Reference: Gibeonites
Fausets
Their safety was covenanted by Israel (Joshua 9), even though obtained by a deceit, their ambassadors having taken old sacks and mended wineskins (the tear being tied up like a bag) and old mended sandals ("clouted," i.e. mended coarsely); but they were made "hewers of wood and drawers of water." Israel's error was in making the treaty without inquiring of the Lord; a warning to the church of all ages against the dissimulation of the world, which seeks admission and union with the kingdom of God without real conversion, faith, and sanctification, when it suits its own carnal advantage. Saul in his zeal for Israel where God sanctioned it not, though wanting in zeal against Israel's foe Amalek (1Sa 15:18-20) where God commanded it, sought to slay them, probably (2 Samuel 21) in the dark closing period of his reign seeking to atone for his deficiency as to Amalek and to win the divine favor and popularity with his people by this mis-timed and misplaced zeal.
God remembers the sins of the fathers upon the children, and vindicates His righteousness as Ruler of the nations by making an entail of curse go down from one generation to another for the unexpiated guilt of bloodshed and violation of covenants. The three years' famine, the Lord's answer when consulted as to the cause, that it was "for Saul and his bloody house because he slew the Gibeonites," and after the execution of Saul's seven (seven, the sacred number, denotes the performance of a work of God) sons "the Lord being entreated for the hind," prove that David did not contrive or eagerly fall in with this device for ridding himself of the remainder of Saul's royal line. Nay, he showed by the honorable burial he gave their remains, and by sparing Mephibosheth, that he entertained no such feeling, nor had he by this time anything to fear from Saul's family.
The whole matter was divinely ordered to teach solemn moral lessons of God's government to the king and the nation (Ex 20:5; 34:7; Le 26:34-40; Nu 14:18-34, especially Nu 35:33, "blood it defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it"; Isa 14:20-21; 65:6-7; Jer 2:9; 32:18). The "water dropping upon them (the hanged or crucified seven) out of heaven" marked the cessation of the heaven sent drought and the point of time when the bodies might be taken down from the stakes and buried. Ordinarily bodies were taken down for burial before night (De 21:22-23); but in this case guilt rested on the whole land, and therefore the expiatory sacrifice was to remain exposed to birds of prey (the greatest ignominy, 1Sa 17:44) before Jehovah, until the cessation of the drought showed that His wrath was appeased.
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thou shalt not bow thyself down to them nor be led to serve them - For, I, Yahweh, thy God, am a jealous GOD, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon sons, unto three generations and, unto four, of them that hate me;
Keeping lovingkindness to a thousand generations, Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, Though he leave not, utterly unpunished, Visiting the iniquity of fathers, Upon sons, And upon sons' sons, Unto a third and unto a fourth generation.
Then, shall the land be paid her sabbaths, All the days she lieth desolate, While, ye, are in the land of your fees, - Then, shall the land keep sabbath, And pay off her sabbaths: All the days she lieth desolate, shall she keep sabbath, - the which she kept not as your sabbaths, - while ye dwelt thereupon. read more. And as for such as are left of you, Then will I bring faintness into their heart, in the lands of their foes, - So that the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them, And they shall flee as though fleeing from a sword And they shall fall, when no one is pursuing; And they shall stumble one upon another as from before a sword, when, pursuer there is none; And ye shall not have wherewith to stand before your foes; And ye shall perish among the nations, - And the land of your fees shall eat you up; And they who are left of you, shall melt away in their iniquity, in the lands of your foes; Yea also, in the iniquity of their fathers with them, shall they melt away. Then shall they confess their iniquity, And the iniquity of their fathers, In their unfaithfulness wherewith they had been unfaithful towards me; Yea moreover, because they had gone in opposition to me,
Yahweh - slow to anger and great in lovingkindness, Forgiving iniquity and transgression: Though he will not leave, wholly unpunished, Visiting the iniquity of fathers upon sons, Upon a third generation, and upon a fourth. Pardon I beseech thee, the iniquity of this people, According to the greatness of thy lovingkindness, - And according as thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even thus far. read more. And Yahweh said, I have pardoned according to thy word; Nevertheless as I live, - and that all the earth may be filled with the glory of Yahweh, Verily, none of the men who have been beholding my glory and my signs, which I have done in Egypt and in the desert, - and have put me to the proof these ten times, and have not hearkened unto my voice, shall see the land, which I sware to their fathers, - yea, none of my despisers, shall see it. But my servant Caleb - because there was another spirit with him, and he followed me fully, therefore will I bring him into the land whereinto he entered, and his seed, shall possess it. Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites, are dwelling in the valley, - to-morrow, turn ye away; and set yourselves forward towards the desert by the way of the Red Sea.
How long, as regardeth this evil assembly, re they to be murmuring against me? The murmuring of the sons of Israel which, they, have been murmuring against me, have I heard, Say unto them: As I live, is the oracle of Yahweh: Surely as ye have spoken in mine ears, so, will I do unto you: - read more. In this desert, shall your dead bodies fall And none of you who were numbered in all your counting, from twenty years old and upwards, - who have murmured against me, none of you, shall enter into the land, as to which I uplifted my hand to give you an abode therein, - save Caleb son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, son of Nun: whereas, your little ones, of whom ye said, they should become, a prey, I will bring them in, and they shall acknowledge the land which ye refused. But, your own dead bodies, shall fall in this desert; and your sons, shall be shepherds in the desert forty years, and shall bear your unchastities, - until your dead bodies are consumed in the desert. By the number of the days wherein ye spied out the land - forty days, each day for a year, shall they bear your iniquities - forty years, - so shall ye know my opposition.
So shall ye not pollute the land wherein ye are, for blood, doth pollute the land, and for the land, no propitiatory-covering can be made, as touching blood, that is shed therein, save with the blood of him that shed it;
But when there shall be in any man a sin worthy of death and he is to be put to death, - and thou shalt hang him on a tree, his dead body shall not remain all night upon the tree but thou shalt bury, him on the same day, for a reproach unto God, is he that is hanged, - so shalt thou not make unclean thy soil which Yahweh thy God is giving unto thee for an inheritance.
So then Yahweh sent thee on a journey, - and said - Go, and devastate to destruction, the sinners - the Amalekites, and make war against them, until they have consumed them. Wherefore, then, didst thou not hearken unto the voice of Yahweh, - but didst rush upon the spoil, and do that which was wrong in the sight of Yahweh? read more. And Saul said unto Samuel - As indeed I have hearkened unto the voice of Yahweh, and have been on the journey on which Yahweh sent me, - and have brought in Agag, king of Amalek, and, the Amalekites, have I devoted to destruction.
And the Philistine said unto David, - Come, unto me, that I may give thy flesh to the birds of heaven, and to the beasts of the field.
As for them who go down to the stones of the Pit, Thou shalt not be united with them in burial; For thy land, thou didst ruin Thy people, didst slay, - Unnamed to times ago-abiding, Be the seed of the wicked! Prepare - for his sons - shambles. For the iniquity of their fathers, - They shall not rise nor possess the earth, Nor fill the face of the world with cities.
Lo! it is written before me, - I will not keep silence, But I have recompensed, and will recompense into their bosom: Your own iniquities, And the, iniquities of your fathers together, Saith Yahweh, Who have burned incense upon the mountains, And upon the hills, have reproached me, - Therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom.
Therefore yet further will I plead with you Declareth Yahweh, Yea with your children's children, will I plead.
Executing lovingkindness unto thousands, But recompensing the iniquity of fathers, into the bosom of their children, after them, Thou GOD, the great the mighty, Yahweh of hosts, is his name:
Morish
Gib'eonites
The people of Gibeon and perhaps of the three confederate cities
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And the men of Israel said unto the Hivites, - Peradventure, in our midst, ye are dwelling, how then can we solemnise with you a covenant?
So the sons of Israel brake up, and came in unto their cities on the third day, - their cities, being Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim.
Now, therefore, accursed, ye are, - and ye shall not cease to be in bond-service as hewers of wood and drawers of water, for the house of my God.
And there came to be a famine, in the days of David, for three years, year after year, so then David sought the face of Yahweh, - and Yahweh said - It respecteth Saul and his house, as to bloodshed, in that he put to death the Gibeonites. The king therefore called the Gibeonites, and said unto them (now, the Gibeonites, were, not of the sons of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, with whom, the sons of Israel, had entered into an oath, and Saul had sought to smite them, in his jealousy for the sons of Israel and Judah) - read more. wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites - What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make propitiation, so that ye may bless the inheritance of Yahweh? And the Gibeonites said unto him - It is not a matter with us of silver or gold, with Saul or with his house, neither would we have a man put to death in Israel. And he said, - What do ye say I should do for you? Then said they unto the king, The man who consumed us, and who thought to have destroyed us from taking a place within any of the bounds of Israel, let there be delivered up to us - seven men of his sons, and we will crucify them unto Yahweh in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Yahweh. And the king said, I, will deliver them up. But the king had pity upon Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, Saul's son, - because of the oath of Yahweh that was between them, between David and Jonathan, Saul's son. So the king took the two sons of Rizpah daughter of Aiah, whom she had borne to Saul, even Armoni and Mephibosheth, - and the five sons of Michal daughter of Saul, whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai, the Meholathite; and delivered them up into the hand of the Gibeonites, and they crucified them in the mountain, before Yahweh, so they seven fell together, - they being put to death in the first days of harvest, in the beginning of the barley harvest. Then Rizpah daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it out for herself, on the rock, from the beginning of harvest, until water poured out upon them from the heavens, - and suffered neither the birds of the heavens to rest on them by day, nor the wild beasts of the field, to devour them by night. And it was told David, - what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, Saul's concubine, had done. So David went and fetched the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the owners of Jabesh-gilead, - who stole them from the broadway of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day when the Philistines had smitten Saul in Gilboa; and he brought up from thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, - and they gathered together the bones of them who had been crucified; so they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the land of Benjamin, in Zelah, in the grave of Kish his father, thus did they all that the king commanded, - and God suffered himself to be entreated for the land, after this.
and Ishmaiah, the Gibeonite, a hero among the thirty, and over the thirty, - and Jeremiah and Jahaziel, and Johanan, and Jozabad, the Gederathite;