Atonement for the Gibeonites: How to deal with sin

The story of the Gibeonites is one that we find hard to make sense of. For one thing, why did God bring disaster during David’s reign, when it was his predecessor who sinned? Secondly, and most importantly, the execution of Saul’s descendants seems utterly unfair (as well as harsh), given that it was Saul who sinned. Whenever we encounter a story in the Bible that clashes with our expectations, it is helpful to reflect on our (often unacknowledged) cultural assumptions. Behind our discomfort here lie two of these, which make this ancient solution for justice and atonement disturbing for us. First, our Western context is strongly individualistic, so we expect individual responsibility. No one should be punished for someone else’s crime. Second, capital punishment is increasingly seen by Westerners (except in some parts of the US) as barbaric and harsh. To understand what is going on in the story and to be able to address our concerns, we need to hear out the ancient perspective.

Understanding murder and its effects

Human beings were given life by God, therefore no created being (animal or human) had the right to take that life away (Gen 9:5-6). Nevertheless, it should be noted that murder in the ancient world (as generally in our modern one) fell into a different category from warfare. What is at issue is the premeditated taking of life in a peacetime context often because of anger or a grudge against someone. From the first murder of Abel by Cain, the Bible expresses the seriousness of such an act by the imagery of the spilt blood (symbolic of a person’s life) crying out from the ground for justice (Gen 4:10-12). Murder was also seen to defile the land, which was a serious problem because God lived with His people in the land (Num 35:33-34). When the level of impurity became too great for God to tolerate, He would move out (famously described in Ezekiel’s vision; Ezek 10:18-19; 11:23). This kind of language is alien to us, but traditional cultures often label things impure within a purity system to indicate disapproval of certain acts or situations and warn people of the dangers of engaging in them. Murder then is a grave injustice and rebellion against God’s authority that threatens to undo the relationship with Him. Additionally, this sin is so serious that it cannot be dealt with by paying money in compensation (Num 35:30-34), nor can the murderer seek asylum by going to the temple and holding on to the horns of the altar (Exod 21:12-14) or by running to a city of refuge (Deut 19:11-13).

Dealing with bloodguilt

According to Israelite law, the only way to deal with the bloodshed is to shed the blood of the murderer (Num 35:33). The near relative was expected to do this, rendered in translations ‘the avenger of blood’. This description is unhelpful, however, because the issue is not some kind of personal revenge but justice for the deceased and purging the community from the effects of the shed blood (Deut 19:11-13). The Hebrew word is go‘el ha-dam, which means ‘the redeemer of blood’ (i.e. of the murdered person) and many will recognise go‘el as ‘the kinsman redeemer’ from Ruth. Neglecting such a duty would have suggested a disregard for justice and indicated that the lost life did not really matter. Justice was, in fact, so important that even if the murderer was unknown, the effects of ‘bloodguilt’ needed to be dealt with by the community closest to the site of the murder. This was done through a ritual in which the murder was bloodlessly enacted by substituting a heifer whose neck was broken and the elders dissociated themselves from the murder through symbolic action and confession (Deut 21:1-9). This law is particularly important for our story because it shows that if a community did not deal with bloodguilt, even if they were not directly responsible, they were till held accountable for it.

The Gibeonite crisis: Guilt by association

In the incident of the Gibeonites, David and the people are held guilty because they have not dealt with Saul’s sin. Admittedly, David may not have known about the issue before, or it might have been ignored because it concerned non-Israelites on the margins. In any case, once God made the king aware of it, he could not ignore it. This guilt by association is similar to the collective responsibility governments and other institutions recognise about historical child abuse today. Although current individuals leading these representative bodies may be innocent of wrongdoing, it is still felt that they need to rectify the wrong done by acknowledging it and/or by offering compensation, otherwise they are implicated in the earlier crime by their silence.

Atonement for the Gibeonites

The issue of how David is to deal with the problem is compounded by the fact that Saul is no longer alive. Normally, in judicial matters the principle that everyone should be punished for their own sin stands (Deut 24:16), just as much as it does in our modern legal system. However, Saul was not just an individual, an ordinary citizen among others, but the king of the land representing the people and the murders were further complicated by the covenant breach (2 Sam 21:2), which implicated Israel in Saul’s sin and brought dishonour on God’s name who was invoked as witness for the covenant (Josh 9:19). We have also noted that bloodguilt was seen as too serious to be dealt with by monetary compensation and the Gibeonites echo this view (2 Sam 21:4). Their guarded reference to putting people to death (v.4) suggests what they want, though as a marginal group they only cautiously feel their way ahead. David’s affirmation that he will do for them what they require (v.4) opens the door for their explicit requirement.

Given the above ancient context, the Gibeonites’ request is entirely reasonable, even restrained. They do not ask for an equal number of Israelites to be killed. Rather, they request seven of Saul’s descendants (2 Sam 21:6) as a representative figure of completeness. As mentioned in my earlier post, there is a logic to the request and a certain symmetry. Saul was going to eliminate the Gibeonites (though he obviously failed), now the Gibeonites symbolically eliminate Saul’s family (though not entirely, as Mephibosheth is spared; 2 Sam 21:7). Since sons were seen as the extension of their father’s life and in this case represented a royal dynasty, there is a meaningful symbolism at work.

Culture-bound expressions of atonement and lessons for us

Explaining these details may help us grasp the rationale intellectually but, on a gut level, we probably still feel the horror of these innocent men being executed. Could they help the fact that they were descendants of Saul? What a tragedy for the mothers! Imagine Merab losing five sons at a stroke (though she may not have been alive by this stage given the silence on her reaction. Despite our feelings we should recognise, however, that in that ancient context, everyone would have felt the rightness of such an action, even the families affected by the loss.

This is an important point because such a solution to sin is tailored to the context that these people were in. If they were to learn about justice, it had to make sense to them within their worldview and culture. Given that the solution to the bloodguilt and covenant breach generated by Saul is so culturally embedded, it should be recognised that we cannot pick this ancient resolution out of its context and transplant it unchanged into our modern world. Nevertheless, if the action itself is not to be imitated, there are still lessons to learn from it. First, the ancient Israelites took sin seriously as something that had an almost objective quality in the way it was seen to defile the land and interfere in the relationship with God. Here, we moderns sometimes have a blind spot. Our verbal apologies can feel cheap and insincere, which gloss over the devastating effect of sin on victims. Secondly, our individualistic perspective, though laudable in many ways, can obscure any sense of collective responsibility for others as a community. As God’s people, we need to recognise the value of both.

The unfairness of God’s grace

As we come to appreciate how serious a business sin is and how God expects justice to be satisfied, we might wonder how He could let David off scot-free after a similar situation of murder. Of course, he did not entirely escape judgment as the unfolding story testified, but his life was spared. Is this not unfair? It is, of course, because grace is always unearned, undeserved and unfair. Yet the important difference between Saul and David was that the latter repented (2 Sam 12:13). He did not try to justify his actions, excuse himself or hope to escape God’s punishment because of his confession, all of which Saul attempted (see 1 Sam 15:10-31). Repentance does not earn us God’s grace, however, but it is a prerequisite.

If God forgives, though, where is justice? There is a Hebrew expression nasa ‘avon ‘to bear (one’s) guilt/punishment’ (e.g. Lev 5:1, 17), which means that a guilty person will bear the consequences of their sin in judgment. The same phrase is sometimes used of God, but in that case, it is translated ‘forgive’ (e.g. Exod 34:7 ‘forgives iniquity’). In other words, when God forgives, He takes on Himself the burden of sin and its punishment. It is a costly act. As Christians we know what Israel could not fully see that the Lord indeed took the burden of sin in Jesus Christ and died so that the likes of David and us may be given life.

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