2 Samuel 21:1-9,15-22
Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.
And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto 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 unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.) Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the LORD? And the Gibeonites said unto 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. And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose.
And the king said, I will give them. 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. 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: And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in 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.
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 waxed faint. And Ishbibenob, which was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of brass in weight, he being girded with a new sword, thought to have slain David. But Abishai the son of Zeruiah succoured him, and smote the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David sware unto him, saying, Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that thou quench not the light of Israel. And it came to pass after this, that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob: then Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Saph, which was of the sons of the giant. And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 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. And when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea the brother of David slew him. These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The date of the events of this chapter is uncertain. I think they happened as they are placed, after Absalom’s and Sheba’s rebellion, towards the end of David’s reign. That the battles with the Philistines here, were long after they were subdued, appears by comparing 1 Chronicles 18:1 with 1 Chronicles 20:4. The numbering of the people was just before fixing the place of the temple, 1 Chronicles 22:1—towards the close of David’s life; and it seems the people were numbered just after the three years’ famine for the Gibeonites, for that which is threatened as “three” years’ famine, 1 Chronicles 21:12, is called “seven” years, 2 Samuel 24:12-13, meaning three more, with the year current, added to those three.
THE EDITOR: That’s excellent evidence on the sequence of events—also, see here an horizontal line of parallel details running through the Bible concerning Gibeon, where Joab had murdered Amasa. Without consulting God, David had sworn a hasty oath before God when he appointed Amasa, 2 Samuel 19:13; so also, the princes of Israel had “asked not counsel at the mouth of Lord,” when they swore a hasty oath to the Gibeonites, and Joshua made a league with them, Joshua 9:14-20. At Gibeon, God had caused the sun to stand still, and gave Joshua a victory over five Amorite kings, Joshua 10:6-13. During the events recorded in this chapter, God caused David to stand still, to consider the folly of trusting his own wisdom, and gave him a victory over it.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): David here appears once more in his proper character; inquiring of the LORD.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “Oh!” says someone, “that is merely a coincidence.”
THE EDITOR: Really? Notice these battles with four Philistines, “born to the giant in Gath.”—father and sons, that’s five giants altogether. And why use that definite article—“the giant?” Symbolically, it’s the giant Goliath that all men fear—death; trusting in the Lord, David had cut off Goliath’s head with the giant’s own lethal sword, 1 Samuel 17:45,51; just as Jesus, by “His death, destroyed death,” breaking Satan’s dominion, who had “the power of death” over us, Hebrews 2:14-15; Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:14. But though we are crucified with Christ, that giant has sons, remnants of that crucified old man remaining in this “body of death,” that we struggle against all our lives, as did David, Romans 7:23,24. Why else record that seemingly unnecessary detail that Ishbibenob—which means “his dwelling is in Nob”—was girded with a “new sword?” At Nob, which means “fruit,” David had chosen the “sword of Goliath,” an arm of the flesh, instead of choosing the “ephod,” the means by which the priests inquired of God, 1 Samuel 21:9. In unbelief of God’s protection against Saul, David was acting on his own wisdom—with Goliath’s sword, he fled to Gath, the city of “Goliath.” But when they would not receive him, David was “sore afraid” of the Philistine king Achish, and “changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbed on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard,” 1 Samuel 21:9-15. See the fruit of trusting in carnal wisdom?
WILLIAM PRINGLE (1790-1858): This is, at least, a curious coincidence.
THE EDITOR: Note David’s first recorded inquiry of the Lord, when he received God’s guidance to fight the Philistines attacking Keilah. However, the plausible human reasoning of his men caused him to doubt God’s Word, so he asked God for confirmation, and received God’s promise of victory. Afterwards, in Keilah, David inquired of the Lord again, but only up to a point; when God told him what Saul and the men of Keilah would do, instead of asking God for further counsel, he regressed into his own thinking again, 1 Samuel 23:1-13—and from that moment, he drifted spiritually downward. Later, by God’s restraining grace, David didn’t heed his men’s counsel to smite Saul in the cave, yet he cut off the skirt of Saul’s garment—and instantly, “his heart smote him” for it; and once again, without consulting God, David hastily swore by the LORD that he would “not cut off Saul’s seed after him, and nor destroy Saul’s name out of his father’s house,” 1 Samuel 24:21,22. David had already sworn another hasty oath previously to Jonathan, Saul’s son, concerning Jonathan’s posterity, 1 Samuel 20:11-17. Despite those presumptuous oaths, God honoured them, graciously preserving Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth from assassination through a childhood injury; nevertheless, to secure the kingdom to David, God slew Saul’s sons—Jonathan in battle with the Philistines, and Ishbosheth by assassins; and now, in justice to the Gibeonites, Saul’s other sons and grandchildren.
C. H. MACKINTOSH (1820-1896): Whether this coincidence is to be regarded as of divine origin, may raise a question in the minds of some; but it must at least be regarded as not a little remarkable.
THE EDITOR: There’s more. David erupted in murderous rage over Nabal’s arrogant ingratitude, and made another hasty oath, “So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him the morning light any that pisseth against the wall,” 1 Samuel 25:22. But God’s unchanging grace used Abigail’s intercession to prevent David from committing that slaughter. Then came another temptation: Abishai wanted to slay Saul for him, but David would not allow it—compare David’s statement of faith that day, to his unbelief immediately afterwards: “David said in his heart, I shall now perish one day by hand of Saul; and there is nothing better for me than that I should speedily escape into the land of Philistines,” 1 Samuel 26:8-11; 27:1. And such is our instability whenever we are operating on our own wisdom, James 1:5-7. Again, David fled to Gath and persuaded Achish to give him Ziklag. During his sojourn in Ziglag, after lying deceitfully to Achish about his raid on the Amalekites, David slid so far spiritually that he tried to accompany the Philistines in battle against Saul, 1 Samuel 27:1-12; 28:1,2; 29:1-11. But God, ever faithful, made the Philistines refuse David’s participation, which prevented him from breaking this vow—“the LORD forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against the Lord’s anointed,” 1 Samuel 26:11. Meanwhile, as David tried to join the Philistines, the Amalekites raided Ziklag in revenge, carrying away captives. David’s men wanted to stone him for it; but God used David’s distress to restore him to seeking His counsel, 1 Samuel 30:1-8.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): There is a sort of coincidence, or association here.
THE EDITOR: It’s all connected. No longer going out to battle, this was a time for David “to stand still, and consider the works of God,” in all God’s dealings with him during his life, as old men will do, Job 37:14. These new victories over these Philistine giants, surely turned David’s mind back to the “sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees, in the valley of Rephaim,” which means “the valley of giants,”—when David had inquired of God, and God delivered them into his hands, 2 Samuel 5:17-25. Now restored to communion with God, with his faith strengthened, ponder the sweet fruit of David’s reflections in 2 Samuel 22:1-51 and 2 Samuel 23:1-7.
