Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20030126.htm

1 AND 2 SAMUEL: GOD'S SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS IN OVERSIGHT
Part LIX: Learning To Heed Our Pledges To Others Made Before God For The LONG Haul
(2 Samuel 21:1-14)
  1. Introduction
    1. Often promises made to others are kept for an abbreviated period of time rather than for the long haul.
    2. However, God desires His people and especially His human overseers stay committed in their promises to others for the long haul, and 2 Samuel 21:1-14 exemplifies this truth in David's life as follows:
  2. Learning To Heed Our Pledges To Others Made Before God For The LONG Haul, 2 Samuel 21:1-14.
    1. Late in David's reign, Israel had a three-year famine, a sign David identified to be God's discipline on the nation from the stipulations of Deuteronomy 28:47-48 of the Mosaic Covenant, cf. 2 Samuel 21:1a.
    2. When David asked God what sin had led to this discipline, God clarified He was punishing Israel for a wrong done through Israel as led by the long-deceased Saul in that he had killed some Gibeonites, 21:1b.
    3. This revealed God wanted Israel to keep its pledge before Him regarding the Gibeonites for the long haul:
      1. The Gibeonites were to have been preserved by Israel though they were original inhabitants of Canaan due to a promise Israel's leaders made to preserve them back in Joshua's era, cf. Joshua 9:3-27 with 2 Samuel 21:2a. Though Joshua had been unjustly tricked by the Gibeonites into promising them protection, he had sworn in God's NAME to protect them, and that oath was PERPETUALLY BINDING in God's eyes, cf. Joshua 9:18-19 with Numbers 30:2.
      2. Now, Saul had been zealous to protect the people of Israel from paganism even to the extent of trying to destroy the Gibeonites from among them in violation of Joshua's oath, 2 Samuel 21:2b.
      3. However, even Saul's zeal for the GOOD of Israel did not sanction VIOLATING a Scripturally binding OATH made in God's NAME to PRESERVE these Canaanites from such destruction!
    4. Thus, when David asked the surviving Gibeonites what should be done to atone for Saul's actions, they asked that seven of Saul's sons be given to them to execute and hang up as cursed before God, 21:3-6a,b.
    5. In view of the law of retaliation in Deut. 19:21 and the Deut. 24:16 stipulation that the children were not to be punished for the sins of their fathers, these descendants of Saul must have been involved in helping Saul violate Joshua's ancient oath in attacking the Gibeonites, Ryrie Study Bib., KJV, ftn. to 2 Sam. 21:6.
    6. David thus complied with the Gibeonite request, and delivered seven of Saul's descendants as righteously as he could to settle the injustice that had been done so long before, 2 Samuel 21:6c-9a:
      1. David spared Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son due to his own past oath, 2 Sam. 21:7 & 1 Sam. 20:12-17.
      2. However, he gave the Gibeonites the two sons of Saul's mistress, Rizpah and the five sons of Merab (NIV), Saul's daughter, the woman who had been promised to David but who had been given by Saul to Adriel in marriage in violation of Saul's promise to David, 2 Sam. 21:6c, 8-9a, 11; 1 Sam. 18:17-19.
    7. When the Gibeonites executed and hanged these men up for their bodies to be exposed as a curse, they left the bodies there for months until the rains came, indicating God's appeasement over Saul's sin against the Gibeonites (as rain would end the famine), 2 Sam. 21:9b-10. Though Deut. 21:22-23 ruled the body was to be buried the day of its death, this long exposure apparently was needed to atone for the nation's abuse of the Gibeonites, Ibid., Ryrie St. Bib., KJV, ftn. to 2 Sam. 21:14; Bib. Know. Com., O. T., p. 476.
    8. Nevertheless, though respecting God's concern for the injustice done to the Gibeonites in that she did not take the bodies down, out of respect for Saul's house, Rizpah, Saul's mistress and mother of two of the seven executed men, continuously protected the bodies from scavengers until their burial, 2 Sam. 21:9-10.
    9. (That Saul's mistress and mother of two of the slain and not Saul's daughter and mother of five of the slain would do this act of love contrasts the darkness in Saul's lineage with the character of his mistress!)
    10. Realizing from Rizpah's example his own need to be faithful in his own promise to Saul in 1 Sam. 24:20-22, David exhumed the bodies of Saul, Jonathan and his sons slain in battle and, with the corpses of Saul's executed seven descendants, put them in the grave of Saul's father in Benjamin, 2 Sam. 21:12-14b.
    11. With this matter accomplished, God was entreated, and gave Israel crops once again, 2 Sam. 21:14c.
Lesson: David realized from the famine and the actions of Rizpah his own need to be FAITHFUL in heeding God relative to his relationship with others over the LONG haul -- it was his long-term DUTY!

Application: May we heed God in our commitments made to others for the LONG haul!