Matthew Henry on 2 Samuel 21:1-9
Here I. Were are told of the injury which Saul had, long before this, done to the Gibeonites, which we had no account of in the history of his reign, nor should we have heard of it here but that it came now to be reckoned for. The Gibeonites were of the remnant of the Amorites (Sa2 21:2), who by a stratagem had made peace with Israel, and had the public faith pledged to them by Joshua for their safety. We had the story Jos. 9, where it was agreed (v. 23) that they should have their lives secured, but be deprived of their lands and liberties, that they and theirs should be tenants in villanage to Israel. It does not appear that they had broken their part of the covenant, either by denying the…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on 2 Samuel 21:2
in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah--Under pretense of a rigorous and faithful execution of the divine law regarding the extermination of the Canaanites, he set himself to expel or destroy those whom Joshua had been deceived into sparing. His real object seems to have been, that the possessions of the Gibeonites, being forfeited to the crown, might be divided among his own people (compare Sa1 22:7). At all events, his proceeding against this people was in violation of a solemn oath, and involving national guilt. The famine was, in the wise and just retribution of Providence, made a national punishment, since the Hebrews either assisted in the massacre, or did not interpose to pre…
Read the whole note in the consoleAdam Clarke on 2 Samuel 21:3
Wherewith shall I make the atonement - It is very strange that a choice of this kind should be left to such a people. Why not ask this of God himself?
John Gill on 2 Samuel 21:5
And they answered the king,.... Declaring expressly what they would have done: the man that consumed us; meaning Saul, who lessened their number by cruel oppressions of some, and by taking away the lives of others:
and that devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel; who had formed schemes, and published edicts, for banishing them out of the land; perhaps at the same time that he put away wizards and those that had familiar spirits out of the land, under the same pretence for zeal for the glory of God, and the good of the people of the land, 1 Samuel 28:3.
