2 Samuel 21

¹Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibʹeonites to death.” ²So the king called the Gibʹeonites. Now the Gibʹeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to slay them in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. ³And David said to the Gibʹeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?” ⁴The Gibʹeonites said to him, “It is not a 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 do you say that I shall do for you?” ⁵They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, ⁶let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them up before the Lord at Gibeon on the mountain of the Lord.” And the king said, “I will give them.”

⁷But the king spared Mephibʹosheth, the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord which was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. ⁸The king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiʹah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoʹni and Mephibʹosheth; and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Aʹdri-el the son of Barzilʹlai the Mehoʹlathite; ⁹and he gave them into the hands of the Gibʹeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the Lord, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest.

¹⁰Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiʹah took sackcloth, and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell upon them from the heavens; and she did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day, or the beasts of the field by night. ¹¹When David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiʹah, the concubine of Saul, had done, ¹²David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jaʹbesh-gilʹead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboʹa; ¹³and he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan; and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged. ¹⁴And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father; and they did all that the king commanded. And after that God heeded supplications for the land.

¹⁵The Philistines had war again with Israel, and David went down together with his servants, and they fought against the Philistines; and David grew weary. ¹⁶And Ishʹbi-beʹnob, one of the descendants of the giants, whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of bronze, and who was girded with a new sword, thought to kill David. ¹⁷But Abiʹshai the son of Zeruʹiah came to his aid, and attacked the Philistine and killed him. Then David’s men adjured him, “You shall no more go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.”

¹⁸After this there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; then Sibʹbecai the Huʹshathite slew Saph, who was one of the descendants of the giants. ¹⁹And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhaʹnan the son of Jaʹare-orʹegim, the Bethlehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. ²⁰And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; and he also was descended from the giants. ²¹And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimʹe-i, David’s brother, slew him. ²²These four were descended from the giants in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.