The Skeptics Annotated Bible (302 page)

21
Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the LORD. And
the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.

(21.1) “The LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.” A famine is sent on David’s kingdom for three years. When David asks God why, God answers: “It is for Saul, and his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.” So God sent a famine to punish a kingdom for something that a former king had done.
God’s 83rd Killing

2 And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto 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 unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.)

3 Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the LORD?

4 And the Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house; neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say, that will I do for you.

5 And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel,

6
Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD
in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them.

(21.6)
“Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD.”
To appease God and end the famine that was caused by his predecessor (Saul), David agrees to have two of Saul’s sons and five of his grandsons killed and hung up “unto the Lord.”
198 Did all of Saul’s family die with him?

7 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.

8 But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and
the five sons of Michal
the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite:

(21.8) “The five sons of Michal”
203 How many children did Michal have?

9 And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and
they hanged them in the hill before the LORD
: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.

(21.9) “They hanged them in the hill before the LORD.”
66 Does God approve of human sacrifice?