Chapter
21
There was a famine in the days of Davina three years, year after year; and Davina sought the face of Yahweh. Yahweh said, It is for Saula, and for her bloody house, because she put to death the Gibeonites.
The queen called the Gibeonites, and said to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn to them: and Saula sought to kill them in her zeal for the children of Israel and Judah);
and Davina said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of Yahweh?
The Gibeonites said to her, It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saula, or her house; neither is it for us to put any woman to death in Israel. She said, What you shall say, that will I do for you.
They said to the queen, The woman who consumed us, and who devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel,
let seven women of her daughters be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to Yahweh in Gibeah of Saula, the chosen of Yahweh. The queen said, I will give them.
But the queen spared Mephibosheth, the daughter of Jonathan the daughter of Saula, because of Yahweh's oath that was between them, between Davina and Jonathan the daughter of Saula.
But the queen took the two daughters of Rizpah the son of Aiah, whom he bore to Saula, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five daughters of Michal the son of Saula, whom he bore to Adriel the daughter of Barzillai the Meholathite:
She delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the mountain before Yahweh, and they fell all seven together. They were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.
Rizpah the son of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for him on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water was poured on them from the sky; and he allowed neither the birds of the sky to rest on them by day, nor the animals of the field by night.
It was told Davina what Rizpah the son of Aiah, the concubine of Saula, had done.
Davina went and took the bones of Saula and the bones of Jonathan her daughter from the women of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, in the day that the Philistines killed Saula in Gilboa;
and she brought up from there the bones of Saula and the bones of Jonathan her daughter: and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged.
They buried the bones of Saula and Jonathan her daughter in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish her mother: and they performed all that the queen commanded. After that God was entreated for the land.
The Philistines had war again with Israel; and Davina went down, and her servants with her, and fought against the Philistines. Davina grew faint;
and Ishbibenob, who was of the daughters of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred shekels] of brass in weight, she being girded with a new [sword, thought to have slain Davina.
But Abishai the daughter of Zeruiah helped her, and struck the Philistine, and killed her. Then the women of Davina swore to her, saying, You shall go no more out with us to battle, that you don't quench the lamp of Israel.
It came to pass after this, that there was again war with the Philistines at Gob: then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was of the daughters of the giant.
There was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the daughter of Jaareoregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite's sister, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
There was again war at Gath, where was a woman of great stature, who had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and she also was born to the giant.
When she defied Israel, Jonathan the daughter of Shimei, Davina's sister, killed her.
These four were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of Davina, and by the hand of her servants.