What Does 2 Samuel 21:8 Mean?

(8) **Took the two sons of Rizpah**.—The suggestion that David took advantage of this opportunity to strengthen himself further against the house of Saul is utterly set aside by two considerations: (1) David could not lawfully refuse the demand of the Gibeonites, since the Law absolutely required that blood-guiltiness should be expiated by the blood of the offender (Numbers 35:33), which, in this case, became that of his representatives; and (2) David’s choice of victims was directly opposed to such a supposition. He spared, for Jonathan’s sake, the only descendants of Saul in the male line, who only could have advanced any claim to the throne, and took (1) the two sons of Rizpah, a concubine of Saul, with whom Abner had committed adultery (2Samuel 3:7), and (2) five sons of Saul’s eldest daughter Merab, who had been promised in marriage to David himself, and then given to another (1Samuel 18:17-19). The text has *Michal *instead of *Merab; *but this must be an error of the scribe, since it was Merab, not Michal, who was married to “Adriel the Meholathite” (1Samuel 18:19), and Michal was childless (2Samuel 6:23). The English phrase “brought up for” is taken from the Chaldee; the Hebrew, as noted in the margin, is *bare to.*