Then there was a famine, &c. The things related here, and chap. 24., are, by the best interpreters, conceived to have been done long before Absalom's rebellion. And this opinion is not without sufficient grounds. For, first, this particle, then, is here explained, in the days, that is, during the reign of David: which general words seem to be added as an intimation that these things were not done next after the foregoing passages, for then the sacred writer would have said, after these things, as it is in many other places. Secondly, Here are divers particulars which cannot, with probability, be ascribed to the last years of David's reign: such as, that Saul's sin against the Gibeonites should so long remain unpunished; that David should not remove the bones of Saul and Jonathan to their proper place till that time; that the Philistines should wage war with David again and again, 2 Samuel 21:15, &c., so long after he had fully subdued them, 2 Samuel 8:1; that David in his old age should attempt to fight with a Philistine giant, or that his people should suffer him to do so; that David should then have so vehement a desire to number his people, 2 Samuel 24:1, which, being an act of youthful vanity, seems not at all to agree with his old age, nor with that state of deep humiliation in which he then was. And the reason why these matters are put here out of their proper order is plainly this; because David's sin being once related, it was very proper that his punishments should immediately succeed: this being very frequent in Scripture story, to put those things together which belong to one matter, though they happened at several different times.
David inquired of the Lord It is possible that David, for the first, and even second year, might have ascribed this calamity to natural causes; but in the third year, being well convinced that the visitation was judicial, he applied himself to the sacred oracle of God, to learn the cause of this extraordinary and continued calamity. And God soon informed him that this punishment was on account of the blood shed by Saul and his family. Because he slew the Gibeonites The history of the Gibeonites is well known: they were a remnant of the Amorites, but by an artful contrivance, related Joshua 9:9, obtained a league for their lives and properties from the children of Israel. And, forasmuch as Joshua and the elders had confirmed it by an oath, they thought themselves bound to keep it, only tying them down to the servitude of supplying the tabernacle with wood and water for the public sacrifices, and the service of those who attended upon them. This unhappy people, notwithstanding it is probable that they had renounced their idolatry, and performed the other conditions of their covenant, Saul sought all occasions to destroy; and did so to such a degree of guilt as drew down the divine judgment upon the land. But upon what occasion, or in what manner Saul destroyed them, is not mentioned in the Scriptures, except those that may be supposed to have been slain with the priests in the city of Nob, as being hewers of wood and drawers of water for the tabernacle. But undoubtedly there was some more general destruction of them for which this punishment was inflicted, although the Scripture is silent about it.