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.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
You will not bow down to them, and you will not serve them, because I [am] Yahweh your God, a jealous God, punishing [the] guilt of [the] parents on the children on [the] third and on [the] fourth [generations] of those hating me,
keeping loyal love to the thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and he does not leave utterly unpunished, punishing [the] guilt of fathers on sons and on sons of sons on third and fourth [generations]."
Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days of its lying desolate, and you [shall be] in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest, and it shall enjoy its Sabbaths. All the days of its lying desolate it shall rest [for the time] that it had not rested during your Sabbaths while you were living on it. read more. As for the ones who remain among you, I will bring fearfulness in their hearts in the land of their enemies; and a sound of a windblown leaf shall pursue them, and they shall flee [like] flight {before} a sword, and they shall fall, but there shall not be a pursuer. And they shall stumble over {one another} as {from before} a sword, but there shall not be a pursuer; and {you shall have no resistance} {before} your enemies. And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you. And because of their guilt, the ones among you who remain shall decay in the land of their enemies; and also because of the iniquities of their ancestors, they shall decay with them. " 'But when they confess their guilt and the guilt of their ancestors in their infidelity that they displayed against me, and moreover that they went against me in hostility--
'Yahweh [is] {slow to anger} and great of loyal love, {forgiving} sin and rebellion; but surely he leaves nothing unpunished, visiting the sin of the fathers on the sons to the third and fourth generations.' Please forgive the sin of this people according to the greatness of your loyal love, just as you {forgave} this people, from Egypt until now." read more. Yahweh said, "I have forgiven [them] according to your word; but as I [am] alive, the glory of Yahweh will fill all the earth. But because all the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the desert yet tested me these ten times and did not listen to my voice, they will not see the land that I swore by oath to their ancestors, and all those who despised me will not see it. But my servant Caleb, because another spirit was with him, he remained true after me, and I will bring him into the land that {he entered}, and his offspring will take possession of it. And the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valleys; tomorrow turn and set out [for] the desert [by] way of the {Red Sea}." And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, "How long [will I bear] this evil community who are grumbling against me? I have heard the grumbling of the {Israelites} which {they are making} against me. Say to them, 'Surely as I live,' {declares} Yahweh, 'just as you spoke {in my hearing}, so I will do to you; in this desert your corpses will fall, and all your counted ones, according to all your number, from {twenty years old} and above who grumbled against me. You [yourselves] will not come into the land that {I swore by oath} to make you to dwell in it, but Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. But your little children, whom you said would be plunder, I will bring them, and they will know the land that you rejected. But for you, all your corpses will fall in this desert. And your children will be shepherds in the desert forty years, and you will bear your unfaithfulness until {all your corpses have fallen} in the desert. According to the number of the days that you explored the land, forty days, {a day for each year}, you will bear your sins forty years, and you will know my opposition.'
So you will not pollute the land in which you are; because blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is poured out on it except with the blood of the one who poured it out.
"And {if a man commits a sin punishable by death}, and [so] he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his dead body shall not hang on the tree, but certainly you shall bury him on that day, for cursed by God [is] one that is [being] hung; so you shall not defile your land that Yahweh your God [is] giving to you [as an] inheritance."
When Yahweh sent you on your way, he said to you: 'Go! You must utterly destroy the sinners, [the] Amalekites, and you must fight against them until you have destroyed them.' Why did you not listen to the voice of Yahweh and fall with shouting on the plunder? You have done evil in the sight of Yahweh!" read more. Then Saul said to Samuel, "I have listened to the voice of Yahweh, and I have gone on the way that Yahweh sent me! I brought Agag the king of Amalek, and the Amalekites I have utterly destroyed.
The Philistine said to David, "Come to me so that I can give your flesh to the birds of heaven and to the wild animals of the field!"
You will not be united with them in burial because you have destroyed your land, you have killed your people. [The] descendants of evildoers will not be mentioned for eternity! Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons because of the sin of their ancestors. Let them not rise and take possession of [the] earth or fill up [the] face of [the] world [with] cities."
Look! [It] is written before me: I will not be silent, but I will repay; and I will repay in the fold of their garment your iniquities and the iniquities of your ancestors together, says Yahweh, because they made smoke offerings on the mountains and they taunted me on the hills, I will measure their punishment [from the] beginning into the fold of their garment."
{Therefore} I again bring a lawsuit against you," {declares} Yahweh, "and with {your children} I bring a lawsuit.
showing loyal love to the thousands, and repaying the guilt of {parents} into the laps of their children after them. Powerful, great, mighty, his name [is] Yahweh of hosts,
Morish
Gib'eonites
The people of Gibeon and perhaps of the three confederate cities
See Verses Found in Dictionary
And the men of Israel said to the Hivites, "Perhaps you [are] living among us; how can we {make a covenant} with you?"
And the {Israelites} set out and went to their cities on the third day (their cities [were] Gibeon, Kephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath Jearim).
Therefore you [are] cursed; some of you will always be slaves as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God."
There [was] a famine in the days of David [for] three years, year after year. And David {inquired of Yahweh}, and Yahweh said, "The bloodguilt [is] on Saul and on his household, because he killed the Gibeonites." So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites [were] not from the {Israelites}; they [were] from the remainder of the Amorites. Now the {Israelites} had sworn to them, but Saul tried to wipe them out in his zeal for the {Israelites} and Judah. read more. So David asked the Gibeonites, "What can I do for you, and with what can I make amends that you may bless the inheritance of Yahweh?" Then the Gibeonites said to him, "{It is not a matter for us of} silver or gold with Saul or with his household. It is not for us to put to death anyone in Israel." He asked, "What [are] you saying [that] I should do for you all?" Then they said to the king, "The man who consumed us and who plotted against us [so that] we were destroyed from existing in all of the territory of Israel, let seven men from his sons be given over to us, and we will execute them before Yahweh in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen one of Yahweh." Then the king said, "I will give them over." But the king spared Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the sworn oath of Yahweh which [was] between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. So the king took two of the sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, namely Armoni and Mephibosheth, and five of the sons of Michal the daughter of Saul whom she had borne to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite. He gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they executed them on the mountain in the presence of Yahweh, and the seven fell together. Now they were put to death in the days of the harvest, at the beginning of the harvest of barley. Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took the sackcloth, and she spread it for herself on the rock at the beginning of the harvest until water gushed forth on them from heaven, but she did not allow the birds of heaven to rest on them by day nor the animals of the field by night. David [was] told about what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. So David left and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the rulers of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth Shan, where [the] Philistines hung them {when} [the] Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa. He brought up the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from there, and they gathered the bones of the executed. And they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the land of Benjamin at Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father. They did all that the king had commanded, and afterward God was entreated for the land.
Ishmaiah the Gibeonite, a mighty warrior among the thirty [who was] over the thirty; Jeremiah; Jahaziel; Johanan; Jozabad the Gederathite;
{Next to them} Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and Mizpah who were under the rule of the governor of [the province] Beyond the River, repaired.