2 Samuel 21

1There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year, and David sought the face of Yahweh. Yahweh said, "It concerns Saul and the house of bloodshed, because he put the Gibeonites to death."

2The king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke to them—the Gibeonites were not descendants of Israel but survivors among the Amorites, and Israel’s descendants had sworn an oath to them, and Saul sought to strike them in his zeal for Israel’s descendants and Judah.

3David said to the Gibeonites, "What can I do for you? And how can I atone, so you bless Yahweh's inheritance?"

4The Gibeonites said to him, "No silver or gold exists between us and Saul or his house, nor is any man in Israel ours to put to death." He said, "Whatever you say, I will do for you."

5They said to the king, "The man who finished us off and plotted against us that we should be annihilated from remaining anywhere in Israel's borders."

6Let seven men from his sons be given to us, and we will hang them to Yahweh in Gibeah of Saul, chosen of Yahweh. The king said, I will give them.

7The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan son of Saul because of Yahweh's oath between them, between David and Jonathan son of Saul.

8The king took two sons of Rizpah daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul—Armoni and Mephibosheth—and five sons of Michal daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

9He handed them over to the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the hill before Yahweh, and the seven of them fell together and were executed in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.

10Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock from the beginning of harvest until water poured on them from the sky, permitting neither birds of the sky to rest on them by day nor beasts of the field by night.

11David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, Saul's concubine, had done.

12David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the citizens of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the square of Beth-shan where the Philistines had hanged them there, on the day the Philistines struck Saul in Gilboa.

13He took up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and they gathered the bones of those who had been hanged.

14They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in Benjamin's land at Zela, in the grave of Kish his father, and carried out everything the king commanded. After that God was entreated for the land.

15War broke out again between the Philistines and Israel, and David went down with his servants and they fought the Philistines, but David grew weary.

16Ishbi-benob, one of the sons of Rapha the giant whose spear weighed three hundred bronze shekels, girded with a new sword, intended to strike David.

17Abishai son of Zeruiah helped him, struck the Philistine, and killed him. Then David's men swore to him, saying, "You must not go out with us to battle anymore, lest you quench Israel's lamp."

18After this war broke out again with the Philistines at Gob, and Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, one of the sons of the giant.

19There was war again with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, whose spear shaft was like a weaver's beam.

20War broke out again at Gath, and a man of extraordinary stature was there whose hands bore six fingers and whose feet bore six toes, twenty-four in total, and he too was born to Rapha.

21When he defied Israel, Jonathan son of Shimeah, David's brother, killed him.

22These four were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by David's hand and by the hand of his servants.