Fr. Carlos Raines
“What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?”
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. And the Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” 2 So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel but of the remnant of the Amorites. 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. 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?” 4 The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a 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.” And he said, “What do you say that I shall do for you?” 5 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, 6 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.” 7 But 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. 8 The king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab 1 the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; 9 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. 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. 11 When David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, 12 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. 13 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. 14 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.
This has been one of those stand-alone passages in the Bible that I have probably read many times, but never really pondered; never understood; never taken to heart. Recently I was struck by it and have pondered it for weeks now. Perhaps this is because of the paroxysms of the racial divide expressed in rage, protest and destruction that has again afflicted America in general and the church in particular. Perhaps you too will be as stunned as I in the shadow of this demonic Goliath named racism that has exalted itself over church and nation for nearly our whole existence. David paves a road to reconciliation that is actually breathtaking. It deserves to be studied and applied in every instance where serious reconciliation is needed in order to bridge deep divides of injustice and suffering. This applies everywhere from individuals to families to churches, to nations. Another passage just like it is found in the New Testament in Acts 6 as the newly founded church discovered prejudice and contempt between the Greek speaking Jews and the Hebrew speaking Jews. In that passage a very similar road to reconciliation occurs. This passage in 2 Samuel begins with an all too familiar yet tragic setting: a plague that lasted three years “year after year.” David and the people no doubt were crying out to the Lord each of these years. Yet the plague with its terror, suffering, and death had not abated. So David got serious and “sought the face of the Lord” concerning the disease. “He who seeks will find…”God’s answer? He expresses His judgment concerning Saul and his family’s attempted genocide against a helpless minority: the Gibeonites. We may remember that the Gibeonites had employed deception and treachery to obtain a covenant with Israel. (Joshua 9:3). Despite its impure roots, Joshua and the people knew that a covenant once put into effect is sacred. So the Gibeonites were permitted to live among the Israelites yet they were made to be “haulers of water and cutters of wood.” In other words, something like indentured servants born to difficult and menial work. They were, in fact, an unwelcome minority among the Jews and evidently King Saul’s “zeal for the people of Israel and Judah” led him to a kind of ‘final solution’ for the Gibeonites. He put many of them to the sword, apparently with the help of the men of his family. Nothing had been done about this. Like so many peoples, the Israelites (even if they thought what Saul did was evil in the eyes of the Lord) just wanted to let the dishonorable acts of the past be buried under the carpet of forgetfulness. This policy held until the plague. Only then was the judgment of God who witnessed the breaking of covenantal vows leading to this act of brutality and oppression of the powerful over the weak made known. When David finds out about God’s judgment of Saul’s atrocities, his response is so wise, so courageous and so just as to set a standard for all time for those who wish to reconcile. It is especially a powerful message to the powerful who seek reconciliation with the powerless. David’s opening words upon engaging the Gibeonites empower them while offering an open ended invitation to reconciliation: “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?”We will look more closely at these words in the next blog article on this passage. The story continues. For many peoples and many centuries there was something akin to what the Old English called Wergeld, “in ancient Germanic law, the amount of compensation paid by a person committing an offense to the injured party or, in case of death, to his family.” (editors of Encyclopaeda Britannica) David and the Gibeonites seemed to be aware of the likelihood of a cash gift to make reconciliation for the lost lives. There is an implied rejection of this normal way of reconciling over murderous deaths: “It is not a 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.”David hears this and understands. But he in no way tries to control the path of reconciliation and again replies in an open invitation: “What do you say that I shall do for you?” The Gibeonites’ answer seems worse than severe to modern ears. They want blood for blood, life for life, yet not a total destruction of the descendants of Saul: 5 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, 6 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.” David’s response to this severe price of reconciliation:“I will give them.” The Gibeonites clearly see this as an act of atonement (as David himself described it from the beginning). The sons of Saul are to be “hanged before the LORD in the capitol city of Saul and his tribe, the Benjaminites. They are like a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of their father. This tragic story continues with the astounding act of love of a woman named Rizpah and the effect of her love on David’s heart, impelling him to perform one more act of loving loyalty: to find and bury the bones of Saul and his sons (including David’s beloved friend Jonathan). When all this has come to pass the passage ends with the powerful words bringing us back to the source of the story: the heart of God for justice and especially for the powerless and the poor: “And after that God responded to the plea for the land.” Would you join me in pondering the meaning of this passage? I expect the Holy Spirit will also show anyone who cares to stop and listen a new understanding of how to go about reconciliation---the kind of reconciliation that truly restores. The kind that enables the offended and wounded and nearly destroyed to “bless the inheritance” of the evil doer. This is part one of this study, so stay tuned for part two that will be uploaded in about a week.
Part 2 is here: https://sanjoaquinsoundings.blogspot.com/2020/12/king-david-and-path-to-true.html
