And there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David inquired of Jehovah. And Jehovah said, It is for Saul, and for [his] house of blood, because he slew the Gibeonites.
Three years of famine pass before David asks the Lord why. The answer reaches back into the previous reign: the land is suffering for blood Saul shed. So why did God wait, and why did He care so much about a small group of foreigners who had once tricked Israel?
One bad year was not enough. Three years of it drove David to ask God for the cause, and the answer cleared David's own house at the same time.
The famine rages for three straight years: blow upon blow falls on the congregation of God. This trial brings David's conscience to search out the cause. He inquired of the Lord. This was his only resource, and God answered him at once: the famine was for Saul, and for his house of blood, because he killed the Gibeonites. His house of blood! Once a man of Saul's house chased a humbled David and shouted after him, calling him a man of blood. God kept a record of those insults. Now the time had come for Him to say what He thought of that insult: God calls Saul's house "bloody," and clears the house of David.
(Older translations say "house of blood"; the ESV says "bloodguilt on Saul and on his house.")
The famine ran year after year before David sought the Lord. One writer weighs what that delay reveals.
After the famine had returned year after year, for three years, David inquired of the Lord. Why did he not inquire in the first year? It is evidence of the low spiritual state that prevailed at that time.
Saul committed the crime, yet the famine struck long after his death, under a different king. One commentator explains the timing: God wanted a king who would ask Him, and a people who would own a wrong they had let pass unconfessed.
If the blow had fallen in the days of Saul, no one would have inquired of the Lord like this. Here was a king who felt for the honour of Jehovah. Suppose David had felt the sin, the people had confessed it, and they had cleared Jehovah's name over it. Then the famine might not have come on them as it did. Granted, neither David nor the people were responsible for the acts of the guilty man. But they were responsible to feel and confess the wrong. King Saul did it publicly in Israel. Had they mourned the deed as staining Jehovah's glory? There is no sign of any such confession.
The Gibeonites had won their place in Israel by deception. Israel had still sworn to spare them, and God defends that oath.
What a solemn lesson! God will not allow anyone to wrong the people He loves — and He will not allow anyone to wrong even the enemies who deceived them. "The righteous Jehovah loves righteousness." His dealing with Israel over the oath given to the Gibeonites is the clearest proof of how carefully and how firmly God holds to righteousness. Everyone can understand how He must feel about Israel or about David. But God was jealous over a wrong done to the Gibeonites, in such circumstances, and so long ago. To my mind that is a most healthy lesson about the God we have to do with. In truth the question was not who His name was pledged to, but that His name was sworn.
Saul killed the Gibeonites out of zeal for Israel. One writer draws a line between two kinds of zeal.
Saul's zeal was formal and merely human. It was zeal for God, yet he did not act in the fear of God. That is what marks off godly zeal from zeal for the outward interests of His kingdom. Saul forgets the oaths that Israel made to the Gibeonites. God remembers, and does not despise the poor Gibeonites.
Israel made peace with Gibeon long before Saul, and made it without asking God. One writer traces the famine back to that one omission.
Act faithfully, and the Lord will add more light at every faithful step. Only we must take counsel of the Lord at every step. Peace with Gibeon only robs us of victory and brings other wars and troubles on us. The presence of what is not of God always opens the door to Satan. We may not feel this much while the soul is strong; but when there is decline, then the evil and its results show up. In the days of David the famine came, because Saul had killed the Gibeonites. All this came from the small act of not taking counsel with God.
- Famine speaks. Three years of blows on the nation drove David's conscience to search out the cause.
- Delay exposes. David only asked in the third year, which showed how low the spiritual state had sunk.
- Timing teaches. The blow fell in David's reign, not Saul's. God wanted a king who would inquire of Him, and a people who would own the wrong they had let pass.
- God remembers. An oath sworn in His name to deceivers still bound Israel, and He was jealous over that old wrong.
- Zeal misleads. Saul's energy was for Israel's interests, not in the fear of God. And the whole story began with a peace made without taking counsel of the Lord.
And the king called the Gibeonites, and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remainder of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn to them; and Saul sought to smite them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.)
A famine in David's reign has its cause buried in the past. Israel had once sworn to spare the Gibeonites, Saul tried to wipe them out anyway, and God's own name was at stake.
The story starts generations earlier, in the days of Joshua. One writer sets out the background:
Joshua and the elders of Israel had allowed the Gibeonites to live in the land, though they were Amorites. They had deceived Joshua into thinking they came from another territory, and Joshua swore by the Lord when he made a treaty with them (Joshua 9). Once this was done, it could not be changed. But Saul was zealous for Israel and Judah, and decided he could kill off these people who were not Israelites. This was not zeal for God, because it meant breaking an oath of God. God delayed the punishment, but Israel still had to feel the responsibility for it when the famine came.
The oath came at a cost to the Gibeonites. They kept their lives but lost their freedom, and became woodcutters and water carriers for the house of God (Morrish Bible Dictionary). When the king now calls them in, one writer says what the meeting had to settle: "their consciences must be satisfied, their hearts comforted and at rest over the wrong done to them" (William Kelly).
The verse gives Saul a motive that sounds admirable: he acted for Israel and Judah. Commentators accept the motive and still condemn the zeal.
Saul's zeal was formal and merely human. It was zeal for God, yet he did not act in the fear of God. That is what marks off godly zeal from zeal for the outward interests of His kingdom. Saul forgets the oaths Israel made to the Gibeonites. God remembers it, and does not despise the poor Gibeonites.
That zeal is not ancient history. One writer traces it from Saul to another Saul in the New Testament, and then to us:
Saul was still full of "zeal for the people of Israel and Judah" (v. 2). Sadly, that zeal was tied far too closely to hatred against the Lord's anointed. Saul of Tarsus was also full of zeal, and it made him a persecutor of Christ in His church. In our days we also may be zealous for our own nation or for our church without God having any part in the matter.
The verse is careful to say these people were outsiders, not Israelites. That detail does not excuse Saul. It sharpens the point.
The Spirit of God deliberately points to their origin and race. They were "of the remnant of the Amorites"… Zeal for the people of God is an excellent thing, is it not? But zeal only for God's people, or zeal for God Himself in name only, can never sanctify disrespect to His name. That holds even if His name was pledged to His worst enemies only because they used trickery. For in truth the question was not who received the pledge. It was His own name, sworn to them.
The same writer sees here a lesson about God's own character: He "will not allow wrong to be done to the people He loves — or even to the enemies who deceived them" (William Kelly).
The pledge was old. Saul's crime was old too. The chastening came anyway, long after.
A long time had passed since the name of Jehovah was pledged. But does God ever forget? A long time had also passed since Saul did the bloody deed, and still no chastening came from Jehovah. The chastening did not follow until much later. Such patience puts souls to the test.
David did not kill the Gibeonites. Neither did most of the people who went hungry. Yet the famine falls on the whole nation:
So a deed of the past reign is charged against the present, the deed of a former king laid on the whole people of Israel. As the people of God they were responsible. They had allowed the wrong, they may even have profited from it, and at the very least they had gone on without admitting it or repenting of it.
Commentators differ on what David did next. One praises him for keeping the oath he had sworn to Jonathan while he satisfied the Gibeonites (William Kelly). Another faults him for asking the Lord the cause of the famine, then asking the Gibeonites for the cure (Numerical Bible Notes).
- Oath. Joshua's leaders swore by the Lord to spare the Gibeonites. Nothing could undo that pledge.
- Zeal. Saul's motive was zeal for Israel and Judah. Zeal for God's people never excuses dishonouring His name.
- Name. The wrong was not about who the Gibeonites were. It was about whose name stood behind the promise.
- Delay. God's silence was patience, not forgetfulness. The reckoning fell in David's reign, not Saul's.
- Responsibility. A whole nation felt the famine because it had lived with an unconfessed wrong done in its name.