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Israelites, they would be left, at least socially, isolated. This will account for their
ferocious persistence in demanding the uttermost punishment prescribed by the law.
The provisions of this law must be our second point of consideration. Here we have
again to bear in mind the circumstances of the times, the existing moral, social, and
national conditions, and the spiritual stage which Israel had then reached. The
fundamental principle, laid down in Numbers 35, was that of the holiness of the land in
which Jehovah dwelt among His people. This holiness must be guarded (ver. 34). But
one of the worst defilements of a land was that by innocent blood shed in it. According
to the majestic view of the Old Testament, blood shed by a murderer's hand could not
be covered up - it was, so to speak, a living thing which cried for vengeance, until the
blood of him that had shed it silenced its voice (ver. 33), or, in other words, until the
moral equipoise had been restored. While, therefore, the same section of the law
provided safety in case of unintentional homicide (vers. 10-29), and regulated the old
practice of "avenging blood," it also protected the land against crime, which it would
not allow to be compensated for by money (ver. 31). Hence the Gibeonites were
strictly within the letter of the law in demanding retaliation on the house of Saul, in
accordance with the universally acknowledged Old Testament principle of the
solidarity of a family; and David had no alternative but to concede their claim. This is
one aspect of the question. The other must be even more reverently approached. We
can only point out how they who lived in those times (especially such as the
Gibeonites) would feel that they might cry to God for vengeance, and expect it from
the Just and True One; and how the sternest lessons concerning public breach of faith
and public crimes would be of the deepest national importance after such a reign as
that of Saul.
The story itself may be told in few sentences. For some reason unrecorded - perhaps in
the excess of his carnal zeal, but certainly without sufficient grounds - Saul had made
havoc among the Gibeonites, in direct contravention of those solemn engagements into
which Israel had entered, and which up to that time had been scrupulously observed.
When, afterwards, a famine desolated the land for three years, and David sought the
face of Jehovah, he was informed that it was due to the blood-guilt^40 which still rested
on the house of Saul.
Upon this the king summoned the Gibeonites, and asked them what atonement they
desired for the wrong done them, so that the curse which they had invoked might no
longer rest on the inheritance of Jehovah. Their answer was characteristic. "It is not a
matter to us of silver or of gold, in regard to Saul and his house, nor is it ours to put to
death any one in Israel." "And he said, What say ye then? and I will do it for you."^41
Then came the demand, made with all the ferocity and irony of which they were
capable, that the blood-vengeance which they, as Gibeonites, did not venture to take,
should be executed for them, and that seven of Saul's descendants should be handed
(^)