A famine of three years, for the sin of Saul against the Gabaonites, at
whose desire seven of Saul’s race are crucified. War again with the
Philistines.
21:1. And there was a famine in the days of David for three years
successively: and David consulted the oracle of the Lord. And the Lord
said: It is for Saul, and his bloody house, because he slew the
Gabaonites.
21:2. Then the king, calling for the Gabaonites, said to them: (Now the
Gabaonites were not of the children of Israel, but the remains of the
Amorrhites: and the children of Israel had sworn to them, and Saul
sought to slay them out of zeal, as it were for the children of Israel
and Juda:)
21:3. David therefore said to the Gabaonites: What shall I do for you?
and what shall be the atonement for you, that you may bless the
inheritance of the Lord?
21:4. And the Gabaonites said to him: We have no contest about silver
and gold, but against Saul and against his house: neither do we desire
that any man be slain of Israel. And the king said to them: What will
you then that I should do for you?
21:5. And they said to the king: The man that crushed us and oppressed
us unjustly, we must destroy in such manner that there be not so much
as one left of his stock in all the coasts of Israel.
21:6. Let seven men of his children be delivered unto us, that we may
crucify them to the Lord in Gabaa of Saul, once the chosen of the Lord.
And the king said: I will give them.
21:7. And the king spared Miphiboseth the son of Jonathan the son of
Saul, because of the oath of the Lord, that had been between David and
Jonathan the son of Saul.
21:8. So the king took the two sons of Respha the daughter of Aia, whom
she bore to Saul, Armoni, and Miphiboseth: and the five sons of Michol
the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Hadriel the son of Berzellai,
that was of Molathi:
Of Michol.... They were the sons of Merob, who was married to Hadriel:
but they are here called the sons of Michol, because she adopted them,
and brought them up as her own.
21:9. And gave them into the hands of the Gabaonites: and they
crucified them on a hill before the Lord: and these seven died together
in the first days of the harvest, when the barley began to be reaped.
21:10. And Respha the daughter of Aia took haircloth, and spread it
under her upon the rock from the beginning of the harvest, till water
dropped upon them out of heaven: and suffered neither the birds to tear
them by day, nor the beasts by night.
21:11. And it was told David, what Respha the daughter of Aia, the
concubine of Saul, had done.
21:12. And David went, and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of
Jonathan his son from the men of Jabes Galaad, who had stolen them from
the street of Bethsan, where the Philistines had hanged them when they
had slain Saul in Gelboe.
21:13. And he brought from thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of
Jonathan his son, and they gathered up the bones of them that were
crucified,
21:14. And they buried them with the bones of Saul, and of Jonathan his
son in the land of Benjamin, in the side, in the sepulchre of Cis his
father: and they did all that the king had commanded, and God shewed
mercy again to the land after these things.
21:15. And the Philistines made war again against Israel, and David
went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the
Philistines. And David growing faint,
21:16. Jesbibenob, who was of the race of Arapha, the iron of whose
spear weighed three hundred ounces, being girded with a new sword,
attempted to kill David.
21:17. And Abisai the son of Sarvia rescued him, and striking the
Philistine killed him. Then David’s men swore unto him saying: Thou
shalt go no more out with us to battle, lest thou put out the lamp of
Israel.
21:18. There was also a second battle in Gob against the Philistines:
then Sobochai of Husathi slew Saph of the race of Arapha of the family
of the giants.
21:19. And there was a third battle in Gob against the Philistines, in
which Adeodatus the son of the Forrest an embroiderer of Bethlehem slew
Goliath the Gethite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
Adeodatus the son of the Forrest.... So it is rendered in the Latin
Vulgate, by giving the interpretation of the Hebrew names, which are
Elhanan the son of Jaare.
21:20. A fourth battle was in Geth: where there was a man of great
stature, that had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot,
four and twenty in all, and he was of the race of Arapha.
21:21. And he reproached Israel: and Jonathan the son of Samae the
brother of David slew him.
21:22. These four were born of Arapha in Geth, and they fell by the
hand of David, and of his servants.