Rizpah’s Sons Hanged

2 Samuel 21:1-14

Bible Stories

2 Samuel 21:1 And a famine occurred, during the days of David, for three years continuously. And David consulted the oracle of the Lord. And the Lord said: “This is because of Saul, and his house of bloodshed. For he killed the Gibeonites.”

2 Samuel 21:2 Therefore, the king, calling for the Gibeonites, spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the sons of Israel, but were the remnant of the Amorites. And the sons of Israel had sworn an oath to them, but Saul wished to strike them in zeal, as if on behalf of the sons of Israel and Judah.

2 Samuel 21:3 Therefore, David said to the Gibeonites: “What shall I do for you? And what shall be your satisfaction, so that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord?”

2 Samuel 21:4 And the Gibeonites said to him: “There is no quarrel for us over silver or gold, but against Saul and against his house. And we do not desire that any man of Israel be put to death.” The king said to them, “Then what do you wish that I should do for you?”

2 Samuel 21:5 And they said to the king: “The man who unjustly afflicted and oppressed us, we ought to destroy in such manner that not even one of his stock may be left behind in all the parts of Israel.

2 Samuel 21:6 Let seven men from his sons be given to us, so that we may crucify them to the Lord in Gibeon of Saul, formerly the chosen place of the Lord.” And the king said, “I will give them.”

2 Samuel 21:7 But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord which had been made between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul.

2 Samuel 21:8 And so the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom she conceived of Adriel, the son of Barzillai, who was from Meholath,

2 Samuel 21:9 and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites. And they crucified them on a hill in the sight of the Lord. And these seven fell together in the first days of the harvest, when the barley is beginning to be reaped.

2 Samuel 21:10 Then Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, taking a haircloth, spread it under herself on a rock, from the beginning of the harvest until water dropped from heaven upon them. And she did not permit the birds to tear them by day, nor the beasts by night.

2 Samuel 21:11 And it was reported to David what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.

2 Samuel 21:12 And David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of his son Jonathan, from the men of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had suspended them after they had slain Saul at Gilboa.

2 Samuel 21:13 And he brought the bones of Saul, and the bones of his son Jonathan, from there. And they collected the bones of those who had been crucified.

2 Samuel 21:14 And they buried them with the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan, in the land of Benjamin, to the side of the sepulcher of his father Kish. And they did all that the king had instructed. And after these things, God showed favor again to the land.