(4) And the Gibeonites said unto him, We will have no silver nor gold of Saul, nor of his house; neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel. And he said, What ye shall say, that will I do for you. (5) 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 coasts of Israel, (6) Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them.
Their rejection of gold and silver, was meant to show that nothing so contemptible could be equivalent for the wrongs they had sustained. And by telling David, that they did not expect that he, or his people, should be the executioners of justice, evidently showed that they were looking to the divine precept, blood for blood. Genesis 9:6. And that they would, if the king approved, execute the sentence themselves.