Reference: Gibeonites
Fausets
Their safety was covenanted by Israel (Joshua 9), even though obtained by a deceit, their ambassadors having taken old sacks and mended wineskins (the tear being tied up like a bag) and old mended sandals ("clouted," i.e. mended coarsely); but they were made "hewers of wood and drawers of water." Israel's error was in making the treaty without inquiring of the Lord; a warning to the church of all ages against the dissimulation of the world, which seeks admission and union with the kingdom of God without real conversion, faith, and sanctification, when it suits its own carnal advantage. Saul in his zeal for Israel where God sanctioned it not, though wanting in zeal against Israel's foe Amalek (1Sa 15:18-20) where God commanded it, sought to slay them, probably (2 Samuel 21) in the dark closing period of his reign seeking to atone for his deficiency as to Amalek and to win the divine favor and popularity with his people by this mis-timed and misplaced zeal.
God remembers the sins of the fathers upon the children, and vindicates His righteousness as Ruler of the nations by making an entail of curse go down from one generation to another for the unexpiated guilt of bloodshed and violation of covenants. The three years' famine, the Lord's answer when consulted as to the cause, that it was "for Saul and his bloody house because he slew the Gibeonites," and after the execution of Saul's seven (seven, the sacred number, denotes the performance of a work of God) sons "the Lord being entreated for the hind," prove that David did not contrive or eagerly fall in with this device for ridding himself of the remainder of Saul's royal line. Nay, he showed by the honorable burial he gave their remains, and by sparing Mephibosheth, that he entertained no such feeling, nor had he by this time anything to fear from Saul's family.
The whole matter was divinely ordered to teach solemn moral lessons of God's government to the king and the nation (Ex 20:5; 34:7; Le 26:34-40; Nu 14:18-34, especially Nu 35:33, "blood it defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it"; Isa 14:20-21; 65:6-7; Jer 2:9; 32:18). The "water dropping upon them (the hanged or crucified seven) out of heaven" marked the cessation of the heaven sent drought and the point of time when the bodies might be taken down from the stakes and buried. Ordinarily bodies were taken down for burial before night (De 21:22-23); but in this case guilt rested on the whole land, and therefore the expiatory sacrifice was to remain exposed to birds of prey (the greatest ignominy, 1Sa 17:44) before Jehovah, until the cessation of the drought showed that His wrath was appeased.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them. For I Jehovah your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me,
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the sons, and on the sons of sons, to the third and to the fourth generation.
Then shall the land enjoy its sabbaths, as long as it lies waste, and you are in your enemies' land; then shall the land rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies waste it shall rest, because it did not rest in your sabbaths when you lived on it. read more. And on those of you that are left I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. And the sound of a driven leaf shall chase them, and they shall flee as if fleeing from a sword. And they shall fall when none pursues. And they shall fall on one another, as if it were before a sword, when none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And they that are left of you shall putrefy in their iniquity in the lands of your enemies. And also they shall putrefy with them in the iniquities of their fathers. If they shall confess their wilfulness and the wilfulness of their fathers, with their sin which they sinned against Me, and that also they have walked contrary to Me,
Jehovah is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation. I beseech You, pardon the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your mercy, and as You have forgiven this people from Egypt even until now. read more. And Jehovah said, I have pardoned according to your word. But truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of Jehovah. Because all those men who have seen My glory and My miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not listened to My voice, surely they shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it. But My servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and has followed Me fully, I will bring him into the land into which he went. And his seed shall possess it. (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites lived in the valley.) Tomorrow turn and go into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea. And Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmurs against Me? I have heard the murmurings of the sons of Israel which they murmur against Me. Say to them, As I live, says Jehovah, as you have spoken in My ears, so I will do to you. Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have murmured against Me, you shall certainly not come into the land which I swore to make you live in, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which you said should be a prey, I will bring them in and they shall know the land which you have despised. But as for you, your bodies shall fall in this wilderness. And your sons shall feed in the wilderness forty years and bear your fornications, until your dead bodies have wasted in the wilderness. According to the number of the days in which you searched the land, forty days, each day for a year you shall bear your iniquities, forty years; and you shall know My alienation.
So you shall not defile the land in which you are. For blood defiles the land. And the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of him that shed it.
And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and if he is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree. But you shall surely bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursed of God), so that your land may not be defiled, which Jehovah your God gives you for an inheritance.
And Jehovah sent you on the way and said, Go and completely destroy the sinners, Amalek, and fight against them until you destroy them. Why then did you not obey the voice of Jehovah? Why did you fly on the spoil and do evil in the sight of Jehovah? read more. And Saul said to Samuel, Yes, I have obeyed the voice of Jehovah, and have gone the way which Jehovah sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have completely destroyed the Amalekites.
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.
You shall not be joined with them in burial, because you ruined your land and killed your people; the seed of evildoers shall never be famous. Prepare slaughter for his sons, because of the iniquity of their fathers, so that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
Behold, it is written before Me; I will not be silent, except I will repay; yea, I will repay into their bosom your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, says Jehovah, they that burned incense on the mountains, and blasphemed Me on the hills. And I will measure their former work into their bosom.
Therefore I will contend with you, says Jehovah, and with your son's sons I will enter into judgment.
You show loving-kindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their sons after them. The great, the mighty God, Jehovah of Hosts, is His name,
Morish
Gib'eonites
The people of Gibeon and perhaps of the three confederate cities
See Verses Found in Dictionary
And the men of Israel said to the Hivites, Perhaps you are living among us, and how shall we make a treaty with you?
And the sons of Israel journeyed and came to their cities on the third day. Now their cities were Gibeon, and Chephirah, and Beeroth, and Kirjath-jearim.
And now you are cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being slaves and woodcutters and drawers of water for the house of my God.
And there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year. And David inquired of Jehovah. And Jehovah answered, For Saul, and for his bloody house, because he killed the Gibeonites. And the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them. And the Gibeonites were not of the sons of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites. And the sons of Israel had sworn to them. And Saul sought to kill them in his zeal to the sons of Israel and Judah. read more. And David said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? And with what shall I atone for this, so that you may bless the inheritance of Jehovah? And the Gibeonites said to him, We will have no silver nor gold from Saul, nor from his house. Also, we will have no man in Israel put to death. And he said, What you shall say, I will do for you. And they answered the king, The man who destroyed us, and who devised against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel, let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Jehovah. And the king said, I will give them. But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of Jehovah's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite. And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites. And they hanged them in the hill before Jehovah. And they fell, seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest. And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven. And she did not allow either 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 Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done. And 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 plaza of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa. And he brought the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son up from there. And they gathered the bones of those who were hanged. And they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the land of Benjamin in Zelah, in the tomb of his father Kish. And they did all that the king commanded. And afterward God heeded prayer for the land.
and Ismaiah the Gibeonite, a mighty man among the thirty, and over the thirty, and Jeremiah, and Jahaziel, and Johanan, and Josabad the Gederathite,
And next to them Melatiah of Gibeon repaired, and Jadon of Meron, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, to the throne of the governor Beyond the River.