Famine is awful. I’m from the northeastern USA, so I know nothing of famine. In fact, weather reporters in my region regularly report on how much rain we’ve gotten in a given month or year, and many times they will say we are in a drought when our rainfall total is simply below average. In those so-called droughts, when you turn on the faucet in your home, water flows out. North America has, however, experienced significant drought.
From about 1930–1936, huge tracts of land in the American Midwest prairies and into Canada suffered drought and dust everywhere. It was called The Great Dust Bowl. Thousands of people moved to different parts of the country to find work. 7000 people died.
In 2 Samuel 21, verses one through fourteen, we read that ancient Israel experienced drought and famine for three years. King David goes to God for help. God tells him the famine is happening because of something terrible King Saul did years prior, when Saul murdered Gibeonites.
The story of King Saul murdering the Gibeonites is not recorded in Scripture. But it is certainly right in line with Saul’s unhinged behavior that we studied earlier in this series. Remember the story of Saul killing 80+ priests and their families simply because one of them helped David, when David was a fugitive from Saul? You can read about that here. It should not surprise us that Saul also murdered a group of people called the Gibeonites. In response God says to David (and I’m adding some color commentary here based on what we talked about in this post earlier this week), “Remember about leading with righteousness and justice? You need to deal with Saul’s wickedness too. The famine is happening because Saul’s sin was never made right.”
David wants to make things right with the Gibeonites, so he asks them, “How can I atone for the evil Saul did to your people?” Perhaps enough time as passed that they seem to take a measured approach. The Gibeonites respond, “We have no right to demand silver or gold.”
My first thought is, “Why not? Why do they feel they don’t have the right to request reparations?” Is it because they are not citizens of Israel? Is it because Saul was a king and could do what he wanted? Is it because they are pretending to be humble? It seems to me they definitely have the right to demand reparations! Saul had decimated them. In this case, what is justice?
Then they go on to say that they don’t have the right to impose the death penalty. That one is obvious. Only the legal system has that right. And Saul, the perpetrator of the crime, is long dead. In essence, their answer to David’s question “What shall I do for you? How shall I make atonement?” is “Well, there are two possibilities, reparations and the death penalty, but we don’t have the right to ask for them.”
So how should they respond to David? They were treated with serious injustice when Saul murdered people from their clan. What would bring justice to this awful situation? What would make it right? It seems to me that because Saul is dead, they should ask for a financial recompense. That’s what often happens in our contemporary American justice system, right? A judge or jury impose a financial reward for pain and suffering. But the Gibeonites have said they can’t ask for money. What gives?
I suspect they are being very wise. They are showing their awareness of who has the power. David. Only David. They are subject to him. So instead of leading with any demands, and risk David thinking they are arrogant or disrespectful, they start off by clearly admitting to David that they have no standing in this.
By not answering David, they have tossed the ball back to David. Is the matter over? Should David say, “Okay, let bygones be bygones?” No, there is still a famine, and God said the famine is due to Saul’s sin. God directed David to make things right with the Gibeonites. In other words, if David wants the famine to be over, he has to do something here that is amenable to the Gibeonites. But their first response is “We have no right to ask for anything.” Perhaps David appreciated their humility. Perhaps he respected that they maintained a proper decorum between subjects and their king. So he simply repeats his question: “What do you want me to do for you?”
And then the Gibeonites do a 180. Get this:
“They answered the king, ‘As for the man who destroyed us and plotted against us so that we have been decimated and have no place anywhere in Israel, let seven of his male descendants be given to us to be killed and their bodies exposed before the Lord at Gibeah of Saul—the Lord’s chosen one.’”
Woah. Their idea is the death penalty for seven of Saul’s descendants? How do they go from saying, “We can’t suggest anything, really,” to suggesting what sounds like a massive response against more innocent people.
In the world of the ancient near east, this is the principle of “eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth.” Justice is often depicted this way in the Mosaic Law. If your family member kills your neighbor’s family member, than justice is when one of your family members is killed.
Why do they ask for seven of Saul’s descendants? The text doesn’t tell us, but the number seven often signifies completeness. Thus, the death of seven of Saul’s descendants would be seen as complete atonement for the Gibeonites that Saul unjustly murdered. My hunch is that Saul killed far more than seven Gibeonites, and that this request would have been considered more than fair in that “eye for an eye” culture.
Still, the seven descendants of Saul are innocent, aren’t they? Should they face any consequence, let alone the death penalty, for what their long dead ancestor did decades earlier? With this suggestion, the Gibeonites don’t sound humble or reasonable, they sound crazy. This cannot be the right way to bring justice to Saul’s sin, can it?
David is a man after God’s own heart. How will David respond? We find out in the next post.
Engaging Scripture 
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