After 3 years of famine in Israel, David discovered that the
cause was a divine curse. Back in the days of Joshua, the Jews had made a
promise to the Gibeonites that they would never fight against them. However,
King Saul, (in his military zeal) had killed many of the Gibeonites. So, God
reimbursed Israel for their breach of promise by holding back His blessings
from them... as I said, for 3 years.
When David realized what the problem was, he inquired from
the Gibeonites to find out what could be done to satisfy their hearts and to
pacify God's anger. They asked for 7 men from Saul's household to be delivered
to them to be executed. Among those 7, David gave to them 5 of his own
step-sons. (All 5 were children of
Michal from the years when David had been in exile). It seems that from the day that he brought
the Ark into Jerusalem, the rift between David and Michal had remained very
deep indeed.
After those 7 descendants of Saul had been killed, one of
Saul's former concubines spent several months keeping vigil over the bodies of
those men. She kept the birds and the beasts off their carcasses as the flesh
decayed. When David heard about that, he respectfully buried those men's bones
along with the bones of Saul and Jonathan. When all of that was done, the
famine ended. God's justice prevailed; He was appeased.
Now,
the second half of this chapter is devoted to the greatest exploits of some of
David's greatest military men against some of Israel's most prominent enemies.
They had had no business fighting the Gibeonites previously, but there were 4
Philistine giants who were fair game.
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