2 Samuel 21:12

_AND DAVID WENT AND TOOK THE BONES OF SAUL AND THE BONES OF JONATHAN HIS SON FROM THE MEN OF JABESH-GILEAD, WHICH HAD STOLEN THEM FROM THE STREET OF BETHSHAN, WHERE THE PHILISTINES HAD HANGED THEM, WHEN THE PHILISTINES HAD SLAIN SAUL IN GILBOA:_ David went and took the bones of Saul ... Erelong the descent of copious showers, or perhaps an order of the king, gave Rizpah the satisfaction of releasing the corpses from their ignominious exposure; and, incited by her pious example, David ordered the remains of Saul and his sons to be transferred from their obscure grave in Jabesh-gilead to an honourable interment in the family vault at Zelah, or Zelzah (1 Samuel 10:2), now Beit-jala....

10-14 That a guilty land should enjoy many years of plenty, calls for gratitude; and we need not wonder misused abundance should be punished with scarcity; yet how few are disposed to ask of the Lord concerning the sinful cause, while numbers search for the second causes by which he is pleased to work! But the Lord will plead the cause of those who cannot or will not avenge themselves; and the prayers of the poor are of great power. When God sent rain to water the earth, these bodies were buried, for then it appeared that God was entreated for the land. When justice is done on earth, vengeance from heaven ceases. God is pacified, and is entreated for us through Christ, who was hanged on a tree, and so made a curse for us, to do away our guilt, though he was himself guiltless....

Verse 2 Samuel 21:12. _TOOK THE BONES OF SAUL_] The reader will recollect that the men of Jabesh-gilead burned the bodies of Saul and his sons, and buried the remaining bones under a tree at Jabesh. See 1 Samuel 31:12-9. These David might have digged up again, in order to bury them in the family sepulchre....

FROM THE STREET OF BETH-SHAN - This was the wide place just inside the gate of an Oriental city, bounded therefore by the city wall (compare the marginal reference). Here, as the place of concourse, the Philistines had fastened the bodies....

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

AND DAVID WENT AND TOOK THE BONES OF SAUL, AND THE BONES OF JONATHAN HIS SON, FROM THE MEN OF JABESHGILEAD,.... Which, according to Bunting t, was fifty two miles from Jerusalem; though perhaps David did not go thither in person to fetch them, but by his messengers, see 2 Samuel 21:14; WHICH HAD STOLEN THEM FROM THE STREET OF BETHSHAN, WHERE THE PHILISTINES HAD HANGED THEM, WHEN THE PHILISTINES HAD SLAIN SAUL IN GILBOA; the history of all which see in 1 Samuel 31:8. t Travels, c. p. 122, 143....

PHILISTINES Compare (1 Samuel 31:3 (_ See Scofield) - (1 Samuel 31:3). _...

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

MEN. lords, or masters (Hebrew. _baalim). Compare_ 1 Samuel 31:10; 1 Samuel 31:13. STREET. The open space by the gate (2 Chronicles 32:6; Nehemiah 8:1; Nehemiah 8:3; Nehemiah 8:16). WHEN. in the day....