2 Samuel 21:12-22 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

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More Giants Slain

2 Samuel 21:12-22

It was in unsettled weather that Rizpah began her watch; but no hardship daunted her, no cost was too great. She shielded the dear remains from bird and beast till the falling rain gave assurance that the long famine was ended, 2 Samuel 21:10, r.v. Her devotion seems to have aroused David to treat with similar honor the remains of Saul and Jonathan, and all were buried together in the sepulcher of Kish.

Love ignites love, as fire kindles fire, without impoverishment. How often a voice raised in prayerful and passionate affection to Jesus has made volcanic fires leap out where all had seemed extinct! Do not stint your alabaster-boxes, for though they drive a Judas to desperation, they will stimulate a David or a Peter to a forgotten duty.

Monstrous sin stalked the world in the person of these giants, 2 Samuel 21:16-22. They beset the old age of David, as they did his youth, though we may not be assailed by the identical temptations as at first, there never will be a time when the progeny of sin will not molest us-if not passion, then jealousy, or avarice, or pride.

Related Commentaries of 2 Samuel 21:12

2 Samuel 21:12-22

12 And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabeshgilead, which had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa:

13 And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son; and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.

14 And the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son buried they in the country of Benjamin in Zelah, in the sepulchre of Kish his father: and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that God was intreated for the land.

15 Moreover the Philistines had yet war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines: and David waxed faint.

16 And Ishbibenob, which was of the sons of the giant,d the weight of whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of brass in weight, he being girded with a new sword, thought to have slain David.

17 But Abishai the son of Zeruiah succoured him, and smote the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David sware unto him, saying, Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that thou quench not the lighte of Israel.

18 And it came to pass after this, that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob: then Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Saph, which was of the sons of the giant.f

19 And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim,g a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.

20 And there was yet a battle in Gath, where was a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was born to the giant.h

21 And when he defiedi Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea the brother of David slew him.

22 These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.