2 Samuel 21:7-14

21:7 The king had mercy on Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, in light of the Lord’s oath that had been taken between David and Jonathan son of Saul. 21:8 So the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah whom she had born to Saul, and the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab ¹  whom she had born to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite. 21:9 He turned them over to the Gibeonites, and they executed them on a hill before the Lord. The seven of them ²  died ³  together; they were put to death during harvest time – during the first days of the beginning ⁴  of the barley harvest.

21:10 Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest until the rain fell on them, ⁵  she did not allow the birds of the air to feed ⁶  on them by day, nor the wild animals ⁷  by night. 21:11 When David was told what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, Saul’s concubine, had done, 21:12 he ⁸  went and took the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan ⁹  from the leaders ¹⁰  of Jabesh Gilead. (They had secretly taken ¹¹  them from the plaza at Beth Shan. It was there that Philistines ¹²  publicly exposed their corpses ¹³  after ¹⁴  they ¹⁵  had killed Saul at Gilboa.) 21:13 David ¹⁶  brought the bones of Saul and of Jonathan his son from there; they also gathered up the bones of those who had been executed.

21:14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin at Zela in the grave of his father Kish. After they had done everything ¹⁷  that the king had commanded, God responded to their prayers ¹⁸  for the land.

[21:8]  ¹ tc The MT reads “Michal” here, but two Hebrew manuscripts read “Merab,” along with some LXX manuscripts. Cf. 1 Sam 18:19.

[21:9]  ² tc The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew mss in reading שְׁבַעְתָּם (shÿva’tam, “the seven of them”) rather than MT שִׁבַעְתִּים (shiva’tim, “seventy”).

[21:9]  ³ tn Heb “fell.”

[21:9]  ⁴ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading בִּתְחִלַּת (bithkhillat, “in the beginning”) rather than MT תְחִלַּת (tÿkhillat, “beginning of”).

[21:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “until water was poured on them from the sky.”

[21:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “rest.”

[21:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “the beasts of the field.”

[21:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “David.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation.

[21:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son.” See also v. 13.

[21:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “lords.”

[21:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “stolen.”

[21:12]  ¹² tc Against the MT, this word is better read without the definite article. The MT reading is probably here the result of wrong word division, with the letter ה (he) belonging with the preceding word שָׁם (sham) as the he directive (i.e., שָׁמָּה, samah, “to there”).

[21:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “had hung them.”

[21:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in the day.”

[21:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Philistines.”

[21:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[21:14]  ¹⁷ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss have here כְּכֹל (kÿkhol, “according to all”).

[21:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “was entreated.” The verb is an example of the so-called niphal tolerativum, with the sense that God allowed himself to be supplicated through prayer (cf. GKC 137 §51.c).