Bible Commentaries
2 Samuel 21

Verse 10

2 Samuel 21:10

I. Consider first the Divine dealings with the house of Saul and the people of Israel.

The famine was because Saul and his bloody house had slain the Gibeonites. It was a consequence of that act of his. But the famine was not the punishment of Saul, the most guilty of the offenders. Saul was punished even in this world. In spite of his elevation to the throne and his brilliant successes, he lived a miserable life and died a miserable death. Here was his punishment, but so far as his crime to the Gibeonites was concerned he did not live to share in the misery occasioned by that sinful act.

The thought of this fact, that our actions, independently of their good or evil desert, have inevitable consequences, should make us very circumspect and careful. There exists a mysterious sequence of events which evades our research and reaches beyond the things of this world.

II. The conduct of Rizpah was natural; it was also not without its use, if we look to the moral instead of the physical world. She returned to her home with a softened though a saddened heart, with subdued affections, with a consciousness of having done what she could, and with the knowledge that her conduct had met with the approbation of David.

III. Notice the conduct of David. In his generous heart a generous action was sure to find a ready response. He whose parental affections not even the rebellion of an ungrateful son could annihilate knew how to sympathise with the childless Rizpah, and Rizpah was doubtless consoled when, in a princely burial, she saw honour done to her husband's house.

Justice first, and then mercy. This is the way of the Lord, and David, as the Lord's vicegerent, walked in it.

F. W. Hook, Parish Sermons, p. 66.

References: 2 Samuel 21:10 . Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 91; J. W. Burgon, Ninety-one Short Sermons, No. 66. 2 Samuel 21:14 . Sermons for Sundays: festivals and Fasts, 2nd series, vol. in., p. 34. 2 Samuel 21:15 , 2 Samuel 21:16 . S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches, p. 89.

Verse 17

2 Samuel 21:17

The personal influence of King David was the spell by which Israel was reunited after long separations and out of great diversities of interests. A skilful general, a gallant soldier, a perfect bard, a saint of God, and, above all, a lifelong penitent after a great fall, this was the man whom his generals well called the "light of Israel;" this was he on whose life and name, they felt, depended the solidity of a yet fragmentary, a half-barbarised, nation. He was, as it were, the only lamp of God burning in a darkened sanctuary, the one pledge they had that strength, glory, and wisdom are not really of us, but of God.

I. David's personal influence was invaluable to the tribes; it was the most precious thing that God had given them as a nation. And therefore, valuable as it is on the field of battle, they will not use it there at all; they must keep it for the good of Israel in higher fields and for nobler achievements in the elevation of the people. This story teaches that the power of personal influence is the best gift which God gives to every one.

II. There is none too much light in Israel. If one man's name is not now, as in the old heroic savage times, a beacon blaze for all, so much the more careful should we be of all the rays of scattered light which here and there betoken that God's gifts are present.

III. But yet again we may rise higher. Let us not risk the light that is in our own souls. We all of us own some light of God burning in the dark places of our hearts. Bring not these sanctities into danger. Rekindle the light of Israel.

Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays at Wellington College, p. 55.

References: 2 Samuel 21:0 Parker, vol. vii., p. 207. 2 Samuel 22:20 . J. Baldwin Brown, The Higher Life, p. 131. 2 Samuel 22:0 W. M. Taylor, David King of Israel, pp. 269, 284.