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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You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
Then shall the land enjoy its sabbaths, as long as it lies desolate, and you be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when you dwelt upon it. read more. And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursues. And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursues: and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;
The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Pardon, I beseech you, the iniquity of this people according unto the greatness of your mercy, and as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. read more. And the LORD said, I have pardoned according to your word: But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD. Because all those men who have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put me to the test now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; Surely they shall not see the land which I swore to give unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed me fully, him will I bring into the land in which he went; and his descendants shall possess it. (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea. And the LORD spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As truly as I live, says the LORD, as you have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you: Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against me, Doubtless you shall not come into the land, concerning which I swore to make you dwell therein, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, whom you said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. But as for you, your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your harlotries, until your carcasses are consumed in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which you searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall you bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.
So you shall not pollute the land in which you are: for blood defiles the land: and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, except by the blood of him that shed it.
And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is to be put to death, and you hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that your land be not defiled, which the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance.
And the LORD sent you on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD, but did pounce upon the spoil, and did evil in the sight of the LORD? read more. And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.
You shall not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, and slain your people: the descendants of evildoers shall never be renowned. Prepare slaughter for his children because of the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
Behold, it is written before me: I will not keep silence, but will repay, even repay into their bosom, Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, says the LORD, who have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom.
Therefore I will yet plead with you, says the LORD, and with your children's children will I plead.
You show lovingkindness unto thousands, and recompense the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: the Great, the Mighty God, the LORD 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, Perhaps you dwell among us; and how shall we make a covenant with you?
And the children of Israel journeyed, and came unto their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kiriathjearim.
Now therefore you are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being slaves, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.
Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David inquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.) read more. Therefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and with what shall I make the atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the LORD? And the Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house; neither for us shall you kill any man in Israel. And he said, What you shall say, that will I do for you. And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the territory of Israel, Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them. But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the LORD's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite: And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the LORD: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and allowed neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa: And he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son; and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged. And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin in Zelah, in the sepulcher of Kish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God heeded prayers for the land.
And Ishmaiah the Gibeonite, a mighty man among the thirty, and over the thirty; and Jeremiah, and Jahaziel, and Johanan, and Jozabad the Gederathite,
And next unto them repaired Melatiah the Gibeonite, and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon, and of Mizpah, who were under the authority of the governor on this side of the river.