Scripture Daily

Context No. 724 of 4322 · 2 Samuel

Context · Reflection

2 Samuel 21:1-6: in context

1There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” 2The king called the Gibeonites and said to 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 to them; and Saul sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah); 3and David said to the Gibeonites, “What should I do for you? And with what should I make atonement, that you may bless the LORD’s inheritance?” 4The Gibeonites said to him, “It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” He said, “I will do for you whatever you say.” 5They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and who plotted against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel, 6let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the LORD.” The king said, “I will give them.”

A famine has ground on for three years in David's reign, and when David finally asks God why, the answer reaches back into a past he had nothing to do with. It is for Saul and for his bloody house, God says, because he put the Gibeonites to death. The Gibeonites were not Israelites; they were a remnant of the Amorites who, generations earlier in Joshua's day, had tricked Israel into a treaty. But Israel had sworn to spare them in the name of the LORD, and the oath held. Saul, in a burst of zeal, had broken it and tried to destroy them, and now the broken promise has surfaced as famine.

David goes to the Gibeonites and asks how he can make it right. They refuse money, and say it is not their place to put an Israelite to death. What they ask is grim: hand over seven of Saul's sons, and let them be executed before the LORD at Saul's own town. And David agrees. It is a hard passage, told without relief. An oath sworn and forgotten by everyone but God has come due, and the price is blood. This is what a broken covenant can do. It does not simply expire. It can lie buried for years and rise again, demanding to be reckoned with, long after the ones who broke it are gone.

A promise broken and forgotten kept its grip until it was paid for, generations later. What old commitment have I broken and stopped thinking about, that may still be quietly exacting a cost?

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