Gibeonite’s Revenge
21 Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the presence of the Lord. And the Lord said, “It is because of Saul and his bloody 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 sons of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, and the sons of Israel had [a]made a covenant with them, but Saul had sought to [b]kill them in his zeal for the sons of Israel and Judah). 3 David said to the Gibeonites, “What should I do for you? And how can I make amends, so that you will bless the inheritance of the Lord?” 4 Then the Gibeonites said to him, “For us it is not a matter of silver or gold with Saul or his house, nor is it for us to put anyone to death in Israel.” Nevertheless David said, “I will do for you whatever you say.” 5 So they said to the king, “The man who destroyed us and who planned [c]to eliminate us so that we would not exist within any border of Israel— 6 let seven men from his sons be given to us, and we will [d]hang them before the Lord in 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 Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord which was between them, between David and Saul’s son Jonathan. 8 So the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, Armoni and Mephibosheth whom she had borne to Saul, and the five sons of [e]Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she had borne to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite. 9 Then he handed them over to the Gibeonites, and they [f]hanged them on the mountain before the Lord, so that the seven of them fell together; and they were put to death in the first days of harvest at the beginning of barley harvest.
10 And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until [g]it rained on them from the sky; and she [h]allowed neither the birds of the sky to rest on them by day nor the wild animals by night. 11 When it was reported to David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, 12 then David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the citizens 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 struck and killed Saul in Gilboa. 13 He brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan, and they gathered the bones of those who had been [i]hanged. 14 Then they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the grave of his father Kish; So they did everything that the king commanded, and after that God responded to prayer for the land.
This is a stark reminder that there are consequences to our actions, ones that we may never even see. When we disobey God, when we indulge our flesh, we set things into motion that are beyond us. Very little in our lives (if anything) can truly be said to only affect us, and no one else.
You might think no one is affected by your decisions, no one depends on your making the right choice. But that is a lie from the pits of Hell. Your life is not about you, and truthfully, it isn’t about other people really either. It’s all about God, and needs to be centered on Him.
But when your life is aligned with the Creator, you benefit, other people benefit, and you can impact so many more people, and do it in a positive way. Don’t be a Saul, that gets carried away by your own motives. Be like David, and ask God what He would have you do. And make it so.