2 Samuel 21:8-13

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.

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 For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation.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