Dual Panel1IN David's reign there was a famine that lasted for three successive years. David consulted the LORD, who answered, “Blood-guilt rests on Saul and on his family because he put the Gibeonites to death.”
2(The Gibeonites were not of Israelite descent; they were a remnant of Amorite stock whom the Israelites had sworn that they would spare. Saul, however, in his zeal for Israel and Judah had sought to exterminate them.) King David summoned the Gibeonites, therefore, and said to them,
3“What can be done for you? How can I make expiation, so that you may have cause to bless the LORD's own people?”
4The Gibeonites answered, “Our feud with Saul and his family cannot be settled in silver or gold, and there is no other man in Israel whose death would content us.” “Then what do you want me to do for you?” asked David.
5They answered, “Let us make an end of the man who caused our undoing and ruined us, so that he will never again have his place within the borders of Israel.
6Hand over to us seven of that man's descendants, and we shall hurl them down to their death before the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, the LORD's chosen one.” The king agreed to hand them over.
7He spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, son of Saul, because of the oath that had been taken in the LORD's name by David and Saul's son Jonathan,
8but the king took the two sons whom Rizpah daughter of Aiah had borne to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons whom Merab, Saul's daughter, had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai of Meholah.
9He handed them over to the Gibeonites, and they flung them down from the mountain before the LORD; the seven of them fell together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest at the beginning of the barley harvest.
10Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out as a bed for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until the rains came and fell from the heavens on the bodies. She kept the birds away from them by day and the wild beasts by night.
11When David was told what Rizpah the concubine of Saul had done,
12he went and got the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh-gilead, who had carried them off from the public square at Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hung them on the day they defeated Saul at Gilboa.
13He removed the bones of Saul and Jonathan from there and gathered up the bones of the men who had been hurled to death.
14They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan at Zela in Benjamin, in the grave of his father Kish. Everything was done as the king ordered, and thereafter the LORD was willing to accept prayers offered for the country.
15Once again war broke out between the Philistines and Israel. David and his men went down to the battle, but as he fought with the Philistines he fell exhausted.
16When Benob, one of the race of the Rephaim, whose bronze spear weighed three hundred shekels and who wore a belt of honour, was about to kill David,
17Abishai son of Zeruiah came to the king's aid; he struck the Philistine down and killed him. Then David's officers swore that he should never again go out with them to war, for fear that the lamp of Israel might be extinguished.
18Some time later war with the Philistines broke out again in Gob: it was then that Sibbechai from Hushah killed Saph, a descendant of the Rephaim.
19In another campaign against the Philistines in Gob, Elhanan son of Jair of Bethlehem killed Goliath of Gath, whose spear had a shaft like a weaver's beam.
20In yet another campaign in Gath there appeared a giant with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all. He too was descended from the Rephaim;
21when he defied Israel, Jonathan son of David's brother Shimeai killed him.
22These four giants were the descendants of the Rephaim in Gath, and they all fell at the hands of David and his men.