II Samuel 21:6

IV. Close of David's Reign - 2 Samuel 21-24 After the suppression of the rebellion headed by Sheba, David spent the remaining years of his reign in establishing the kingdom upon a firmer basis, partly by organizing the army, the administration of justice, and the general government of the realm, and partly by making preparations for the erection of the temple, and enacting rules for the service of the Levites; that he might be able to hand over the government in a firm and satisfactory state to his youthful son Solomon, whom the Lord had appointed as his successor. The account of these regulations and enactments fills up the whole of the last section of the history of David's reign in the first book of Chronicles. But in the book before us, several other things - (1) two divine punishments inflicted upon Israel, with the expiation of the sins that occasioned them (Sa2 21:1-14, and 2 Samuel 24); (2) David's psalm of praise for deliverance out of the hand of all his enemies (2 Samuel 22), and his last prophetic words (Sa2 23:1-7); and (3) a few brief notices of victorious acts performed in the wars with the Philistines (Sa2 21:15-22), and a longer list of David's heroes (2 Samuel 23:8-39) - form, as it were, a historical framework for these poetical and prophetic portions. Of the two divine visitations mentioned, the pestilence occasioned by the numbering of the people (2 Samuel 24) occurred undoubtedly in the closing years of David's reign; whereas the famine, and the expiation connected with it (Sa2 21:1-14), happened most probably at an earlier period, and are merely introduced here because no fitting opportunity had presented itself before. The kernel and centre of this last section of the history of David is to be found unquestionably in the psalm of thanksgiving in…

The date of the events of this chapter is uncertain. I incline to think that they happened as they are here placed, after Absalom's and Sheba's rebellion, and towards the latter end of David's reign. That the battles with the Philistines, mentioned here, were long after the Philistines were subdued, appears by comparing Ch1 18:1 with Ch1 20:4. The numbering of the people was just before the fixing of the place of the temple (as appears Ch1 22:1), and that was towards the close of David's life; and, it should seem, the people were numbered just after the three years' famine for the Gibeonites, for that which is threatened as "three" years' famine (Ch1 21:12) is called "seven" years (Sa2 24:12, Sa2 24:13), three more, with the year current, added to those three. We have here, I. The Gibeonites avenged, 1. By a famine in the land (Sa2 21:1). 2. By the putting of seven of Saul's posterity to death (Sa2 21:2-9), care, however, being taken of their dead bodies, and of the bones of Saul (Sa2 21:10-14). II. The giants of the Philistines slain in several battles (Sa2 21:15-22).

21:6 seven of Saul’s sons: Although the law codes of other ancient Near Eastern nations sometimes permitted members of a family to be punished for crimes a guilty individual had committed, Deut 24:16 prohibited such punishment among the Israelites. This penalty was God’s prerogative alone (Deut 5:9). The few instances in the Bible when offspring were punished were not regular criminal cases. Rather, they involved offenses against God, such as violation of the kherem (the taboo on goods in wars of total destruction ordered by God; Josh 7:24-25) or of national oaths (as here). • at Gibeon, on the mountain of the Lord: This probably refers to the high place at Gibeon that Solomon later visited (1 Kgs 3:3-4; 2 Chr 1:3). If the Hebrew reading is correct (see NLT note), the Gibeonites were sarcastically referring to Saul as “the chosen of the Lord.”