II Samuel 21 · שמואל ב

Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered, It is for Sha᾽ul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Giv῾onim.

And the king called the Giv῾onim, and said to them; (now the Giv῾onim were not of the children of Yisra᾽el, but of the remnant of the Emori; and the children of Yisra᾽el had sworn to them: and Sha᾽ul sought to slay them in his zeal for the children of Yisra᾽el and Yehuda.)

Then David said to the Giv῾onim, What shall I do for you? and with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord?

And the Giv῾onim said to him, We will have no silver nor gold of Sha᾽ul, nor of his house; neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Yisra᾽el. And he said, What you shall say, that will I do for you.

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 borders of Yisra᾽el,

let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to the Lord in Giv῾at-sha’ul (whom the Lord did choose.) And the king said, I will give them.

But the king spared Mefivoshet, the son of Yehonatan the son of Sha᾽ul, because of the Lord’s oath that was between them, between David and Yehonatan the son of Sha᾽ul.

But the king took the two sons of Riżpa the daughter of Ayya, whom she bore to Sha᾽ul, Armoni and Mefivoshet; and the five sons of Mikhal the daughter of Sha᾽ul, whom she bore to ῾Adri᾽el the son of Barzillay the Meĥolatite:

and he delivered them into the hands of the Giv῾onim, and they hanged them on 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 the barley harvest.

And Riżpa the daughter of Ayya took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.

And it was told David what Riżpa the daughter of Ayya, the concubine of Sha᾽ul, had done.

And David went and took the bones of Sha᾽ul and the bones of Yehonatan his son from the men of Yavesh-gil῾ad, who had stolen them from the open place of Bet-shan, where the Pelishtim had hanged them, when the Pelishtim had slain Sha᾽ul in Gilboa:

and he brought up from there the bones of Sha᾽ul and the bones of Yehonatan his son; and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.

And the bones of Sha᾽ul and Yehonatan his son they buried in the country of Binyamin in Żela, in the tomb of Qish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was entreated for the land.

Moreover the Pelishtim had yet war again with Yisra᾽el; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Pelishtim: and David became weary.

And Yishbi-benov, who was of the sons of the Rafa, the weight of whose spear was three hundred shekels; (this was the weight of its brass) he being girded with a new sword, thought to have slain David.

But Avishay the son of Żeruya came to his help, and smote the Pelishtian, and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that thou quench not the lamp of Yisra᾽el.

And it came to pass after this, that there was again a battle with the Pelishtim at Gov: then Sibbekhay the Ḥushatite slew Saf, who was of the sons of the Rafa.

And there was again a battle in Gov with the Pelishtim, where Elĥanan the son of Ya῾are-oregim, the Bet-hallaĥmite slew Golyat the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.

And there was a further battle in Gat, where there was a champion, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was born to the Rafa.

And he taunted Yisra᾽el and Yehonatan the son of Shim῾i the brother of David slew him.

These four were born to the Rafa in Gat, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.