Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
Chapter Twenty-one. Synopsis of the Chapter
The descendants of Saul, for the Gabaonites killed by him against the faith given, are crucified at God’s command. Soon, verse 15, four wars of David against the Philistines are recounted.
1. There was also a famine in the days of David for three years successively, and David consulted the oracle of the Lord. And the Lord said: It is for Saul and his bloody house, because he slew the Gabaonites. 2. So the king, calling for the Gabaonites, said to them (Now the Gabaonites were not of the children of Israel, but the remnant of the Amorrhites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them, and Saul sought to slay them out of zeal, as it were for the children of Israel and Juda). 3. David therefore said to the Gabaonites: What shall I do for you? and what shall be the atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord? 4. And the Gabaonites said to him: We have no contest about silver and gold, but against Saul and against his house; neither do we desire that any man of Israel should be put to death. And the king said to them: What then will you that I should do for you? 5. And they said to the king: The man that crushed us and oppressed us unjustly, we must destroy in such a manner that no remnant be left of his race in all the coasts of Israel. 6. Let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, that we may hang them up unto the Lord in Gabaa of Saul, once the chosen of the Lord. And the king said: I will give them. 7. And the king spared Miphiboseth the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord that had been between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. 8. So the king took the two sons of Respha the daughter of Aia, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Miphiboseth, and the five sons of Michol the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Hadriel the son of Berzellai, who was of Molathi, 9. And he delivered them into the hands of the Gabaonites, and they crucified them on a hill before the Lord, and these seven died together in the first days of the harvest, when the reaping of the barley begins. 10. And Respha the daughter of Aia took haircloth, and spread it under her upon the rock, from the beginning of the harvest, till water dropped upon them from heaven, and suffered neither the birds to tear them by day, nor the beasts by night. 11. And it was told David what Respha the daughter of Aia, Saul’s concubine, had done. 12. And David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the men of Jabes Galaad, who had stolen them from the street of Bethsan, where the Philistines had hanged them when they had slain Saul in Gelboe, 13. And he carried from thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son: and they gathered up the bones of them that had been hanged, 14. And buried them with the bones of Saul and of Jonathan his son in the land of Benjamin, on the side, in the sepulchre of Cis his father, and they did all that the king had commanded, and God was merciful again to the land after this. 15. And there was another battle of the Philistines against Israel, and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines. And David growing faint, 16. Jesbibenob, who was of the race of Arapha, the iron of whose spear weighed three hundred ounces, and who was girded with a new sword, attempted to kill David. 17. But Abisai the son of Sarvia succoured him, and striking the Philistine, killed him. Then David’s men swore unto him, saying: Thou shalt no more go out with us to battle, lest thou quench the lamp of Israel. 18. There was also a second battle in Gob against the Philistines; then Sobochai of Husathi slew Saph of the race of Arapha of the race of the giants. 19. And there was a third battle in Gob against the Philistines, wherein Adeodatus the son of the forest, an embroiderer of Bethlehem, slew Goliath the Gethite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 20. And there was a fourth battle in Geth, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and foot, that is, twenty-four, and he was of the race of Arapha. 21. And he blasphemed Israel; and Jonathan the son of Samaa the brother of David slew him. 22. These four were born of Arapha in Geth, and fell by the hand of David and of his servants.
1. THERE WAS ALSO A FAMINE IN THE DAYS OF DAVID FOR THREE YEARS.—God sent this famine on all Israel because its king Saul had unjustly killed the Gabaonites. A king, however, is a public person, and represents the commonwealth. What the king sins, therefore, the commonwealth sins; and so God chastised the public sin of the king with a public famine.
AND DAVID CONSULTED THE ORACLE OF THE LORD,—through Sadoc or Abiathar the Pontiff, clothed with the Rational in which were Urim and Thummim as an oracle, as I said on Exodus 28:30.
AND THE LORD SAID: IT IS FOR SAUL AND HIS BLOODY HOUSE—this famine was sent in punishment of sin, because Saul and his family had unjustly shed much blood. Hence this sin was to be expiated by blood, and the slaying family was to be slain.
FOR THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL (Josue and the princes of the Hebrews, as was said on Josue 9) HAD SWORN UNTO THEM—that they would not kill them, though Amorrhites, but admit them into their commonwealth, as drawers of water and hewers of wood.
2. AND SAUL SOUGHT TO SLAY THEM OUT OF ZEAL, AS IT WERE FOR THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL AND JUDA.—Saul’s zeal was this, that he wished to add the houses, villages and estates of the Gabaonites to the tribe of Juda and the other tribes to which they had been assigned by God, as though Josue had spared the Gabaonites against the law and command of God, and so had taken from Juda and the Jews an inheritance given by God. But this zeal was senseless and foolish, both because it was against the faith given to the Gabaonites by Josue and the Hebrews; and because the Gabaonites were passing of their own accord into the colony, as well as the religion and faith, of the Hebrews, whom therefore God wished to be spared; and because the Gabaonites had ceded their towns and estates to the Hebrews, and were their servants, and by this servitude had redeemed their lives from them, as I said on Josue chapter 9. Wherefore in this zeal of Saul that was true: “The highest right, the highest wrong.” Furthermore, when Saul killed the Gabaonites, David, fleeing him, lay hid in woods and caves, and if perchance he afterwards learned of it, he persuaded himself that for this injury satisfaction had been made by the death of Saul and his sons; whence he did not think of further satisfaction, until God, his kingdom now at peace, demanded it of him in this place. Wherefore Lyranus and Abulensis less rightly think that this famine happened in David’s days because he had not chastised this injustice of Saul.
3. THAT YOU MAY BLESS THE INHERITANCE OF THE LORD,—namely that you may pray well for Israel; and so God may turn away from it the three years’ famine, which he brought on it on account of you.
5. THE MAN (Saul) THAT CRUSHED US AND OPPRESSED US UNJUSTLY, WE MUST DESTROY IN SUCH A MANNER THAT NO REMNANT BE LEFT OF HIS RACE.—Nine remained of the stock of Saul, namely Miphiboseth and his son, the five sons of Michol by Hadriel, and the two sons of Saul by the concubine Respha. All these the Gabaonites at first asked to be given to them for death; David interceding for Miphiboseth and his son, as being born of Jonathan, to whom David had sworn friendship and faith, they spared both, and asked the remaining seven for the cross.