< 2 Samuel 21 >
1 And there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of Jehovah. And Jehovah said, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Gibeonites.
2 And the king called the Gibeonites, and spoke to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the sons of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, and the sons of Israel had sworn to them, and yet Saul sought to kill them in his zeal for the sons of Israel and Judah),
3 and David said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement that ye may bless the inheritance of Jehovah?
4 And the Gibeonites said to him, It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house, neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say, that I will do for you.
5 And they said to the king, The man who consumed us, and who devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel,
6 let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to Jehovah in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Jehovah. And the king said, I will give them.
7 But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of Jehovah's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.
8 But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite.
9 And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites. And they hanged them in the mountain before Jehovah, and they fell all seven together. And they were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.
10 And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water was poured upon them from heaven. And she neither allowed the birds of the heaven to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.
11 And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.
12 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 in the day that the Philistines killed Saul in Gilboa,
13 and he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged.
14 And they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the sepulcher of Kish his father. And they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was entreated for the land.
15 And the Philistines had war again with Israel. And David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines. And David grew faint,
16 and Ishbibenob, who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred shekels of brass in weight, he being girded with a new sword, thought to have slain David.
17 But Abishai the son of Zeruiah helped him, and smote the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, Thou shall no more go out with us to battle, that thou not quench the lamp of Israel.
18 And it came to pass after this, that there was again war with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was of the sons of the giant.
19 And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob. And Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
20 And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature who had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, twenty-four in number, and he also was born to the giant.
21 And when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, David's brother, killed him.
22 These four were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.
