David's Vengeance

C.S Lewis once said that it's often the parts of the Bible we find hard, and which we don't like, that most help us grow in knowing God – because the reason we find them hard is that our assumptions about God are wrong, and need challenging and changing. And 2 Samuel 21 is one such part of the Bible. I don't know if you try reading the Bible on your own, with the help of notes, but this is the kind of passage which, if your Bible notes gave it to you tomorrow, would probably make your heart sink and leave you thinking, 'How am I supposed to get something out of this on my own?' That's one reason why God wants us also to come to the Bible together – like this – so that we're not just trying to read it on our own, but getting the help of others. So I'm going to take us through tonight's part of 2 Samuel in a no-frills way, to try to give an example of how to handle a passage like this. So please turn to 2 Samuel 21.

Now a helpful starter question is: What is this part of the Bible here for? What's the point of it? Well, if you read about King David from 1 Samuel into 2 Samuel, you find that the chronological story of his life ends with 2 Samuel 20 (where we got to last time). And then in chapters 21 to 24, you have this kind of epilogue – where the writer has chosen and distilled a few things from the whole of David's life – to sum him up. So the point of this bit is to sum up what was most important about the kind of king David was. And it basically says: what was most important is that he was a king who – albeit very imperfectly – lived in relationship with God, under God's rule, and led his people to do the same. So look down to 2 Samuel 21.1:

Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David sought the face of the LORD.

That was typical David – not that he couldn't sometimes turn away from the Lord disastrously, like his adultery with Bathsheba, but that was untypical; that was 'against the run of play' in his life, whereas this – David seeking God – was typical. But that was in total contrast to Israel's first king, Saul, who was David's predecessor. Because God had had to remove him from the throne, because he failed when it came to the single most important requirement for anyone who's going to lead God's people – then as king, or now as full-time minister or small group leader or whatever – namely, living in relationship with God, under God's rule. Instead, Saul had lived as if he was above God's law – as a law unto himself, which is a pretty good definition of sin. And in this 2 Samuel epilogue, which sums up what was most important about David, the first thing the writer does is to return to the contrast between David and Saul, which runs through the book. So let's read 2 Samuel 21.1 again:

Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year.

That's saying: this is unusual. Harvests do sometimes fail – but this was "for three years, year after year". And David knew that back in God's law it said that one way God could and would express his judgement if his people sinned seriously was to allow famine to come upon them. So, read on in verse 1:

David sought the face of the LORD.

He wanted to know: is this just three failed harvests in a row and nothing more – or is it God's judgement on something we've done? I think this shows that he didn't – and we shouldn't – jump to the conclusion that something bad happening to us is always definitely a sign of God's judgement on something we've done. So for example, there's the bit in John's Gospel (John 9.1-3) where it says:

As [Jesus] passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus answered, "It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

In other words, don't assume that something bad happening is always definitely an expression God's judgement on something we've done. It may be, as in 2 Samuel 21. But you need good reason from God's Word to think it is. In our case, that means interpreting what has happened in the framework which the Bible gives us. In David's case here, he gets a direct word from God – verses 1-2:

And the LORD said, "There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death." So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them.

That begs the question: Who were they and what had Saul done to them? And the writer knew you'd ask that, so he fills you in. Read on in verse 2:

Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites [in other words, they were one of the groups living in the promised land before Israel entered and started taking it over]. Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.

So when did Israel swear to spare the Gibeonites? Well, turn back in your Bible to Joshua 9. Now you may be thinking, 'I wouldn't have known on my own to turn back there.' But if you have – or get – a Bible with cross-references, and you keep an eye on the cross-references, it should have mentioned this one. So, Joshua led God's people Israel to enter the promised land and take it over. And the Gibeonites realised they'd be driven out or killed in battle. So they tricked Joshua and the other leaders of Israel into thinking they were people from a distant land, just passing through. So Joshua and the other leaders of Israel made a covenant – or promise – to spare them. Look down to Joshua 9.15-20:

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.At the end of three days after they had made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbours and that they lived among them. And the people of Israel set out and reached their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kiriath-jearim. But the people of Israel did not attack them, because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. Then all the congregation murmured against the leaders. But all the leaders said to all the congregation, "We have sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel, and now we may not touch them. This we will do to them: let them live, lest wrath [in other words, God's judgement] be upon us, because of the oath that we swore to them.

And that oath or promise was honoured generation by generation… until Saul. So back to 2 Samuel 21, and half way through verse 2:

Although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to strike them down in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.

In other words, he thought it was time for some ethnic cleansing, and led a massacre of the Gibeonites. And that was awful enough. But in doing so, Saul also broke that covenant sworn in the LORD's name, which showed he had no fear of the LORD at all. That was typical Saul – living as if he was above the law, as a law to himself. And humanly speaking, he got away with it. I'm sure godly people in Israel were horrified. But it was just one of those injustices which are left unresolved. But that's humanly speaking – because in a universe where God is just and God is Judge, no injustices are actually left unresolved. So years, maybe decades, had gone by since Saul's massacre. And the awfulness of it had probably receded in people's minds, and most had probably reconciled themselves uneasily to the injustice, and moved on. But God hadn't, because he never reconciles himself to injustice. And years, maybe decades on, he starts to bring this wrong publicly to justice, by sending a famine.

And there will be people here who, like the Gibeonites, have been seriously wronged. And maybe most people don't know that's something you've carried for years or maybe decades. And those who do may have moved on in a way that you, as the one it happened to, can't. This part of the Bible brings the comfort of knowing that the passage of time has done nothing to lessen God's sense of injustice on your behalf. And it brings the comfort of knowing that he will have been working in circumstances to bring justice on those concerned (even if you're not aware of how). And it brings the comfort of knowing that when they face him as Judge at the end of their lives, complete justice will finally be done.

So God starts to bring this wrong publicly to justice, by sending a famine on Israel, which begs another question: if like verse 1 says, "There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house", how come God sends judgement on all Israel? And the answer is: there is such a thing as solidarity between people and generations, and such a thing as corporate responsibility and guilt. Now there are plenty of situations where there isn't. So, for example, if I crash into another car on the way home and it's my fault, there's no way my children should be fined on my behalf for careless driving – not that their piggy banks would stretch to it. In that case, I've committed the offence as a private individual, and they share no responsibility for it. But Saul's massacre was not the action of a private individual, but of a public representative (or representatives – 'Saul and his house'). So Joshua and the other leaders of Israel had made that covenant with the Gibeonites as representatives of all Israel, for generations to come. And when Saul led his massacre, he also did it as the representative – the king – of all Israel. So that as he and his cronies were breaking that covenant and killing, all Israel was implicated.

There is solidarity between people and generations. That is why today, for example, descendents of Australian settlers continue to agonise over what was done to the aboriginal population, and call for this generation to apologise and make restitution. And in every country, including ours, people bear corporate responsibility for what's done on their behalf by their leaders, and for what's legislated and allowed for within the solidarity we're all part of. That's why we musn't just sit and wring our hands at what's wrong in our society – as if it's nothing to do with us. We share responsibility and must take responsibility and work for change as we can. So David realises this famine is God's judgement on Saul's massacre, in which all Israel was implicated. Now look on to verse 3:

And David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the LORD?"

And 'make atonement' means 'to turn away judgement by paying a price'. And that idea comes from the system of sacrifices which God had given Israel, where an animal could symbolically act as your substitute and take the judgement for your sin, so that the judgement was turned away from you. So David asks, 'How shall I make atonement?' Verse 4:

The Gibeonites said to him, "It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house…

In other words, no money payment would do, because money doesn't equate to life. And equivalence was a key principle of God's law – that justice should equate to the offence, which is the point of that much misunderstood verse which says:

But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth..." (Exodus 21.23)

That's often misunderstood as positively encouraging revenge. But the point of it was precisely the opposite: the point was to limit justice so that it equates to the offence – no less and no more. And that verse is also misunderstood as something to be taken literally – which it's not. Because the next verse says:

When a man strikes the eye of his slave... and destroys it, he shall let the slave go free because of his eye.

So it doesn't say, 'He shall… have his own eye destroyed' – literally 'eye for eye'. It says, 'He shall… free the slave' – because him losing the slave equates to the slave losing their eye. And in God's law for Israel, where murder was proven, the death penalty was called for, on the principle of justice equating to the offence – 'life for life'. That is what the Gibeonites propose in verses 4-6. Read on:

"... neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel." And [David] said, "What do you say that I shall do for you?" They said to the king, "The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them before the LORD at Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the LORD." And the king said, "I will give them."

Now I guess we naturally recoil at this demand for seven lives. But stop and think for a moment. How many lives did Saul's massacre claim? We're not told. But could it have been a hundred? Two hundred? Five hundred? More? You see, the Gibeonite's demand is actually for very limited, symbolic justice. Because seven in the Bible symbolises completeness – like the seven days that complete a week. And these seven will symbolically equate to the complete loss of life the Gibeonites suffered. And these seven in particular are proposed at the very least because of their royal family solidarity with Saul. But it may be that some of them also shared direct responsibility by acting on Saul's orders themselves. So David agrees. But, verse 7,

…the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the oath of the LORD that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.

This again is contrasting David with Saul. Saul was the kind of king who thought nothing of breaking a national oath taken in the LORD's name. Whereas David was different – and was committed here to being faithful to a personal oath taken in the LORD's name, and to protect a descendent of Saul even at a time when others might have seen him as expendable. So, verses 8-9:

The king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and [a different] Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the LORD, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest.

And 'hanged them' means that after being put to death, their bodies were 'hung up' – maybe on poles – as a public demonstration to everyone that justice had been done. And does that begin to make you think of anything in the New Testament? Verse 10:

Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell upon them from the heavens. And she did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day, or the beasts of the field by night.

So Rizpah had lost two sons in this. But she acted to protect their dignity even in death, which was another key principle of God's law – that justice should not degrade the punished, or rob them of their dignity. (And we can't feel superior about that, when we think, for example, of the state of our prisons today.) Verses 11-14:

When David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa. And he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan; and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged. And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father. And they did all that the king commanded. And after that God responded to the plea for the land [in other words, atonement had turned away judgement].

So David follows Rizpah's suit, and arranges a dignified burial for the remains of Saul and his son Jonathan. That is a final reminder of the contrast between David and Saul - because Saul's house ended up under God's judgement and rejected and buried in history, whereas David's house would continue – although it 'went underground' after the exile – until Jesus himself was born into to it, to live, die, rise again and become the King of God's kingdom forever. 

That brings us to the final question to ask of any Old Testament passage: How does this point to Jesus? Now some Old Testament passages make explicit predictions about Jesus – like Micah 5.2, where God predicts:

But you, Bethlehem…From you shall come forth for meOne who is to be ruler in Israel.

But you look in vain for that kind of thing in 2 Samuel 21, because in most of the Old Testament, Jesus isn't so much predicted as foreshadowed in all sorts of people and events and places and things. And in 1 and 2 Samuel, Jesus and his kingdom is foreshadowed (albeit imperfectly) by David and his kingdom.

And, like the story of David in chapter 21, the story of Jesus begins with his people – with us – standing under the judgement of God his Father. And like David in chapter 21, we can imagine Jesus asking, 'Father, how shall I make atonement? What must happen for your judgement to be turned away?' And we've seen the answer here. It's that justice must be done on some representative of those who stand under judgement, someone with real solidarity with those who stand under judgement. And what happened symbolically to those seven who were hung up here happened in reality to Jesus as he hung on the cross. Those seven could only turn away God's judgement symbolically. But Jesus turned it away in reality, by taking it on himself in our place as our representative and our substitute.

And thinking of that key justice principle of equivalence, you might sometimes have wondered, 'But how could the death and judgement of one man equate to the judgement deserved by the countless people who'll ever trust in him?' Well one Christian writer puts it like this: 'The answer is ultimately beyond us, but it lies in the infinite worth of his person.'

So what's actually foreshadowed in 2 Samuel 21 is the cross. And if it's been a hard chapter, if in places we've recoiled from it, if at moments we've been horrified and wanted, so to speak, to look away – well then that tells us something about the cross. It tells us that what it took the Lord Jesus to save us from the judgement our sins deserve was something more costly, more terrible, more horrific than we'll ever fully grasp. And it tells us above all never, never to take the cross lightly.