2 Samuel 21:1-14 - The Famine Brings Justice

¹ And there is a famine in the days of David three years, year after year, and David seeketh the face of Jehovah, and Jehovah saith, 'For Saul and for the bloody house, because that he put to death the Gibeonites.'

² And the king calleth for the Gibeonites, and saith unto them -- as to the Gibeonites, they are not of the sons of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorite, and the sons of Israel had sworn to them, and Saul seeketh to smite them in his zeal for the sons of Israel and Judah -- ³ yea, David saith unto the Gibeonites, 'What do I do for you? and with what do I make atonement? and bless ye the inheritance of Jehovah.'

⁴ And the Gibeonites say to him, 'We have no silver and gold by Saul and by his house, and we have no man to put to death in Israel;' and he saith, 'What ye are saying I do to you.'

⁵ And they say unto the king, 'The man who consumed us, and who devised against us -- we have been destroyed from stationing ourselves in all the border of Israel -- ⁶ let there be given to us seven men of his sons, and we have hanged them before Jehovah, in the height of Saul, the chosen of Jehovah.' And the king saith, 'I do give;'

⁷ and the king hath pity on Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, son of Saul, because of the oath of Jehovah that is between them, between David and Jonathan son of Saul; ⁸ and the king taketh the two sons of Rizpah daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal daughter of Saul whom she bare to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite, ⁹ and giveth them into the hand of the Gibeonites, and they hang them in the hill before Jehovah; and the seven fall together, and they have been put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, the commencement of barley-harvest.

¹⁰ And Rizpah daughter of Aiah taketh the sackcloth, and stretcheth it out for herself on the rock, from the commencement of harvest till water hath been poured out upon them from the heavens, and hath not suffered a fowl of the heavens to rest upon them by day, or the beast of the field by night.

¹¹ And it is declared to David that which Rizpah daughter of Aiah, concubine of Saul, hath done, ¹² and David goeth and taketh the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the possessors of Jabesh-Gilead, who had stolen them from the broad place of Beth-Shan, where the Philistines hanged them, in the day of the Philistines smiting Saul in Gilboa; ¹³ and he bringeth up thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, and they gather the bones of those hanged, ¹⁴ and bury the bones of Saul and of Jonathan his son in the land of Benjamin, in Zelah, in the burying-place of Kish his father, and do all that the king commanded, and God is entreated for the land afterwards.