(10) В¶ And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah 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. (11) And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.
It should seem that in the instance of those seven Persons of Saul's house, hung up to perish by the Gibeonites, there was an evident departure from the law, which enjoined, that the body of him that was hanged on a tree, should not in any wise remain all night, for he that is hanged is cursed of GOD. See Deuteronomy 21:23. Therefore there must be some very special design intended from this present occasion. That those bodies actually continued hanging, is, I think, very clear, not only from the watching of Rizpah, (for, wherefore should she have watched, but to preserve them from birds and beasts of prey?) but also from what is said, that David when he brought back the bones of Saul and Jonathan, gathered also the bones of them that were hanged. Besides, as the watching of Rizpah continued until the water dropped upon them out of heaven; it seems that the famine had been occasioned for want of rain, and that when the rain descended, it was considered as an answer from the LORD, of his approbation; and then, and not before, the bodies were taken down and buried. But, if this be the real state of the case, are we not led to the discovery of a most important thing, shadowed out by this? Reader! look at it again. Here are seven persons, contrary to GOD'S own law, kept suspended between heaven and earth, after being hanged. And the law expressly forbade it on this account, for he that is hanged is accursed of GOD. But after this was done, GOD was intreated for the land. And could anything more strikingly set forth, in those remote ages, from the crucifixion of JESUS, a circumstance more in point? Was not JESUS made sin, and a curse for us, and for this express purpose, that he might redeem us from everlasting famine? And after the accomplishment of this great end, was not our GOD entreated for the land? Yes! thou precious Surety of the poor sinner; thou wert made, not merely the curse of the judicial law, but thou wert, made the curse of the moral law; as if designed on purpose to show that the blessed JESUS was hung up between heaven and earth, as if unworthy of either, and in all this, being the sinners' Surety, though in himself holy, harmless, and undefiled, yet he was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of GOD, in him. 2 Corinthians 5:21. See Galatians 3:13. And as it was by the bones of those sons of Saul, so is it spoken of our LORD JESUS; after they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. Acts 13:29.