I. Consider first the Divine dealings with the house of Saul and the people of Israel.
The famine was because Saul and his bloody house had slain the Gibeonites. It was a consequence of that act of his. But the famine was not the punishment of Saul, the most guilty of the offenders. Saul was punished even in this world. In spite of his elevation to the throne and his brilliant successes, he lived a miserable life and died a miserable death. Here was his punishment, but so far as his crime to the Gibeonites was concerned he did not live to share in the misery occasioned by that sinful act.
The thought of this fact, that our actions, independently of their good or evil desert, have inevitable consequences, should make us very circumspect and careful. There exists a mysterious sequence of events which evades our research and reaches beyond the things of this world.
II. The conduct of Rizpah was natural; it was also not without its use, if we look to the moral instead of the physical world. She returned to her home with a softened though a saddened heart, with subdued affections, with a consciousness of having done what she could, and with the knowledge that her conduct had met with the approbation of David.
III. Notice the conduct of David. In his generous heart a generous action was sure to find a ready response. He whose parental affections not even the rebellion of an ungrateful son could annihilate knew how to sympathise with the childless Rizpah, and Rizpah was doubtless consoled when, in a princely burial, she saw honour done to her husband's house.
Justice first, and then mercy. This is the way of the Lord, and David, as the Lord's vicegerent, walked in it.
F. W. Hook, Parish Sermons,p. 66.
References: 2 Samuel 21:10. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 91; J. W. Burgon, Ninety-one Short Sermons,No. 66. 2 Samuel 21:14. Sermons for Sundays: festivals and Fasts,2nd series, vol. in., p. 34. 2 Samuel 21:15; 2 Samuel 21:16. S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches,p. 89.