2 Samuel 21:4

_AND THE GIBEONITES SAID UNTO HIM, WE WILL HAVE NO SILVER NOR GOLD OF SAUL, NOR OF HIS HOUSE; NEITHER FOR US SHALT THOU KILL ANY MAN IN ISRAEL. AND HE SAID, WHAT YE SHALL SAY, THAT WILL I DO FOR YOU._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

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...

NO SILVER, NOR GOLD ... - Money payments as a compensation for blood-guilt were very common among many nations. The law, too, in Numbers 35:31, presupposes the existence of the custom which it prohibits. In like manner the speech of the Gibeonites implies that such a payment as they refuse would be a not unusual proceeding. NEITHER ... SHALT THOU KILL ANY MAN IN ISRAEL - They mean that it is not against the nation of Israel, but against the individual Saul, that they cry for vengeance. The demand for Saul’s sons is exactly similar to that which dictated David’s own expression in 2 Samuel 24:17, “against me, and against my father’s house.”...

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, THE GIBEONITES SAID UNTO HIM,.... In reply to his motion: WE WILL HAVE NO SILVER NOR GOLD OF SAUL, NOR OF HIS HOUSE; this shall not be the ransom or atonement; it was not silver and gold Saul took from them, but the lives of their brethren, and therefore they insist upon life for life: NEITHER FOR US SHALL THOU KILL ANY MAN IN ISRAEL; who were not of the house of Saul; they did not desire any man should die, but who were of that family by whom they had suffered: AND HE SAID, WHAT YOU SHALL SAY, [THAT] WILL I DO FOR YOU; whether by inflicting pecuniary fines, or punishing with death, which latter seems to be what they suggested, and afterwards insisted on; whatever, according to law and justice, was required, he was ready to do it for them....

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

ANY MAN. Hebrew. _'ish._ App-14....

_no silver nor gold_ No money compensation could expiate Saul's offence. Money-compensation for murder is allowed by the laws of most nations in a primitive stage, e.g. of the ancient Germans (Tac. _Germ._21); the Anglo-Saxons; and the Arabs of the present day. It was expressly forbidden by the Mosaic Law (Numbers 35:31-32), because a mere money fine is insufficient to enforce strict regard for life, and such a custom may easily be abused by the rich. See Mozley's _Lectures on the Old Testament_, p. 207 ff. _neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel_ Our cry for vengeance is against the house of Saul, and not against the nation at large....

2. The Three Years of Famine, 2 Samuel 21:1-22. _The Gibeonites Avenged._ 2 Samuel 21:1-9 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. 2 And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them; (now the Gibeonites _were_ not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.) 3 Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord? 4 And the Gibeonites said