Lessons from the Gibeonite crisis: The effects of sin and the king we await
2 Sam 21:1-14
After David’s restoration, we are suddenly plunged into an event about the effects of Saul’s sin during David’s reign though we cannot be sure when this happened. More importantly, how the king resolves the issue is alien to us (a question I shall return to in a follow-up post). What are we to make of this event? The larger literary context of this story gives us some clues. The incident comes at the end of the book (a position for summary and final conclusions) and forms a closing section organised in a concentric pattern (see table below).[1] In such a structure, it is the centrepiece (here the two psalms/songs of David) that is at the heart of the section’s message. This conclusion to the book reflects on godly kingship and compares Saul’s and David’s reign. Our reading particularly deals with the effects of sin and its remedy and implicitly point to the hoped-for Messiah: the king we await.
Aggression vs justice to the weak
It is obvious from the famine that Saul’s sin affected the whole nation (2 Sam 21:1).[2] His attempted extermination of the Gibeonites was not only murder but a breach of covenant that Israel had with this people group (2 Sam 21:2; Josh 9:15).[3] Additionally, as manual labourers in Israel (Josh 9:21) and non-Israelite residents, the Gibeonites were vulnerable to poverty and exploitation and easy prey to Saul’s aggression. David’s willingness to rectify the matter and negotiate a solution (2 Sam 21:3, 6), on the other hand, speaks of a king who was concerned for justice to the weak. While the solution seems harsh (even unfair to us), in Israel’s world at the time, everyone would have acknowledged the justness of such a resolution (more on this in my next post).
Sin that destroys and covenant-keeping that preserves
The logic of the punishment is that Saul suffers what he intended to inflict on others. He aimed to annihilate a whole people group, while the execution of seven of his descendants (representing completeness) is symbolic of the elimination of his line. The continuation of the family name in the ancient world is critical as a kind of immortality, so that barrenness and the lack of male descendants is a deeply felt tragedy (note Saul’s earlier plea that David should not eradicate his family line; 1 Sam 24:21).[4] The very thing Saul feared came about not as David’s revenge, but because of Saul’s own sin. Sin not only destroys others, but the sinner, too. David instead is shown to honour the covenant with the Gibeonites and with Jonathan (by sparing his son; 2 Sam 21:7; 1 Sam 20:15-16). Further, the king recognises the faithful action of a concubine, who would not let the unburied corpses be consumed by scavengers (2 Sam 21:10-11) – the ultimate humiliation for executed wrongdoers. Rather, David honours Saul’s family by giving them a resting place in the family tomb (2 Sam 21:12-13). Finally, God’s restoration comes after (David’s and the people’s?) prayer (2 Sam 21:14). No mechanical transaction can ever make amends and result in automatic forgiveness. Prayer shows the involvement of a person and their dependence on God’s grace.
The king we await
Our reading illustrates both the terrible destruction that sin inflicts on the sinner but also its impact on others. Sin can be particularly devastating in leaders whose public (in Saul’s case) or private sins (David’s adultery) will affect those they lead, whether through God’s direct punishment or as a consequence of sin. This is true in politics but also in the Church. While our incident portrays David positively, he is overall far from perfect, so the story is looking beyond him towards Messiah, who is like David at his best but so much more. In the Lord Jesus, we see the true King, who cares for justice for the weak, honours commitments and atones for sin not by the blood of the guilty party or his family but by His own blood. David gives us a glimpse of what a king should be and what he truly is in Jesus.
[1] Scholars call this kind of structure ‘chiastic’ after the Greek letter ‘chi’, which looks like our English ‘x’. This is because such a concentric structure is often represented by indenting each new section title until the mid-point is reached, after which each new section is moved out one tab. This way, it is easy to see the parallel topics and visually the shape makes half an x.
[2] The idea that natural disasters may be God’s punishment for sin makes modern readers uncomfortable. Although popular thinking in the ancient world (in and outside of Israel) often made such a connection between misfortune and sin automatic, the Bible nowhere does so. The story of Job is the most obvious counterexample (Job 1:8-12) in the OT, but so is David’s early life as he is persecuted by Saul. The psalms are also full of the theme of the ‘righteous sufferer’, a person who is faithful to God yet suffers persecution or misfortune (e.g. Ps 44:17-19; 69:7-9). In the NT, Jesus disallows such an automatic equation between suffering and sin (Luke 13:1-5; John 9:1-3) and He is the ultimate ‘righteous sufferer’ on the cross. Nevertheless, God can use our circumstances and difficulties in our lives to draw our attention to sin. In David’s story, the famine had been going on for an extended period, so the king did the right thing to inquire from God for the reason.
[3] The Gibeonites were a local Canaanite group who feared being destroyed in the fighting against Israel. Knowing that Israel was forbidden to make an agreement with local peoples (who might lead them into idolatry), they pretended to be from a distant land and tricked Israel into a covenant with themselves. Once Israel’s commitment was elicited, it could not be broken, so the Gibeonites were allowed to live as manual labourers in the land (Josh 9:1-27).
[4] Saul’s request and David’s promise in 1 Sam 24:21-22 is not about individual descendants but the systematic elimination of all progeny so that the family dies out.
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