2 Samuel 21:1

XXI. (1) Then there was.—Read, and there was, there being no indication of time in the original. It is plain from 2Samuel 21:7 that the events here narrated occurred after David had come to know Mephibosheth; and if in 2Samuel 16:7 there is (as many suppose) an allusion to the execution of Saul’s sons, they must have happened before the rebellion of Absalom. There is no more definite clue to the time, and the expression “in the days of David” seems purposely indefinite. The narrative is omitted from the Book of Chronicles. Three years.—A famine in Palestine was always a consequence of deficient winter rains, and was not very uncommon; but a famine enduring for three successive years was alarming enough to awaken attention and to suggest some especial cause. Enquired of the Lord.—Literally, sought the face of the Lord. The phrase is a different one from that often used in Judges and Samuel, and agrees with other indications that this narrative may have been obtained by the compiler from some other records than those from which he drew the bulk of this book. David turned to the true Source for a knowledge of the meaning of this unusual affliction.

2 Samuel 21:1 . Then there was a famine, &c. — The things related here, and chap. 24., are, by the best interpreters, conceived to have been done long before Absalom’s rebellion. And this opinion is not without sufficient grounds. For, first, this particle, then, is here explained, in the days, that is, during the reign of David: which general words seem to be added as an intimation that these things were not done next after the foregoing passages, for then the sacred writer would have said, after these things, as it is in many other places. Secondly, Here are divers particulars which cannot, with probability, be ascribed to the last years of David’s reign: such as, that Saul’s sin against the Gibeonites should so long remain unpunished; that David should not remove the bones of Saul and Jonathan to their proper place till that time; that the Philistines should wage war with David again and again, 2 Samuel 21:15 , &c., so long after he had fully subdued them, 2 Samuel 8:1 ; that David in his old age should attempt to fight with a Philistine giant, or that his people should suffer him to do so; that David should then have so vehement a desire to number his people, 2 Samuel 24:1 , which, being an act of youthful vanity, seems not at all to agree with his old age, nor with that state of deep humiliation in which he then was.

And the reason why these matters are put here out of their proper order is plainly this; because David’s sin being once related, it was very proper that his punishments should immediately succeed: this being very frequent in Scripture story, to put those things together which belong to one matter, though they happened at several different times. David inquired of the Lord — It is possible that David, for the first, and even second year, might have ascribed this calamity to natural causes; but in the third year, being well convinced that the visitation was judicial, he applied himself to the sacred oracle of God, to learn the cause of this extraordinary and continued calamity. And God soon informed him that this punishment was on account of the blood shed by Saul and his family. Because he slew the Gibeonites — The history of the Gibeonites is well known: they were a remnant of the Amorites, but by an artful contrivance, related Joshua 9:9 , obtained a league for their lives and properties from the children of Israel. And, forasmuch as Joshua and the elders had confirmed it by an oath, they thought themselves bound to keep it, only tying them down to the servitude of supplying the tabernacle with wood and water for the public sacrifices, and the service of those who attended upon them.

Chap. 2 Samuel 21:1-11 . A Three Years Famine for Saul’s massacre of the Gibeonites. The Execution of Saul’s sons 1 . Then there was a famine ] Render, And there was a famine. There is no adverb of time marking chronological connexion with the foregoing narrative. In Palestine a famine was the almost certain consequence of a failure of the winter rains, on which both cornfields and pasturage depend. See 1 Kings 18:2 ; Joel 1:8-20 ; for famine as the result of drought; and cp. Genesis 12:10 ; Genesis 26:1 ; Genesis 42:5 ; Ruth 1:1 ; 2 Kings 8:1-2 . in the days of David ] This famine must have occurred after David became acquainted with Mephibosheth (ch. 2 Samuel 9:1 ff.), for it is expressly stated that he spared Mephibosheth ( 2 Samuel 21:7 ); and in all probability before Absalom’s rebellion, in the account of which we may trace one, if not two allusions to the execution of Saul’s sons (ch. 2 Samuel 16:7-8 , 2 Samuel 19:28 ); but its date cannot be fixed more exactly, and the phrase in the days of David seems designedly indefinite. For a discussion of some questions connected with the famine and the surrender of Saul’s sons for execution see Additional Note II., p. 234. inquired of the Lord] Sought the face of Jehovah : a phrase not found elsewhere in Samuel, and perhaps indicating that this chapter was taken by the compiler from a different source. Cp. Psalm 24:6 ; Psalm 27:8 .

David sought to ascertain the cause of this judgment; for famine was one of the “four sore judgments” of God ( Ezekiel 14:21 ; cp. 1 Kings 8:35-37 ). his bloody house ] His blood-guilty house : upon which rested the guilt of shedding innocent blood. Cp. Psalm 5:6 ; Ezekiel 22:2 . Unexpiated murder “defiled the land,” and involved the nation in punishment. See Numbers 35:33-34 ; Deuteronomy 21:7-9 . The Sept. text differs slightly, reading: “Upon Saul and upon his house is blood-guiltiness.” the Gibeonites ] On Gibeon see note on ch. 2 Samuel 2:12 .

Verse 1. - There was a famine in the days of David; Hebrew, and there was. There is an entire absence of any mark of time to show in what part of David's reign this famine took place. It does not even follow, from the mention of Mephibosheth's name, that it must have happened at a time subsequent to the sending for that prince from Machir's house; for it may have been the search after the descendants of Saul which made David remember the son of his old friend. The burial, however, of the bones of Saul and Jonathan as an act of respect to the slaughtered king makes it probable that the narrative belongs to the early part of David's reign, as also does the apparent fact that the seven victims were all young and unmarried. Mephibosheth, we read, had a young son when David sent for him. Now, he was five years old when his father was slain ( 2 Samuel 4:4 ), and thus at the end of David's reign of seven years and a half at Hebron, he would be twelve and a half years of age. The famine lasted three years, and if David had been king four or five years when the famine began, Mephibosheth, at the age of twenty, might well have a "young son" in a country where men marry early. We cannot believe that the famine occurred long after David had been king of all Israel, because manifestly it would have been unjust and even monstrous to punish a nation for the sins of a king who had long passed away.

The sins of its rulers are visited upon a nation constantly through a long series of years, but it is always in the way of natural development. A statesman may put a nation upon a wrong track, and may involve it in serious difficulties, and even in irretrievable disaster, unless some one be raised up able to make it retrace its steps and regain the rightful direction. But this famine was a direct interference of Providence, and to justify it the sin must be still fresh in the national remembrance. Had it been an old crime long ago forgotten, instead of leading men to repentance, this long and terrible punishment would have hardened men's hearts, and made them regard the Deity as vindictive. It is even probable that the sin was still being committed; for though commenced and approved by Saul, his oppression and purpose of gradually destroying the native races was too much in accord with men's usual way of acting not to be continued, unless stopped by the justice of the ruler. We all know how the Red Indian, the Bushman, the Maori, and the Australian disappear before the advance of the white man. It needs only apathy on the part of the government, and rougher methods for clearing them off are practised than men would care to own. So with Gibeonites and Perizzites and other native races, a similar process would be going on.

There is no note of time whatever, nor any clue as to what part of David's reign the events of this chapter ought to be assigned. Enquired of the Lord - Hebrew "sought the face of the Lord," quite a different phrase from that so often used in Judges (e. g. Judges 1:1) and the Books of Samuel, and probably indicating that this chapter is from a different source; an inference agreeing with the indefinite "in the days of David," and with the allusion to the slaughter of the Gibeonites, which has not anywhere been narrated. And for his bloody house - literally, "the house of blood," i. e., the house or family upon which rests the guilt of shedding innocent blood.