Why this story matters

(commentary on 2 Samuel 21)

(Page 2 of 3)

Left high and dry

The bodies were also left hung up on the hill before Yahweh in order to humiliate Saul even further. Leaving a corpse to be eaten by birds and beasts instead of being buried would be a great dishonor. The decay would have been extensive and the stench horrendous because they were to remain exposed for about seven months until it rained on them indicating the end of the season. The shame is tempered somewhat by the love of one mother, Saul’s mistress Rizpah. Rizpah's love for her sons was so great that she stayed with the bodies the whole time, protecting them day and night from birds and wild animals: “From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not let the birds of the air touch them by day or the wild animals by night” (1 Sam. 21: 10). Although, how one woman could protect them day and night for seven months is not explained.

When David heard about Rizpah’s devotion, he gathered the bones of the young men and buried them along with the bones of Saul and Saul’s son Jonathan. After witnessing this, we are told that Yahweh ended the famine: “After that, God answered prayer in behalf of the land.” (1 Sam. 21:14)

Were the seven sacrificed?

Christians are a bit reluctant to admit that Yahweh accepted human sacrifice to end a famine. Therefore, it's the job of apologists to come up with ways of reassuring the faithful. One common method is to claim that the victims “probably” participated in the unlawful killing of the Gibeonites and therefore deserved to be punished. Some have even suggested that they participated with a kind of enthusiasm. In the Commentary Critical and Explanatory, the authors claim, “And if it should seem unjust to make the descendants suffer for a crime which, in all probability, originated with Saul himself, yet his sons and grandsons might be the instruments of his cruelty, the willing and zealous executors of this bloody raid.” Unfortunately for exponents of this view, there is nothing in the text that says this. It is pure supposition. If the author of 1st Samuel saw any need to excuse the human sacrifice, he would have at least softened the blow by mentioning the victims had done something wrong. Clearly, the author saw nothing strange in Yahweh accepting the sacrifice of Saul's family members in return for ending the famine. 

And there's another problem with trying to excuse this by assuming Saul's descendents had killed Gibeonites. There is one more of Saul's descendents mentioned in the story. His name was also Mephibosheth, but this Mephibosheth was disabled: "And Mephibosheth, who was crippled in both feet, lived in Jerusalem and ate regularly at the king’s table" (2 Samuel 9:13).  Therefore he could not have participated in the attack on Gibeah. But he was not spared due to his innocence. He was spared due to a prior oath David had taken: "But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the oath of the LORD which was between them, between David and Saul's son Jonathan" (2 Samuel 21:7). Since he was spared because of the oath, we can assume that if there had been no such oath, he would have been handed over. He would have been handed over, even though he had not killed any Gibeonites.
 

In the absence of a compelling reason to deny that this was a human sacrifice, the reading is clear. Robert Alter doesn’t see any need to shy away from the phrase, and even some Christian commentaries accept that the killings were sacrificial in nature. Unger’s Bible Dictionary states, “This was expiated many years after by giving up seven men of Saul's descendants to the Gibeonites who hung, or crucified, them “before Jehovah ”--as a sacrifice--in Gibeah, Saul's home town” (p. 403-404; my emphasis). Smith’s Bible Dictionary echoes this almost verbatim: “This was expiated many years after by giving up seven men of Saul’s descendants to the Gibeonites, who hung them or crucified them “before Jehovah” --as a kind of sacrifice-- in Gibeah, Saul’s own town" (my emphasis).

© IllustratedBibleStories.ca