2 Samuel 21:1

_THEN THERE WAS A FAMINE IN THE DAYS OF DAVID THREE YEARS, YEAR AFTER YEAR; AND DAVID INQUIRED OF THE LORD. AND THE LORD ANSWERED, IT IS FOR SAUL, AND FOR HIS BLOODY HOUSE, BECAUSE HE SLEW THE GIBEONITES._ Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year. For the first two seasons the scarcity did not cause much anxiety, since David and the officers of his government probably regarded it as the natural consequence of neglecting the cultivation of the land chafing the troubles occasioned by Absalom and Sheba, and hoped that the internal resources of the country would be sufficient to supply the wants of the population. But a famine which continued over three years in succession, and the severity of which was unceasingly felt, at length produced alarm, and drove those in authority to supplicate the counsel and aid of God. IT IS FOR SAUL, AND FOR HIS BLOODY HOUSE,...

1-9 Every affliction arises from sin, and should lead us to repent and humble ourselves before God; but some troubles especially show that they are sent to bring sin to remembrance. God's judgments often look a great way back, which requires us to do so, when we are under his rebukes. It is not for us to object against the people's smarting for the sin of their king; perhaps they helped him. Nor against this generation suffering for the sin of the last. God often visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, and he gives no account of any matters. Time does not wear out the guilt of sin; nor can we build hopes of escape upon the delay of judgments. If we cannot understand all the reasons of Providence in this matter, still we have no right to demand that God should acquaint us with those reasons. It must be right, because it is the will of God, and in the end it will be proved to be...

CHAPTER XXI _A famine taking place three successive years in Israel, David_ _inquired of the Lord the cause; and was informed that it was_ _on account of Saul and his bloody house, who had slain the_ _Gibeonites_, 1. _David inquires of the Gibeonites what atonement they require,_ _and they answer, seven sons of Saul, that they may hang them_ _up in Gibeah_, 2 6. _Names of the seven sons thus given up_, 7-9. _Affecting account of Rizpah, who watched the bodies through the_ whole of the time of harvest, to prevent them frown bei

There is no note of time whatever, nor any clue as to what part of David’s reign the events of this chapter ought to be assigned. ENQUIRED OF THE LORD - Hebrew “sought the face of the Lord,” quite a different phrase from that so often used in Judges (e. g. Judges 1:1) and the Books of Samuel, and probably indicating that this chapter is from a different source; an inference agreeing with the indefinite “in the days of David,” and with the allusion to the slaughter of the Gibeonites, which has not anywhere been narrated. AND FOR HIS BLOODY HOUSE - literally, “the house of blood,” i. e., the house or family upon which rests the guilt of shedding innocent blood....

EXPOSITION 2 SAMUEL 21:1 THERE WAS A FAMINE IN THE DAYS OF DAVID; Hebrew, _and there was. _There is an entire absence of any mark of time to show in what part of David's reign this famine took place. It does not even follow, from the mention of Mephibosheth's name, that it must have happened at a time subsequent to the sending for that prince from Machir's house; for it may have been the search after the descendants of Saul which made David remember the son of his old friend. The burial, however, of the bones of Saul and Jonathan as an act of respect to the slaughtered king makes it probable that the narrative belongs to the early part of David's reign, as also does the apparent fact that the seven victims were all young and unmarried. Mephibosheth, we read, had a young son when David sent for him. Now, he was five years old whe

THEN THERE WAS A FAMINE IN THE DAYS OF DAVID THREE YEARS, YEAR AFTER YEAR,.... That is, three years running, one after another; some think this, though here related, was before the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba, and not after, and there are several things which may incline to it, as that the sin of Saul should otherwise be so long unpunished, and that the bones of Saul and Jonathan were not sooner removed, here related; and that there should be so many battles the Philistines after they were subdued, as recorded in this chapter; and in one of the Jewish e writings it is said, that this was the year after Saul was slain; though, in other copies of the same book, it is said to be thirty years after; and so in that Abarbinel used, and who is of the mind that what is here related stands in the order in which it was, and of the same opinion are some of our best chronologers f: AND DAVID IN...

IV. THE APPENDIX TO THE HISTORY OF DAVID 1. The Famines and the Wars with the Philistines CHAPTER 21 _ 1. The Famine and the Gibeonites (2 Samuel 21:1)_ 2. The Wars with the Philistines (2 Samuel 21:15) The fourth section of the second book of Samuel is an appendix to the history of David. When the great famine happened in the days of David we do not know. After the famine had returned year after year, for three years, David inquired of the Lord. Why did he not inquire in the first year? It is an evidence of the low spiritual state which prevailed at that time. The answer which David received revealed the cause of the judgment which rested upon the land. It was Saul and the blood-guilt in having slain the Gibeonites. The story of the Gibeonites is recorded in...

1 SAMUEL 21-24. These Chapter s form an appendix of material from various sources. One of the editors, perhaps the one to whom the book substantially owes its present form, seems to have met with difficulties in an attempted rearrangement of some of the material; finding no other convenient place for 2 Samuel 21:1 Samuel 24, he added them at the end, as a kind of appendix. He or someone else inserted between them the catalogue of heroes (2 Samuel 21:15; 2 Samuel 23:8); later on someone inserted 1 Samuel 22 and 1 Samuel 23:8 in the middle of the catalogue. The reader must remember that ancient editors and scribes had no

FAMINE. One of the thirteen mentioned. See note on Genesis 12:10. YEAR AFTER YEAR. the year after that year: i.e. 932. David being now fifty-eight. THE LORD. Hebrew. _Jehovah_. App-4....

2 Samuel 21:1-11. A Three Years Famine for Saul's massacre of the Gibeonites. The Execution of Saul's sons 1. _Then there was a famine_ Render, AND THERE WAS A FAMINE. There is no adverb of time marking chronological connexion with the foregoing narrative. In Palestine a famine was the almost certain consequence of a failure of the winter rains, on which both cornfields and pasturage depend. See 1 Kings 18:2; Joel 1:8-20; for famine as the result of drought; and cp. Genesis 12:10; Genesis 26:1;...