in which four of their generals were slain, 2Sa 21:15-22.