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.
21:2 And the king called the Gibeonites, and said to 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
to them: and Saul sought to slay them, in his zeal to the
children of Israel and Judah.)
21:3 Wherefore David said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do for
you? and with what shall I make the atonement, that ye may
bless the inheritance of the LORD?
21:4 And the Gibeonites said to 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.
21:5 And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and
that devised against us [that] we should be destroyed from
remaining within the borders of Israel,
21:6 Let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will
hang them up to the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, [whom] the LORD
chose. And the king said, I will give [them].
21:7 But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the
son of Saul, because of the LORD'S oath that [was] between
them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.
21:8 But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of
Aiah, whom she bore to 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:
21:9 And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and
they hanged them on the hill before the LORD: and they fell
[all] seven together, and were put to death in the days of
harvest, in the first [days], in the beginning of barley
harvest.
21:10 And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread
it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until
water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the
birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the
field by night.
21:11 And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah the
concubine of Saul had done.
21:12 And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of
Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen
them from the street of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had
hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa:
21:13 And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the
bones of Jonathan his son; and they gathered the bones of them
that were hanged.
21:14 And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son they buried in
the country of Benjamin in Zelah, in the sepulcher of Kish his
father: and they performed all that the king commanded. And
after that God was entreated for the land.
21:15 Moreover, the Philistines had yet war again with Israel;
and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought
against the Philistines: and David became faint.
21:16 And Ishbi-benob, who [was] of the sons of the giant, the
weight of whose spear was three hundred [shekels] of brass in
weight, he being girded with a new [sword], thought to have
slain David.
21:17 But Abishai the son of Zeruiah succored him, and smote the
Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him,
saying, Thou shalt go out no more with us to battle, that thou
mayest not extinguish the light of Israel.
21:18 And it came to pass after this, that there was again a
battle with the Philistines at Gob: then Sibbechai the
Hushathite slew Saph, who [was] of the sons of the giant.
21:19 And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines,
where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Beth-lehemite, slew
[the brother of] Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear
[was] like a weaver's beam.
21:20 And there was yet a battle in Gath, where was a man of
[great] stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on
every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was
born to the giant.
21:21 And when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimeah the
brother of David slew him.
21:22 These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the
hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.
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