2 Samuel 21:8

_BUT THE KING TOOK THE TWO SONS OF RIZPAH THE DAUGHTER OF AIAH, WHOM SHE BARE UNTO SAUL, ARMONI AND MEPHIBOSHETH; AND THE FIVE SONS OF MICHAL THE DAUGHTER OF SAUL, WHOM SHE BROUGHT UP FOR ADRIEL THE SON OF BARZILLAI THE MEHOLATHITE:_ The five sons of Michal ... whom she brought up for Adriel. Michal has by an error been substituted in the text for Merab, Saul's oldest daughter, who, as appears, 1 Samuel 18:19, was married to Adriel [Septuagint, Esdrieel]. Our translators, not daring to impugn the accuracy of the text, and yet finding it difficult to reconcile the passage before us with the one quoted from the First Book of Samuel, have suggested a conjectural solution by the use of the phrase "brought up," as if Adriel having become a widower by the death of his wife, his five young sons had been reared under the care of their aunt Michal. It is fatal however, to such a

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...

Verse 2 Samuel 21:8. _FIVE SONS OF MICHAL - WHOM SHE BROUGHT UP_] Michal, Saul's daughter, was never married to _Adriel_, but to David, and afterwards to Phaltiel; though it is here said _she bore_ ילדה yaledah, not _brought up_, as we falsely translate it: but we learn from 1 Samuel 18:19, that _Merab_, one of Saul's daughters, was married to Adriel. Two of Dr. _Kennicott's_ MSS. have _Merab_, not Michal; the _Syriac_ and _Arabic_ have _Nadab_; the _Chaldee_ has properly _Merab_; but it renders the passage thus: - _And the five sons of Merab which_ _Michal the daughter of Saul brought up, which she brought forth to_ _Adriel the son of Barzillai_. This cuts the knot....

RIZPAH - See the marginal reference. A foreign origin was possibly the cause of the selection of Rizpah’s sons as victims. SONS OF MICHAL - An obvious error for “Merab” (1 Samuel 18:19 note)....

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

BUT THE KING TOOK THE TWO SONS OF RIZPAH THE DAUGHTER OF AIAH,.... Saul's concubine, 2 Samuel 3:7; WHOM SHE BARE UNTO SAUL, ARMONI AND MEPHIBOSHETH; of whom we read nowhere else; after the name of the latter, it is probable, Jonathan's son was called, before mentioned: AND THE FIVE SONS OF MICHAL THE DAUGHTER OF SAUL, WHOM SHE BROUGHT UP FOR ADRIEL THE SON OF BARZILLAI THE MEHOLATHITE; Michal had no children to the day of her death, nor was she the wife of Adriel, but Merab her sister, 1 Samuel 18:19; wherefore these sons were not whom she "bare", as the word used signifies, but, as we rightly render it, whom she "brought up" or educated, so the Targum, her sister being dead; and so the Jews say k, Merab brought them forth, and Michal brought them up, therefore they

SONS Compare (2 Samuel 6:23). The "five sons" were children of Michal's sister Merab, wife of Adriel, "whom she brought up for Adriel". (1 Samuel 18:19)....

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

MICHAL. Some codices, cited in the _Massorah,_ with Septuagint and Syriac, read "Merab", as in 1 Samuel 18:19....