And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the LORD: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.
They hanged them in the hill before the Lord. Deeming themselves not bound by the criminal law of Israel (Deuteronomy 21:22-23), their intention was to let the bodies hang until God, propitiated by this offering, should send rain upon the land, because the lack of it had occasioned the famine. It was a pagan practice to gibbet men with a view of appeasing the anger of the gods in seasons of famine; and the Gibeonites, who were a remnant of the Amorites (2 Samuel 21:2), though brought to the knowledge of the true God, were not it seems, free from this superstition. God in His providence suffered the Gibeonites to ask and inflict so barbarous a retaliation, in order that they, having been injured, might obtain justice and some reporation of their wrongs, especially that the scandal brought on the name of the true religion, by the violation of a solemn national compact, might be wiped away from Israel, and that memorable lesson should be given to respect treaties and oaths.