2 Samuel 21 · a question people ask
Why were Saul's sons put to death for what Saul did?
The chapter tells it in order. The LORD answered David, "It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death" (21:1). The Gibeonites were not Israelites, "and the children of Israel had sworn to them" (21:2). David asked, "with what should I make atonement" (21:3). The Gibeonites asked for seven of Saul's sons (21:5-6), and the king said, "I will give them" (21:6). The chapter doesn't record the LORD telling David what to do, and it adds no comment of its own on the seven. After the seven, and after the burial of the bones of Saul and Jonathan, it says, "After that, God answered prayer for the land" (21:14). Christians read this in more than one way. They agree on what the chapter says: the LORD named Saul's killing of the Gibeonites as the cause of the famine (21:1); Israel had sworn to the Gibeonites by the LORD (21:2; Joshua 9:19); the king spared Jonathan's son because of another oath (21:7); and the chapter tells what was done without saying more about it.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
Justice for a broken oath
Those who read it this way start from the LORD's own answer, which names Saul's house with him: "It is for Saul, and for his bloody house" (21:1), and from the Law's word on blood and the land: "blood pollutes the land. No atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, but by the blood of him who shed it" (Numbers 35:33). David asks how he can "make atonement" (21:3), the same verb in Hebrew (tap make atonement). Israel's oath to the Gibeonites had been sworn "by the LORD, the God of Israel" (Joshua 9:19), and the princes had said, "lest wrath be on us, because of the oath which we swore to them" (Joshua 9:20). On this reading, blood shed against an oath sworn by the LORD lay on the land, the handing over of Saul's house answered that guilt, and when it was done and the dead were buried, "God answered prayer for the land" (21:14).
2 Samuel 21:1 · 2 Samuel 21:3 · 2 Samuel 21:14 · Numbers 35:33 · Joshua 9:19-20
Told, not commended
Those who read it this way start from the Law's word, "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers. Every man shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deuteronomy 24:16), and from "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father" (Ezekiel 18:20). They note that the LORD's answer gives the cause (21:1) but the chapter doesn't record the LORD asking for the seven: they are the Gibeonites' request (21:5-6) and David's promise (21:4, 21:6). On this reading the chapter reports what was done without commending it, and it places "God answered prayer for the land" (21:14) after David had brought up the bones of Saul and Jonathan and they were buried in the tomb of Kish (21:12-14).
Deuteronomy 24:16 · Ezekiel 18:20 · 2 Samuel 21:4-6 · 2 Samuel 21:12-14
The verses
“They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father; and they performed all that the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer for the land.”
“But all the princes said to all the congregation, “We have sworn to them by the LORD, the God of Israel. Now therefore we may not touch them.”