The Avenger

2 Samuel 21:1-14

Immanuel – 10/1/23

Before we get into this difficult passage, we need to zoom out and consider the larger patterns within 2 Samuel. As I mentioned some weeks ago, chapters 9-20 in 2 Samuel deal with the court of David. It’s an exploration of the royal movers and shakers; their triumphs and – more often than not – their failures.

But with chapter 21 we have moved into the last section in 2 Samuel; the last four chapters widely considered to be the epilogue of both 1 and 2 Samuel. If you are going to understand the point of this epilogue, there are two other things you first need to understand.

1) The events within the epilogue are not chronological, they are arranged thematically. Chapter 21 does not follow chapter 20 in chronological order. You’ll see what I mean when we dive in.

2) The epilogue is arranged in a chiastic structure.

A. 21:1-14 = Unflattering story of David – Ignorant of God’s will – Famine

B. 21:15-22 = List related to David’s mighty men.

C. 22 = Song of David

C. 23:1-7 = Song of David

B. 23:8-39 = List of David’s mighty men

A. 24 = Unflattering story of David – Disobedient to God’s will – Plague

Whenever we see a chiastic structure like this, there is a larger theme governing its smaller parts: In the same way the parts of a car, with their individual purposes, serve the larger purpose of making a car move.

The larger purpose of the epilogue, as revealed through its chiastic structure, is that the will of God must be understood and obeyed. On the outer layers of the chiastic structure the will of God is either not known or not obeyed: disaster ensues. In the central layers, David is most united to God’s will: worship ensues.

The whole chiastic structure, this epilogue, is meaning to communicate to us, the readers, that it is essential to know and obey the will of God. It’s a fitting way to conclude 1 and 2 Samuel, where knowledge of God’s will, and obedience to it, makes or breaks the players within the narrative.

Purpose

1. Set the historical and theological context.

2. David offers an ugly injustice.

3. Three lessons from this passage.

Without question, our passage today is ugly: Seven innocent sons senselessly taken and slaughtered. Honestly, it’s offensive; and it causes us, with all of our modern sensibilities, to cringe. It forces us to ask, what good is there in such a story? What is the redemptive point?

Even if these answers are not clear, we can still be confident that…

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 4:16-17

Therefore, when we come to a difficult passage, especially as ugly as 2 Samuel 21, we must focus our minds and prepare to wrestle with the text until heaven’s treasures begin to spill out of it. Trust me, the treasures are there, buried though they are.

Read vs 1

Context

In the days of David simply means sometime within his reign. Again, this is not chronologically following the civil war of chapters 15-20. We just know the events of chapter 21 are sometime within the days of David. I’d like to suggest that it is early in David’s reign, when the memory of Saul’s regime was far more potent.

In those days there was a famine – a famine that lasted three years. This would have been absolutely devastating to ancient Israel. Year after year, no food. And they certainly didn’t have the means to import enough food to sustain their population. It would have been a desperate situation.

But famine wasn’t the real problem in Israel. Behind this natural consequence was the divine providence of God. And David knew enough to understand that nothing happens apart from the purposes of God; so he sought the face of the Lord.

How long did David seek the Lord? A couple days? A month or two? Or has it been since the rains didn’t come that very first year? I imagine he’s been seeking the Lord fervently for numerous barren growing seasons.

In the third year of famine, God finally speaks to David. If this is a direct conversation between Yahweh and David, then this is something that marked the earlier days of David, before the Bathsheba incident.

Consider again the three years of famine. Even as a prophet king, even as God’s anointed, David doesn’t just lift up a simple prayer and all of the sudden he understands God’s purposes. No, the text presents an arduous and fervent seeking, enduring hardship, a desperate yearning to understand God’s purposes.

Then, David finally hears; the famine is a consequence. Saul polluted the land because he put the Gibeonites to death. There are many layers to dig through here.

Read vs 2

The Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but the people of Israel promised to spare them. To understand this, we need to go back in Israel’s history; back about 400 years before the days of David.

Joshua was leading Israel through the Promised Land and by divine command driving out its wicked, pagan inhabitants. The Gibeonites, a branch of those pagan inhabitants, knew they were on the chopping block. So, the Gibeonites devised an elaborate deception to trick Joahua and Israel’s leaders into making a covenant with them. We read about it in Joshua 9:

So, the men [of Israel] took some of [the Gibeonites’] provisions, but did not ask counsel from the LORD. And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them, to let them live, and the leaders of the congregation swore to them.

-Joshua 9:14-15

That line, they did not ask counsel from the LORD, has a terrible echo in our passage today. We’ll get to that. For now, it is critical to see that a covenant has been made, a covenant that the king of Israel, Saul, had now violated.

The account is not recorded, but it is evident that Saul had killed a large number of Gibeonites. Verse 2 says Saul killed the Gibeonites because he was zealous for Israel and Judah, and verse 5 says that Saul tried to drive the Gibeonites out of the land. In other words, Saul was taking up the ancient conquest of Joshua while intentionally disregarding the covenant Joshua made.

Saul violated the covenant and spilled innocent blood; all out of his own misguided religious fervor. As a result, Israel is experiencing the consequences of covenant disobedience. Here’s just one of the many curses for covenant disobedience:

And the heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. The LORD will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed. -Deuteronomy 28:23-24

Though this describes drought, famine follows drought. We need to ask, if Saul committed the sin, why is everyone in Israel suffering? Wasn’t it just the king who sinned? It’s because blood, or murder, pollutes the land of promise.

“If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death…Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death…You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the LORD dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

-Numbers 35:30,31,33-34

God is holy, righteous, perfect. He had chosen a people to dwelt in the midst of; and they, as a result, are to be a holy people. Israel was to be holy! If they live in righteousness, then they will see blessing within the land. If they live in wickedness, then the land will become cursed. This was the covenantal arrangement made on Sinai between Yahweh and Israel.

The shedding of innocent Gibeonite blood, at the hand of Saul, polluted the land. God would not abide by it. Famine was the covenantal consequence until atonement could be made.

Now that David understands all this, he naturally wants to make it right, so to find out what to do, he goes to the Gibeonites. I think we are meant to pause right here and ask, “Why?” Why does David go to the Gibeonites? If there is bloodguilt, why doesn’t he ask God must be done to remove this guilt?

Read vs 3-4

Blood for Blood

After living with Israel for 400 some years, the Gibeonites understand Mosaic Law. As we saw from Numbers 35, a ransom for a murderer was unlawful. Furthermore, no payoff could satisfy the hunger for justice felt by the Gibeonites. They would accept no silver or gold.

Then they say to David, neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel. What? Saul is dead, and yet they still want someone dead? Money won’t satisfy them, only blood will. They want eye for eye, tooth for tooth, blood for blood, Israelites for Gibeonites.

But these Gibeonites cannot spill Israelite blood without bringing disaster upon themselves. So, what is the obvious implication? They cannot put anyone to death in Israel, but David can. David is king. He decides who is guilty and who is innocent, who lives and who dies in Israel.

Understanding this, David then asks the question that changes the whole tenor of the passage. He asks the Gibeonites – who were not of the people of God – “What do you want me to do for you?” A situation that was urgent now mutates into something ugly.

Read vs 5-6

If you’ve been around Immanuel for a while, you know that seven is no ordinary number. It symbolizes completion, fulness, sufficiency. Since Saul is already dead, the Gibeonites deem the blood of seven of his sons to be sufficient. Additionally, they are not demanding actual sons; any male descending from Saul will do.

The Gibeonites then say these seven will be hung before the Lord, in sight of the Lord, to appease the Lord. And we hear this horrific request like an alarm in our brains screaming, “No! No, David! This is not how to appease God!”

But the king of Israel, the Lord’s anointed, the man after God’s own heart answers, “I will give them.” “I will sacrifice these seven sons for the sins of their father.” The implication: is that David believes this will appease God and the famine will relent.

David sought the Lord’s council fervently about the causes of the famine. Why does he not now seek the Lord over this request? He would listen to the Gibeonites? Is this what Yahweh wants? Will this truly please God?

Here it is clear that David does not understand the will of God. He might know why the famine is happening, but he does not seek the Lord on what to do about it. Instead of seeking the Lord regarding matters of justice, he relies on human understanding.

What David is about to do it a direct violation of the command of God.

Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.

-Deuteronomy 24:16

David does not pray. No longer does he seek the face of the Lord. There is only the council of the Gibeonites, and David’s sad words, “I will give them.”

Read vs 7-9

Just a note: the Barzillai here is a different Barzillai from last week, from chapter 19.

Back in his youth, David made covenant with Jonathan, the son of Saul. They promised to be loyal to one another and always safeguard each other’s offspring. We saw David generously, profoundly, uphold this covenant in chapter 9 when he brought Mephibosheth into his household and made him like his own son.

Now, to uphold his covenant with Jonathan, he does not deliver Mephibosheth into the hands of the Gibeonites for Saul’s breach of covenant. See this: Saul violates covenant; his descendants die. David keeps covenant; Mephibosheth is spared.

But you see there is another Mephibosheth that is chosen; one Mephibosheth spared, another taken. One in place of the other.

This Mephibosheth is the son of Saul by the concubine Rizpah. His brother is taken too. Five of Saul’s grandsons are also taken. Imagine the scene, David’s men show up at Rizpah’s home, knock, “We’re here for your boys. They’re going to the gallows. They die for the sins of their father.” What would you do if the authorities came to your door, looking for your son?

And by David’s orders they were taken, given to the Gibeonites, led up some unnamed hill, and there executed – sons and grandsons that had nothing to do with the sins of Saul. Now, year after year, at the gathering of the barley harvest, Israel would remember the sad injustice that befell the seven sons of Saul.

How profoundly mournful. How unbelievably tragic. Though it’s impossible to understand the horror of it, it’s easy to understand why Rizpah was gripped by such tremendous grief.

Read vs 10-14

This mother takes some sackcloth and spreads it on the ground. Perhaps she makes a crude tent with it. And there on the hill she guards the bodies of her boys, beating back the beasts, chasing away hungry vultures. Every day, for four to six months, her mourning is pierced by the sights and smells of love decomposing.

David eventually learns of Rizpah’s powerful display of love and grief, and he is moved to compassion. He removes the bones of the seven sons, collects the bones of Saul and Jonathan, and respectfully lays them to rest with the bones of their ancestors. It was a gentleness from David, though a gentleness too late.

And as the dirt was gathered over their bones, so the clouds gathered over the Promised Land, and they broke, and the famine broke. The famine ended, not when the seven were killed, but when a final kindness was given to their remains. It’s the only honorable thing done in this story, a tiny glimmer of righteousness, and the famine breaks.

You come to verse 14, where the narrative ends, and no one is rescued. Yet again, David’s moral character is called into question. And though the famine is broken – a bit of good news – you’re left with this heavy flood of sadness. It’s unavoidable. There is no happy ending.

3 Lessons

But we must realize that this story has been written to be solemn, to be sad; that we might be taught by something that is immeasurably ugly. And let me suggest that there are three lessons, three treasures, buried in this difficult passage.

First: We people of faith, we followers of Christ, are not to run away from that which is difficult or ugly in Scripture. The reason that moral failures and suffering and laments are in the Bible is because we are all touched by these hard realities; around us and within us. And God is unafraid of how ugly things get with His people.

This passage was written to make us recoil. So let us recoil. Let us see it in all of its ugliness. Let us also recognize that there are many parts within each of us that, if they were to be put in black and white, we would all recoil at that too. The land was polluted, this passage is polluted, we are polluted. We cannot be afraid of that reality, for it is the solemn truth.

Second: This text is showing us David’s attempt at human justice in a sin disordered world. It’s an abhorrent picture in 2 Samuel 21, but it is not so far from our experience. All around us, every day in the news, are human attempts at justice in this sin disordered world. In the name of justice, the unborn are disassembled in the womb. In the name of justice, children mutilate their bodies. In the name of justice…

Meanwhile the face of the Lord is not sought. And no one considers the King who truly reigns over this world, that no sin goes unnoticed, that a day of wrath approaches, and every man and woman will one day give account. Justice will once and for all be dispensed.

So how can justice truly be found absent of the King of all kings? Divorced from the will of God, justice cannot be found. All you have are these ugly, even horrific attempts, and their corpses swing on Capitol Hill, and from Hollywood Hills. It’s what we get when we trust in the council of those who do not belong to the people of God.

Third: David’s deeply troubling attempt at justice leaves us feeling his inadequacy. He’s not the man we (or I) so desperately want him to be. He has his great moments, but he has his disastrous ones too.

So look with horror at those seven corpses hanging on some Gibeonite hill and press on, on to another hill, up Golgotha, to Calvary. There! Hanging there is the will of God!

David should never have sought the council of the Gibeonites on how to deal with sin; because the way the Gibeonites wanted to deal with sin is so clearly not the way God deals with sin. God deals with sin not through human sacrifice, but through the provision of a substitute. And all those animal sacrifice pointed to a great and final atoning substitute. David’s inadequacy is meant to point us to his greater son, King Jesus.

God provides Himself, born of a woman, the greatest descendant of David, perfect, spotless, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Because God is faithful and loving and merciful, and His promises will never fail, we are the Mephibosheth that was spared; and Christ is the Mephibosheth that was slain.

Year after year we remember, at the same time the barley is gathered, at the time of Passover.

It is true! It is true if you believe.

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. -Romans 5:8-11

Now all of our ugly parts, our hidden sins that would cause any here to recoil, we carry it up to the cross and hang it upon that tree. Recoil. Then turn away and follow Jesus as one forgiven, free, alive.