Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make the atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the LORD?
Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What shall I do for you? The king, having been apprised by the oracle of God that the moral cause of the grievous judgment which had so long scourged the land was the iniquity perpetrated by Saul upon the Gibeonites, forthwith communicated with that people, offering to make any atonement in his power, on condition of their forgiving the crime of the homicidal king. The case was a very special one; and the entire narrative shows that, though reduced like the Spartan zealots to a state of perpetual servitude, they were not an oppressed people. Having been brought by the direct interposition of God into the place of the go'el, or blood-avenger, they were bound to demand satisfaction for the death of their slaughtered brethren from the murderer or his representatives; and that satisfaction of course must be on a large scale, proportioned to the wholesale murders that had been committed. Pecuniary compensation, accepted by some of the Arab tribes and other Orientals, was prohibited to the Hebrew nation by the law of God. The manslayer must expiate his crime by his blood: and the high position of him who had ordered the slaughter of the Gibeonites, together with the aggravated circumstances that marked the commission of the outrage, called aloud that justice should be allowed to take its course.