Stories of God's Faithfulness: The Story of Rizpah

SERMON TITLE: The Story of Rizpah
SPEAKER: Won Jae Hudson Yu
SCRIPTURE: 2 Samuel 21:1; 7-14

 During the reign of David, there was a famine for
three successive years; so David sought the face of the Lord. The
Lord said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house;
it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

The king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul,
because of the oath before the Lord between David and Jonathan
son of Saul. 8 But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth,
the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, whom she had borne to
Saul, together with the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab,[a]
whom she had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.
9 He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed them
and exposed their bodies on a hill before the Lord. All seven of
them fell together; they were put to death during the first days
of the harvest, just as the barley harvest was beginning.


10 Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it
out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest till
the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not
let the birds touch them by day or the wild animals by night.
11 When David was told what Aiah’s daughter Rizpah, Saul’s
concubine, had done, 12 he went and took the bones of Saul
and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead. (They
had stolen their bodies from the public square at Beth Shan,
where the Philistines had hung them after they struck Saul down
on Gilboa.) 13 David brought the bones of Saul and his son
Jonathan from there, and the bones of those who had been killed
and exposed were gathered up.


14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in
the tomb of Saul’s father Kish, at Zela in Benjamin, and did
everything the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer in
behalf of the land.