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 worship to them, and thou shalt not serve them: for I am Jehovah thy God, a jealous God, striking the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and to the fourth, to them hating me;
Watching kindness for thousands, taking away iniquity, and transgression and sin, and acquitting, will not cleanse; striking the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons and upon the sons' sons, upon the third and the fourth.
Then shall the land delight with its Sabbaths, all the days of its desolation, and ye in the land of your enemies: then shall the land rest and delight with its Sabbaths. All the days of its desolation shall it rest, which it did not rest in your Sabbaths, in your dwelling upon it read more. And they remaining of you, and I brought timidity into their heart in the land of their enemies; and the voice of a driven leaf pursued them, and they fled, fleeing the sword; and they fell, and none pursued. And they faltered each upon his brother, as from before the sword, and none pursued: and there shall be to you no power of standing before your enemies. And ye were destroyed in the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they being left of you, shall pine away in their sin in the land of your enemies, and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, and the transgression which they dealt treacherously against me, and also that they went hostile with me;
Jehovah, slow to anger and of great kindness, lifting up iniquity and transgression and cleansing, will not cleanse; striking the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons, upon the third, and upon the fourth. Forgive now the sin of this people according to thy great kindness, and as thou didst lift up to this people, and even till now. read more. And Jehovah will say, I pardoned according to thy word: But yet I live, and the glory of Jehovah shall fill all the earth. For all the men having seen my glory and my signs which I did in Egypt and in the desert, and they will try me this ten times, they heard not to my voice. If they shall see the land which I sware to their fathers, and all despising me shall not see it And my servant Caleb, because another spirit was with him, and he will follow after me, and I brought him into the land which he went there; and his seed shall inherit it. And the Amalekites and the Canaanites will dwell in the valley. Tomorrow turn ye; they shall remove for you into the desert the way of the sea of sedge. And Jehovah will speak to Moses and to Aaron, saying, How long for this evil assembly, that they are murmuring against me? the murmurings of the sons of Israel which they are murmuring against me, I heard. Say to them, I live, says Jehovah, if not as ye spake in mine ears, so will I do to you: In this desert shall your carcasses fall; and all of you being reviewed according to all your number, from the son of twenty years and above, who murmured against me. If ye shall come in to the land which I lifted up my hand for you to dwell in it, except Caleb, son of Jephunneh, and Joshua, son of Nun. And your little ones which ye said shall be for a prey, and I brought them in, and they shall know the land which ye rejected And you, your carcasses shall fall in this desert And your sons shall be fed in the desert forty years, and bear your fornications till your carcasses be finished in the desert According to the number of days which ye searched out the land, forty days, a day a year, a day for a year, shall ye your iniquities; forty years, and ye knew my withdrawal.
And ye shall not pollute the land which ye are in it: for blood it will pollute the land: and for the land it will not be expiated for the blood which was poured out upon it but by the blood of him shedding.
And when there shall be sin in a man of the judgment of death, and he being put to death, and thou shalt hang him upon a tree: His carcass shall not pass the night upon the tree; for burying, ye shall bury him in that day, for he being hung is the curse of God; and thou shalt not defile thy land which Jehovah thy God gave to thee an inheritance.
And Jehovah will send thee in the way, and he will say, Go, and utterly destroy the sinners Amalek, and fight against him even till ye consumed them. And wherefore didst thou not hear to the voice of Jehovah, and wilt clothe thyself with the spoil, and thou wilt do the evil in the eyes of Jehovah. read more. And Saul will say to Samuel, That I heard to the voice of Jehovah, and I will go in the way which Jehovah sent me, and I will bring Agag king of Amalek, and I utterly destroyed Amalek.
And he of the rovers will say to David, Come to me and I will give thy flesh to the birds of the heavens and to the cattle of the field.
Thou shalt not be united with them in the grave, for thou destroyedst thy land, and didst slay thy people: the seed of those doing evil shall not be called forever. Prepare slaughter for his sons, for the iniquity of their fathers; they shall not rise and possess the land, and fill the face of the habitable globe with cities.
Behold, it written before me: I will not be silent, but I requited, and I requited upon their bosom, Your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together, said Jehovah, who burnt incense upon the mountains, and upon the hills they reproached me: and I measured their former work upon their bosom.
For this I will even contend, with you, says Jehovah, and with your sons' sons will I contend.
Doing kindness to thousands and requiting the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their sons after them: The Great, The Strong God, Jehovah of armies 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 will say to the Hivite, Perhaps thou shalt dwell in the midst of me, and I shall not make a covenant to thee.
And the sons of Israel will remove and will come to their cities in the third day. And their cities, Gibe-on and Chephirah and Barith, and Kirjath-Jearim.
And now ye are cursed, and there shall not be cut off from you to serve, and hewing wood and drawing water for the house of my God.
And there will be a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David will seek the face of Jehovah. And Jehovah will say, For Saul and for the house of bloods, because he killed the Gibeonites. And the king will call for the Gibeonites, and say to them; (and the Gibeonites not of the sons of Israel, but they from the remainder of the Amorites; and the sons of Israel sware to them: and Saul will seek to strike them in his jealousy for the sons of Israel and Judah.) read more. And David will say to the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and with what shall I expiate and bless ye the inheritance of Jehovah? And the Gibeonites will say to him, Not to me silver and gold with Saul and with his house; and not for us to put a man to death in Israel. And he will say, What ye say, I will do for you. And they will say to the king, The man who finished us, and who made an end of us, destroying us from standing in all the bound of Israel, Seven men of his sons shall be given to us and we will hang them up before Jehovah in the hill of Saul, the chosen of Jehovah. And the king will say, I will give. And the king will spare upon Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, son of Saul, on account of the oath of Jehovah which was between them, betwen David and between Jonathan, son of Saul. And the king will take the two sons of Rizpah, daughter of Aiah. which she bare to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal, Saul's daughter, which she bare to Adriel, son of Barzillai the Meholathite: And he will give them into the hand of the Gibeonites, and they will hang them in the mountain before Jehovah: and the seven will fall together, and they were put to death in the days of harvest in the first of the beginning of the harvest of barley. And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah will take sackcloth and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest till water was given upon them from the heavens, and she gave not the birds of the heavens to rest upon them in the day and the beast of the field at night And it will be announced to David what Rizpah the daugher of Aiah, concubine of Saul did. And David will go and take the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son, from the lords of JabeshGilead, who stole them from the street of the House of Shan, where the rovers hung them there in the day the rovers struck Saul in Gilboa: And he will bring up from thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son: and they will gather the bones of those being hung. And they will bury the bones of Saul, and Jonathan his son, in the land of Benjamin in Zelzah in the grave of Kish his father: and they will do all which the king commanded. And God will hear for the land after this.
And Ismaiah the Gibeonite, a strong one among the thirty, and over the thirty; and Jeremiah and Jahaziel and and Johanan and Josabad the Gederathite,
And upon their band held fast Melatiah the Gibeonite, and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon, and Mizpeh to the throne of the prefect beyond the river.