The Messy Business of Covenant Keeping

The title of this morning's message is the Messy Business of Covenant Keeping. We'll be looking at 2 Samuel 21. And our outline this morning is probably the simplest outline I've ever had for any sermon I've ever preached. It's basically we're gonna read God's word, pray over God's word, introduce God's word, explain God's word, and apply God's word.

That's the outline. Let's go ahead and read God's word together. 2 Samuel 21, starting in verse 1. Now, there was a famine in the days of David for 3 years, year after year, and David inquired of the Lord.

And the Lord answered, It is because of Saul and his blood guilt in his house. Because he killed the Gibeonites. So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. Now, the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but were the remnant of the Amorites.

The children of Israel had sworn protection to them, but Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah. Therefore, David said to the Gibbonites, what shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord. And the Gibeonites said to him, we will have no silver or gold from Saul, or from his house, nor shall you or shall we kill any man in Israel.

So he said, what you say, whatever you say, I will do for you. Verse 5, then they answered the king, as for the man who consumed us and plotted against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the territories of Israel. Let 7 men of his descendants be delivered to us. And we will hang them before the Lord in Gibea of Saul, whom the Lord chose.

And the king said, I will give them. But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul. So the king took Armani and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Risba, the daughter of AI, I'm sorry, Aa, whom she bore to Saul, and the five sons of Michael or Mirab, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barzilli, the Maholathites, and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites and they hanged them on the hill before the Lord.

So they fell and all 7 together and were put to death in the days of the harvest, in the first days in the beginning of the barley harvest.

Now Rispa, the daughter of Aya, took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock. From the beginning of harvest until the late rains poured on them from heaven, and she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day or the beasts of the field by night. And David was told what Risba, the daughter of Aa, the concubine of Saul, had done. David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son from the men of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had hung them up after the Philistines had struck down Saul in Gilboa.

So he brought up the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan, his son from there, and they gathered the bones of those who had been hanged, and they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan, his son in the country of Benjamin and Zilah, in the tomb of Kish, his father. So they performed all that the king commanded. And after that, God heeded the prayer for the land. Let's pray.

Lord, you have given us your word that it may be read and heard for our prophet. That we may be instructed, reproved, corrected, and by your grace, trained in righteousness. We pray that as your word is preached, that you would open our eyes by your Holy Spirit. So that we may behold Your Holiness.

Your severity and mercy. We pray that your word would cause us to abhor our sins and repent of them quickly. And may we find great encouragement to believe your word for ourselves, to worship and trust you as a result, and to share your glories with others. We pray this by the authority of Jesus, our anointed Lord.

Now God's people said, Amen. Now, let's introduce our text. In April in April, actually April 21st of 1988, the US Senate approved reparations for Japanese individuals who were, captured in what some might call concentration camps, what we call relocation camps throughout the West in Colorado. If you guys remember your US history, we took many Japanese citizens and moved them from their homes, removed them from their homes, took away their homes, put them in prisons basically for a large part of the war.

And it wasn't until 1988 that the US Senate decided to give reparations of $20,000 per individual that was still alive to these Japanese citizens. Now, these Japanese citizens had taken an oath to not follow any foreign power but to submit and to fight for the United States of America and the United States, by implication, had also sworn an oath to protect its citizens. What the US Senate decided in 1988 is that oath, that covenant was broken by the United States government and so we agreed to give $20,000 per individual, that was still alive.

Senator Spark Matsuga, a Japanese American from Hawaii, almost wept as he recalled, the suffering attorneys and as he related the story of an elderly grandfather who was machine gunned as he went out of, over a fence to retrieve a ball for his grandchild.

So the question can be asked, was this an appropriate reparation for United States citizens that were basically imprisoned? And to this day, there's never been any documented occurrence of any Japanese citizen, US citizen that was proven to be a traitor of the United States. Many today would say $20,000 for people that were actually killed and had their livelihoods taken away from them was completely inappropriate, but it was something. In the text that we're looking at this morning, we have basically a covenant between the government of Israel as represented by Saul and a people group called the Gibeonites who were vassals or slaves of Israel.

They had entered into a covenant. Raise your hand if you read, you got to read any of the background material leading up to today. OK, a few of us. So those of you guys that read Joshua 9 and 10, you understand that this covenant was Agreed to by Joshua and the Israelites and the Gibeonites agreed to become vassals, woodcutters and water carriers for the temple of Almighty God.

But what we have before us is a passage that I think all of us would admit it is difficult. In fact, many are embarrassed by this passage. there are those that would deny, the authority of God's word and point to this passage as one of the reasons why they cannot possibly believe in this God that basically requires the death of innocent people in order to, as it were, appease the rain God. This sounds very much like the cultish practices of various pagan peoples.

in the most cynical view of this passage, you have David trying to protect his throne by having the, progeny of Saul, his children eliminated while keeping his hands clean. What are we to make of such a passage? Well, it's my contention and one of the things I want to try to demonstrate for us from the text this morning that often it's the most difficult passages in scripture that reveal more about us and certain problems with our culture than they do about problems with God and His justice and his way of ordering things.

So if we approach this text as it claims to be, and that is the very word of God, and if we approach it in its context that God is the one that initiates this process and in verse 14, it seems like he approves of this process, then we need to come to the scriptures and try to figure out what is going on here, what is God up to?

And if we have some issues with what God does, we need to ask ourselves what needs to be corrected in our own hearts. And so, let's look together. We're gonna just move through this passage as we explain it. Starting in verse one, making various comments, then we're gonna come back and talk about its uses or its application.

So let's start, let's go back to verse one. Now, there was a famine in the days of David for 3 years, year after year. David inquired of the Lord. So, there's a famine that no doubt, according to verse 10 is drought induced.

We need to ask ourselves, what's the big deal about a famine? There's a really big deal about a famine when you're living in ancient times. A famine is not just running out of bread at Winco, right? this is not just some normal movement of El Nino in the Palestinian area.

there's something real suspicious going on because David's looking around at his peoples and he's realizing people are dying of starvation and rain has stopped falling. And David knows the law. He knows Leviticus 26, he knows Deuteronomy 28, that here he is, the king of Israel at the height of Israel's history, resting underneath what's called the Davidic covenant, the promise of God's blessing upon David and those that would come after him. And yet we're looking at not just one year, not just two years, but 3 consecutive years of no rain that causes famine.

In the land leading to no doubt the death of various Israelites. So David, knowing the blessings and cursings of Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, does what he should do as the leader of Israel, he inquires of the Lord. And we don't know that, David's a prophet. We don't know if he went to the tabernacle.

Did he have a prophet speak to him? Did he go to the Urim and Thumrim, Thummim? We're not really sure, but we do know that the Lord answers right away. Before we get to the Lord's answer, however, let's just, let's give ourselves a little bit of review about this whole concept of blessing and cursing that we have laid out for us in Leviticus 26 to the first generation of Israel, Deuteronomy 28, to the second generation of Israel.

God had promised that if the people of Israel would obey his words, and that he would bless them. With national blessings, but if they violated this covenant, this agreement between themselves and Yahweh, that God would make sure he would guarantee as a witness of the covenant to bring covenant cursing upon the people of the land. You don't have to turn there necessarily, but Leviticus 26, where we have this first reading of this covenant, the Lord says in verse 15, he says, basically, if you despise my statutes and If your soul abhors my judgment so that you perform, do not perform all my commandments, but break my covenant.

And then the paragraph goes on and on.

It says, I will set my face against you. Verse 18, I will punish you 7 times more for your sins. Verse 19, I will make your heavens like iron and the earth like bronze. What's that a reference to?

No rain. verse 20, your land shall not yield its produce. The trees will not yield their fruit. Verse 21, I will bring on you seven times more plagues according to your sins.

Verse 24, I will punish you seven times for your sins. Verse 26, I have cut off your supply of bread. Verse 28, I will chastise you 7 times for your sins. What do you hear the Lord saying over and over again in Leviticus 26, I will punish you 7 times for your sins.

This is part of the covenant curse. And so David knows the law and he says, this is not just a normal famine. I'm gonna inquire of the Lord. And so what does the Lord say in the second half of the first verse?

He doesn't wait, the Lord answers right away. It is what? Because of Saul and the blood guilt of his house. Because he killed whom?

The Gibeonites. So, it's clearly the Lord that has caused this famine. This wasn't just some natural phenomenon. God had brought this famine upon the land because of covenant curses.

When David inquires of the Lord, he's very quick to give him revelation and say, here's why famine is on the land. It's because of Saul and the blood guilt in his house for killing the Gibeonites, who are the Gibeonites. Well, one of their cities, there's 4 cities that are listed in Joshua that you guys could read on your own. the city Gibeon is actually today it's modern El Jib, it's 6 miles northwest of Jerusalem in the tribal area of Benjamin.

And, and these were the ones who had made this tricky covenant with the Israelites. You guys remember, even if you didn't read this week, you guys remember Israel's commanded to come into the land and basically wipe out all the Canaanites, right? The Canaanites are elsewhere listed by various names. Hivites, Gibeonites are part of the Hivites, and in other places, they're called Amorites.

Amorites is more of a big all-inclusive term. Well, the Gibeonites hear what has happened. They know what happened in Egypt. They've heard about Joshua's destruction of Jericho and I and these various kings.

And so they send forth an envoy that basically comes and pretends like they're not part of this land. Remember they dress up in old clothes, they bring moldy bread, they bring wine skins that look like they're very old, and they basically trick Joshua and the leaders into making a covenant with them. Say we're from a land far away from here. You don't have to worry about us.

We're not part of those wicked Canaanites. We just want to make a covenant with you because we know that you guys are bad dudes. And we wanna serve you and we wanna make sure that you guys leave us alone. And so Joshua and the leaders in Joshua 9:14, what do they not do?

They do not inquire of the Lord. They look at what they're saying, they sit down, they have a covenant meal with them. They actually probably partake of this moldy bread. They cut this covenant, as it were.

All of a sudden, 3 days after they go through this covenant-making ceremony, they realize, wait a second, these guys are Canaanites. But guess what? They decide we cannot violate this covenant because we've sworn before who? The Lord, even though these guys tricked us into this covenant, even though these are people that we were supposed to come in and kill by God's order, we dare not touch them because we have sworn by Yahweh to keep our word that we swear before God.

And so they allow the Gibeonites to, to survive and they become what the technical term is Nethanim. Nephane is just a fancy word basically that means these were gonna be woodcutters and water carriers on behalf of the temple. And the Gibeonites as history develops, they just get folded into this group that are used by the Levites. So God comes along and he brings famine.

And when, when David inquires of the Lord, why is there famine, he says, it's because Saul has killed these people, these Gibeonites, and his whole house has the, the guilt of blood on them. This sounds very strange to our ears. But this is the messy business of covenant, guarantorship. God is a witness of this covenant, and he decides that he will be the one that maintains this covenant.

And he calls upon David, who is king at this time, to be the mediator of this particular covenant. We're not sure of the exact date of these happenings. Notice that it just says it's sometime in the days of David. We know it's sometime after Mephibosheth comes into the household of 1 Samuel 9, but we really don't know where exactly this takes place in David's, in David's, history, and it seems like that's on purpose.

The Holy Spirit through the writer of 2 Samuel is not really given us a time date. This whole section on the back end of 2 Samuel, some people call it an appendix. Really, it's just a wrap up to demonstrate how God was establishing his covenant through David and how David would respond as opposed to Saul in like circumstances. Now, remember Saul, so he's, he's come in and he's killed the Gibeonites.

Do we have any evidence of where this happened anywhere else in scripture? No, there's no other place in any of the historical books that talk about this incident other than right here. But we do know that Saul did crazy things like this. Remember, he tried to pin David against the wall with a spear, did the same thing with his own son, Jonathan.

Remember what he did, to the priests in Abiathar? He comes in and he, he annihilates all of these priests. And so Saul has this crazy reputation for spilling innocent blood. And yet Deuteronomy 19:10 tells us, in, innocent blood, let innocent blood be shed in the midst of your land which the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance.

Thus, the guilt of bloodshed shall be upon you. The law indicated that if innocent blood is spilled, there is blood guilt that comes upon that land, not just that person. That's why David says in Psalm 139:19, 1 of our favorite Psalms, right? That we love to talk about God's omnipresence and he's with us wherever we go.

But notice how David wraps it up in his application section on Psalm 139. He says verse 19, 0, that you would slay the wicked, oh God, depart from me, therefore you bloodthirsty men. That's the same word that's being used here in our text, you blood guilt men, for they speak against you wickedly, your enemies take your name. In vain So, Saul had violated this covenant and therefore had profaned or taken the name of the Lord in vain by doing so.

And it is revealed to David what exactly is to be done. It is, by the way, as a side note, quite a blessing that God actually reveals to David what to do. In most pagan religions, when somebody is underneath some curse, under, underneath, like say karma in Hinduism, there's no revelation to know why they're experiencing the karma, why they're experiencing the curse. But God comes along and he tells David, here's exactly why this is going on.

Look at verse 2. So the king, what does he do in response? He calls the Gibeonites. It doesn't mean he picked up his cell phone, it means that he called them to himself or he went to them, and he spoke to them, probably just as the Lord had directed.

Notice that the Gibeonites had remained silent up until this time. There's no indication that the Gibeonites had brought any complaint to David. they had just borne the treatment by Saul, this attempted genocide. They did not come and raise a complaint.

The Lord had to reveal it to David. no doubt the Gibeonites perhaps would have cried out to the Lord, and this is why the Lord responds. We see evidence in other places of scripture, for instance, Psalm 140 12. I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted and the justice of the poor.

Proverbs 21:12, the righteous God wisely considers the house of the wicked, overthrowing the wicked for their wickedness. Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry Himself and not be heard. These Gibeonites who had bound themselves to Israel to come underneath Israel's protection as vassals, as slaves, to really carry their water for them, had been violated. Attempted genocide had been brought upon them by the very people who were supposed to protect them.

They remained in silence and no doubt cried out to the Lord, and now the Lord has brought a famine on the land and tells David, the king who is now in charge. So David goes to speak to them. And then we get this little, little history lesson for the readers who may not know much about the Gibeonites, the original readers. It says right there in the middle of verse two.

Now, the Gibeonites were not the children of Israel but were remnants of the Amorites. Amorite, remember, is a big overarching term for those that lived in Canaan. The children of Israel had sworn to protect them, as we saw in Joshua chapter 9 and 10. We know from extrabiblical history.

That, according to an archaeologist, Charles Finchem, an oath once taken cannot be recalled or changed. It can only be broken. Although the Israelites discovered the guile and dishonesty of the Gibeonites, the treaty could not be broken, for it was formed under oath in the name of Yahweh. Once an, once a, a covenant had been made in the name of Yahweh, the people could swear to their own hurt, but they would not change it.

By the way, archaeologists have have found, boundary stones and other types of inscriptions that follow the same pattern. There's one particular boundary stone that was, found that has to do with the Hittite king, that basically the Hittite is making a covenant to protect vassals in his area. he says, he basically says he's going to protect them, they're going to serve him. If he violates the covenant or if they violate the covenant, may the gods bring curses upon them, including famine and plague, and may our own children have their bodies exposed to the elements.

These are, the, there's several boundary stones that have been discovered that follow the same pattern that we see here in 2 Samuel chapter 21, that when people would make a covenant to one another, they would actually bind themselves to an oath that would involve curses of the gods or in this case, God bringing those curses upon them for violating that particular oath. And so as we continue to look at the history in verse two, Saul had sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.

This is basically a pro-Israel, a nationalistic zeal. You can see why people might not like the Gibeonites because of their trickery.

They're not Jewish, right? Here they are getting some of the benefits of the people of Israel. they're foreigners. And so Saul, for whatever reason, gets involved and not just a war with them, but an annihilation, an attempt to wipe them out, genocide.

So verse 3, therefore, David said to the Gibeonites, what shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord? What is it that you want me to do? It appears that as God had revealed Himself the reason for the famine, God had probably also revealed to David how to take care of the famine.

Go to the Gibeonites, ask them, what were the, what were the, the specifics of the covenant? What were the specifics of the covenant that has been violated? It's basically what David's asking for. What shall I do to make atonement for this covenant that has been violated by royalty by your protector?

Verse 4 in the Gibeonites said, well, We will have no silver or gold from Saul or from his house. Why would they say such a thing that we're not going to receive monetary reparations? Well, no doubt that was not part of the covenant. In fact, they probably had been instructed by the law being associated with Israel.

In Numbers 35:31 and following, we see, moreover, quote, moreover, you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death. You shall take no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge. Verse 33, so you shall not pollute the land where you are, for the blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is, except for the blood on it, except for the blood of him who has shed it. So no monetary, nobody's supposed to be able to buy off somebody for shedding innocent blood on the land.

And it appears that the Gibeonites know this, and they also realized this was not part of our ancient treaty. begs the question, that we started off with the introduction of just the Japanese who had come and remained really silent for a number of years and then finally get some reparations from the United States government. I just wonder how it felt for them to receive that $20,000 check for their livelihoods that had been destroyed. Well, in this case, we have God as the guarantor of the covenant, not man.

And so God can require much more than would be allowable by man. They go on in verse 4 to say, neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel. The Hebrew here is difficult, but the idea seems to be, it's really not up to us. We're not allowed to just go be an avenger of blood.

We're not allowed just to go attack Saul and attack his children. That's why we've just remained silent all these years, even beyond the death of Saul. So he said, OK, you guys, tell me what you want. What is it that you want me to do for you?

And I will do it at the end of verse 4. They've said, well, we don't want monetary gain. We really can't go attack Saul's family ourselves. They've said the things that they don't want.

So David says, let's cut to the chase, just tell, tell me, what is it that you're asking for? And it seems like what's implied in this statement by David is David. Now sees himself, understands himself as the mediator of this covenant that's been broken. God had been, he is the guarantee, he's the protector of the covenant.

He was the witness there between Joshua and Israel and the Gibeonites to make sure that this covenant has been established. David sees himself as now the mediator. He is now the ruler of Israel who must make sure that amends are made. And so he says, what do you want me to do as the mediator of this covenant that's been cut?

I don't know the specifics. Here's what they say, verse 5. Then they answered the king. And the king is there on purpose.

This is the king, the mediator. As for the man who consumed us, and now they're going to get more specific as to the pain that's been caused. And plotted against us that we should be destroyed or exterminated from remaining in any of the territories of Israel. That's, this is the first time they've really been very straightforward with the full scope of the bloodshed.

This is all out premeditated genocide. This is the Holocaust in reverse. This is Israel trying to wipe the, the, the Gibeonites off the planet. This is a massacre.

That was attempted by Saul. They say in verse 6, let 7 men of the descendants of his descendants be delivered to us. And we will hang them before the Lord in Gibea of Saul, whom the Lord chose. This whole section is dripping with sarcasm or irony and judgment, severity.

This should shock us. a lot of times when we read the scriptures, we come up against questions and we think that we're the first ones in 3000 or 4000 years that have asked these questions. In reality, the author, the human author and the author of the Holy Spirit wants us to ask the question. We should be shocked.

At what the Gibeonites are asking for. They're asking for 7 men. This seems to hearken back to Leviticus 26, 7 times shall you be punished. They seem to be aware of the cursings of Leviticus 26.

Of Saul's descendants. Blood guilt is not just on Saul, it's on his whole house. This can mean a couple different things. One is that the guilt of Saul is is imputed to his progeny as a royalty, which we're gonna look at here in just a second.

It could also imply that his house was also implicated in the genocide. In other words, they kept this feud up. We want 7 descendants delivered to us that we may hang them before the Lord. The idea of hanging means to, to basically kill and expose.

It's a very interesting Hebrew word. It's not just hang them the way we would think of hanging somebody if you watch like some movie, some cowboy movie or something. This is a, a solemn execution and then exposing them to the elements. And notice it's to be before the Lord because the Lord is the, is the witness of the covenant, and it's to be in Gibea.

Where's Gibea? Gibea was basically Saul's hometown. Not too far from Jerusalem, hometown and his capital. And notice Saul is called the one whom the Lord chose.

This is pure irony. The one who the Lord chose should have behaved better than he did. Why is it like the pirates, they were executed and hung out on the harbor as ships would come in? Why would that happen?

As a warning, right? If you wanna come to our harbor and start stealing stuff, this is what's going to happen to you. For them to hang up these descendants of Saul right in Saul's own hometown is a warning to everybody who wants to continue this blood feud. This is what the Lord will do to you if you don't let this go.

How do I know that thing about the pirates? From watching Pirates of the Caribbean. That's the only way I know that. I have no historical data or research.

So if you guys can prove me wrong on that, feel free. But it is true, the idea of hanging them in Saul's hometown was no doubt to be a warning to Saul, anybody there that would be pro-Saul and like nat so nationalistic and pro-Israel that they wanted to continue this violation of the Gibeonites. But it's also before the Lord because the Gibeonites know what has been said in this covenant and that God is the one that is the guarantor of the covenant. Or guarantor, I keep mispronouncing that guarantor.

Anybody know how to say it? Guarantor is the way you're supposed to say it. Notice that this isn't the, this isn't the only time that this thing has happened. Actually, we're gonna come there in a second.

Jeremiah 24. But this, this raises a question of, of why is the Lord allowing for children to be put to death for the sins of fathers, right? Isn't it true that Deuteronomy 24:16 says that children should not be put to death for the sins of their fathers? And that is true in most cases for individual sins, but this is no ordinary thing.

This is Saul, as the leader of Israel as a royal monarch representing all of Israel, who has violated this covenant. And so, in such a case, it is noted in the Old Testament and in extrabiblical literature that children could also fall underneath that particular judgment, as we'll see here in a moment in Jeremiah 24. So what is David's response? At the end of verse 6, the king said, I will give them.

That's all he says. They asked for 7, he says, It'll be done. And so then we look at verse 7 and following. And we see some really interesting things and somewhat befuddling things that happened verse 17, but the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's what?

Oath That was between them, between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul. Don't miss the idea that Saul's name is being used over and over and over again in this narrative passage. David had made an oath with the son of Saul, the son of Jonathan, a disabled man named Mephibosheth, and God had, had told Jonathan that you and I are good and we're gonna make this covenant, we're gonna swear before the Lord, and I'm gonna keep my covenant. I will not harm.

I will protect. Mephibosheth And so David does the opposite of what Saul does. Saul did not fulfill his role as royal protector. David says, I will fulfill my role as royal protector, one for the Gibeonites, but two, even though I'm involved in mediating and protecting the Gibeonites in this covenant, I have another covenant that I must also remain faithful to before the Lord, lest some other curse come upon me, he holds back Mephibosheth.

Verse 8, so the king took Armani. And Mephibosheth, we're like, what in the world? The two sons of Rispa, the daughter of Aa, whom she bore to Saul. This Mephibosheth is a different Mes Mephibosheth.

You have Mephibosheth, who is the son of Jonathan, and then you have Mephibosheth, who is the daughter of Rizpah. And so one Mephibosheth is saved, the other one is delivered and handed over to the Gibeonites. Notice it goes on to say, and the 5 sons of Marab, some of your translations say, some of your translations say the five sons of Michael, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barzali, the Maholathite. This is interesting stuff because probably Michael is the right reading, but people get confused by that.

It's actually when you go, when you look over at 1 Samuel 18, these are the sons of Marab who Michael probably raised, as Matthew Henry says. And so these sons of Marab are the ones that are handed over, and she brought them up for Adriel, the son of Barzali, which is not to be confused with his buddy Barzali. You got it? So there's 2 Barzalis, there's 2 Mephibosheths, and then there's the confusion of Michael and Marab.

Skip all that, look at verse 9. And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites. And what do they do? They hanged them.

That means they executed and exposed their bodies where? On the hill. That's the hill. What city is this hill near?

Gibea, before the Lord. The idea of being before the Lord is the idea is quorum, that word that we, we love that nice Latin phrase quorum deo in the presence of the Lord. They're hanging them quorum deo before the Lord, just as Agag was hacked to pieces before the Lord. Saul's descendants are killed and exposed before the Lord.

Verse 9, the rest of the, the verse says this, so they fell sevenfold at once and were put to death in the days of harvest in the first days in the beginning of the barley harvest. This would be around mid April. What's the significance of these individuals being put to death at the beginning of harvest? There's nothing to harvest.

These individuals are being killed while there is nothing to pick. There's nothing to harvest. Everybody's waiting for the Lord to bring rain again so that the people can get harvest and receive God's blessings of Leviticus 26 rather than the cursings of Leviticus 26. Now I want you to notice a couple passages of scriptures before we wrap.

Move to the, the final part of this narrative. I want you to listen to Psalm 9 and write this down. Psalm 9. There's several indications in the Psalms that helped develop this whole doctrine of covenant, God's being the, the guarantee or guarantor, no guarantor of the covenant.

verse, chapter 9, verse 12 of the Psalm says, when he avenges blood, he remembers them. He does not forget the cry of the humble. Verse 18, for the needy shall not always be forgotten, the expectation of the poor shall not perish. These Gibeonites had been, had suffered an attempted genocide.

had borne it in silence, cried out to the Lord. These are not Jewish people. These are not people who have been part of covenant Israel, but they are part of covenant Israel as nothing name. And God says to them in such psalms, he will avenge their blood.

Listen to Jeremiah 34. Write this down as well. Jeremiah 34, a prophecy. This is a future prophecy that Jeremiah gives.

Verse 13, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them out of Egypt. Skip down to verse 16, then you turned around and profaned my name. How did they profane, his name in this particular prophecy? They had agreed to put away their slaves.

They had taken slaves of other Jews, but then they've been rebuked for that. They said, OK, we're gonna put away our slaves. But then they had buyer's remorse. They're like, oh no, there goes our finances.

So then they got their slaves back, they're Jewish slaves. And so God comes along and says, What are you doing? You put your slaves, your Jewish slaves away. Now you've brought them back.

Verse 17, he says, therefore, thus says the Lord, you have not obeyed me in proclaiming liberty, everyone to his brother and everyone to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim liberty to you, to the sword, to pestilence, to famine. And I will deliver you to trouble among all the kingdoms of the earth, and I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts.

The princes of Judah, the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf, I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their life.

Their dead bodies shall be meat for the birds. of heaven and the beasts of the earth, and I will give Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his princes into the hand of their enemies, in the hand of those who seek their life into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which has gone back from you. That is a crazy passage if you really heard and understand what it's saying. What happened here in this part of Israel's history, Israel had agreed to, to, to put away to free their poor slaves.

And then they had buyer's remorse, they brought them back, they violated the covenant that they had made to put away their slaves. God says, OK, here's what's gonna happen now. Zedekiah, you're the king who's supposed to be the protector here. Guess what?

Babylon's gonna come in. You're gonna have famine in the land. Babylon's gonna take you captive and your princes will be slain and their bodies will be exposed before the birds and the beasts. Is God allowed to do such a thing?

Yes, he is. He's God. We're not allowed to do such a thing because we're not God, we're creatures. But God, who is the just God of, of all things, looks at what Zedekiah did.

And it happened just like that. Babylon comes in or Nebuchadnezzar comes in in 586. He takes Zedekiah, he takes them away, he kills his children right before his eyes, and then he plucks Zedekiah's eyes out. That's the end of Zedekiah.

Does God have the right to perform that justice on the, on the behalf of slaves? A covenant had been made for them to be protected. The covenant had been violated. God says, I am the guarantee of this covenant.

I will execute justice upon the house of Zedekiah. That's exactly what we're seeing here. With the house of Saul. Now notice how this takes a turn in verse 10.

Up to this point, if, if we're reading this text, we stop right there, we just hear Leviticus 26, the curses. We're reminded of the, of the curse that is pronounced on Zedekiah in the future and God's right to be the guarantee of this covenant. But now in verse 10, we have Rispa. The daughter of Aya, she takes sackcloth, that's from mourning, spreads it for herself on the rock from the beginning of harvest until the rains poured on the bodies from heaven.

And she did not allow the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. This whole idea of burst, birds and beasts is repeated all over the Old Testament as one of the curses that would come upon people for special, unusual circumstances like this. Even Goliath, remember Goliath when he's facing off with David, he says, I'm gonna kill you and I'm gonna give your body for the birds and the beasts. Right?

So this judgment has fallen upon the seven descendants of Saul, the blood guilt that was also upon them, at the very least by imputation, but probably also by their involvement in continuing the feud. The mother of two of them comes out and tries to protect them from the ultimate shame of birds and beasts eating their bodies. How are we meant to read this? We're meant to see the tragedy of the end of Saul's line.

That basically Saul's line. That involves him breaking covenant with Yahweh, breaking covenant with Gibeonites, killing priests, consulting mediums, ends with one of his concubines trying to keep birds and beasts away from his dead descendants. This whole scene is meant to bring heartbreak to the reader, that this is the consequence of sin. Violation of covenant does not lead us to a good place.

Violation of covenant leads us to a place where mothers mourn for their children. And the decisions that were made by fathers of children. We're meant to lay down and mourn with Mispa Rizpa. And that's exactly what David does.

David looks at the scene. In verse 11, David was told what Rizpa, the daughter of Aa, the concubine of Saul had done. Then David went and took the bones of Saul, the bones of Jonathan, his son. And the men from the men of Gebesh Gilead, which is about 50 miles northeast of Jerusalem, this is a long way away.

It's stolen them from, who had stolen them from the street of Beth Shan where the Philistines had hung them up after the Philistines had struck down Saul and Gilboa. Go and read first Samuel 31 if you want to be reminded of all the history of Saul's death and his body being hanged and his body being secretly taken away and so on and so forth and eventually burned. But David basically goes and he exhumes and repatriates the bones of Saul and Jonathan. And then also takes the bones of these other 7.

And he treats them with great dignity. Verse 13, so he brought up the bones of Saul, the bones of Jonathan, his son, from there, and they gathered the bones of those who had been executed and, and exposed or hanged. And they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan, his son in the country of Benjamin and Zillah in the tomb of Kish, his father. The implication is that the other seven would have been buried right with them or right near them.

And so David looks upon the cursed. house of Saul, this dynasty that ends in such tragedy, and he pays attention to the image of God that is still in this person. He gives him an honorable funeral. Also, there's Jonathan that's involved here who had not violated the covenant but got implicated in all of Saul's sins and Jonathan himself died, right?

I don't know if you've ever been to the funeral of unbeliever, but I've had to perform many funerals for unbelievers. And that's tough. People that are in hell. And yet what do you say?

And part of what I say is, is I honor the image of God in that person and I take stories that are told about this person, and I try to at least give some respect for the fact that this person has made the image of God. And while they are dead and in hell, their body still has dignity. I try to dignify the service and encourage them, but at the same time, I will remind them of that everybody has to call upon the name of Jesus Christ to be saved. And that if even this unbeliever could come back and stand before you today, they would tell you that you need to know Jesus Christ in order to be saved.

And so David treats these bones with great dignity, and then they perform all that the king commanded, and how does God respond at the end? He heeded The prayer For the land. In other words, what Mispah was waiting for in verse 10, what's implied in verse 10, it began to rain. God's mercy now falls.

His wrath had been propitiated. His mercy now begins to fall, and we move from cursing to blessings. The David covenant, Davidic covenant which could never be broken, continues on. The Levitical covenant now moves from the cursing side of the ledger to the blessing side of the ledger because the guarantee of the covenant would not allow the Gibeonites to go unvanquished.

And he calls upon his king, David, to be the mediator of this situation. Let's end by applying God's word. This is a, a difficult passage and as I started this morning, I think some of the most difficult passages in the Bible have a lot to say about us and actually have a lot more to say about us and our own thinking, our own culture than maybe to accuse God. In this particular passage, we see, and we've seen that as covenant witness, and guarantor, God stands up for a non-Jewish people, non-Jewish slaves, vassals because of the covenant violation of Israel through her royalty.

And from this passage, I think we've seen two basic observations. One, a covenant curse upon Saul's progeny is guaranteed by Yahweh and mediated by David. Let me say that again. A covenant curse upon Saul's progeny is guaranteed by Yahweh and mediated by David.

But secondly, a covenant blessing upon Jonathan's progeny is guaranteed by Yahweh and mediated by David. David did not break the covenant with Jonathan. He fulfilled the covenant. He secured Mephibosheth, even though the other Mephibosheth was delivered on the judgment.

God sends famine in response to a broken oath. There's blood guilt. Then the Gibeonites cry as those in poverty cry to the Lord and the Lord comes through for the poor. I'm gonna read through just a number of lessons that you guys can talk about in your care group.

I'm just gonna read through them quickly. As we pressed a prayer. Here's some lessons. God listens to the cries of the needy and the vulnerable.

Have you been violated by someone or by a group that was obligated to protect you? God will not hold them guiltless. It's one of the lessons we find here. 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, read it sometime.

Jesus Christ will come and with flaming fire take vengeance upon his enemies. We serve a God that looks out for the poor, that looks out for the violated, and he will not let any sin go unpunished. And he has the right to do so. We don't, right?

We're called to let leave vengeance to the Lord like the Gibeonites did. But guess what? God in his exercise of history does bring all blood guilt to account. Are you in the position of being a protector?

You should take your role very seriously. The Bible says, the New Testament says, let not many of us become teachers, for we will receive a what stricter judgment. The Bible says a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. We find out from this passage that God's ways are not our ways.

The difficult passages like this reveal a lot about us and our issues more than God's issues. We also see that God is the first cause of natural phenomena, rain and famine. We, how many times do we, we don't even know as God brought specific judgments upon our planet for very specific purposes. And yet in our post-Enlightenment age, we want to ignore that.

God's judgment has no statute of limitations. We may violate covenants and violate people early in life and pay for it late in life. The sin of leaders and parents are far reaching, we can learn here. How about our national sins, violence, abortion, racism, slavery, greed, divorce, covenant breaking.

The Bible says the wages of sin is death and atonement must be made for all sin. And part of what I think we learned in this passage is that the cross is offensive. We were just talking about singing about the precious blood of Jesus, but do we remember what that really means, that somebody who committed no sins went to a cross and died on our behalf. That Jesus died in your place, bled his blood.

How just is that? Yet Jesus Christ did it for you and for me. The cross is very offensive if we think about it rightly. And we'll end with this.

Think about this, that we are all covenant breakers like Saul in some sense. But we can cry out to God like David does for mercy in 2 Samuel 24. We don't have time to go there. When David had himself committed a grievous sin.

God is merciful to thousands who love Him. You can say to yourself, I think most of us, we could maybe have different sins that we could insert here. But most of us, I, all of us in this room could say, I am a murderer, I am a murdering covenant breaker. I deserve the fate of Saul's seven sons.

But there's another Mephibosheth in this text who is rescued because of a covenant kept. And I am beloved of Christ, my covenant keeper. Jesus Christ is the covenant keeper. He was executed and his body was exposed for me, and yet his body was taken down and buried.

His bones were not exhumed and expatriate and repatriated. He was raised body and bone and ascended to the Father where he intercedes and mediates the new covenant for you and for me. Yes, chastisement still comes, but those of us who are in Christ, it now comes for our good. Let us be instructed by both the severity and the mercy of God, as we see in this passage.

Let's pray. Lord, these are, this is not an easy text and yet it is in your word. And while there are Many who look at your word and mock. question, Lord, you have called us as your children to come at your word and also be shocked by such passages, to be shocked by the sin of breaking covenants.

You are a God who guarantees that you will witness covenants that are made, covenants that are made between husband and wife. Covenants that are made between the government and its people. Lord, when we take your name under oath and promise to do such and such, Lord, we are We are called to keep it and you are the guarantor of those covenants, and yet when we reflect honestly upon our lives, there are so many ways in which we have violated your word. And so we come broken.

We ask Lord, that your Holy Spirit would help us to see what we deserve for our sins in this passage. That the wages of sin really is death. You do not just take sin and sweep it under the carpet, you execute it. And yet we have a savior who came and fulfilled the whole law and kept the covenant, and he was executed on our behalf that if we would simply believe, we would simply cry out humility.

we could be saved. I pray, Lord, that this morning that there are those in the auditorium that your spirit is moving upon that they would call upon you, know your their sin, that they would know they're deserving of judgment, and yet that they would know that Christ propitiates the wrath of God and they can be delivered from the wrath to come by believing in Jesus and come And be your child. We ask that your spirit would, help us as we apply this passage, Lord, that You would correct any things in the preaching of your word that do not faithfully represent the text and faithfully represent your heart.

We pray, Father, that You would help us to move and grow in light of these things.

Also receive our offering as we give to you, as we've covenant at this church to give of our, offerings freely and willfully and, and willingly. So that your gospel may go out and that your church may be built up. So receive this offering, we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Savior, and all God's people said, Amen.