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There is no note of time whatever, nor any clue as to what part of David's reign the events of this chapter ought to be assigned.

Enquired of the Lord - Hebrew "sought the face of the Lord," quite a different phrase from that so often used in Judges (e. g. Judges 1:1) and the Books of Samuel, and probably indicating that this chapter is from a different source; an inference agreeing with the indefinite "in the days of David," and with the allusion to the slaughter of the Gibeonites, which has not anywhere been narrated.

And for his bloody house - literally, "the house of blood," i. e., the house or family upon which rests the guilt of shedding innocent blood.

The way in which the writer here refers to the history of the league with the Gibeonites Joshua 9 shows that the Book of Joshua was not a part of the same work as the Books of Samuel.

Of the Amorites - The Gibeonites were Hivites Joshua 9:7; Joshua 11:19; and in many enumerations of the Canaanite nations the Hivites are distinguished from the Amorites. But "Amorite" is often used in a more comprehensive sense, equivalent to "Canaanite" (as Genesis 15:16; Deuteronomy 1:27), and denoting especially that part of the Canaanite nation which dwelt in the hill country Numbers 13:29; Deuteronomy 1:7, Deuteronomy 1:20, Deuteronomy 1:24, and so includes the Hivites.

No silver, nor gold ... - Money payments as a compensation for blood-guilt were very common among many nations. The law, too, in Numbers 35:31-32, presupposes the existence of the custom which it prohibits. In like manner the speech of the Gibeonites implies that such a payment as they refuse would be a not unusual proceeding.

Neither ... shalt thou kill any man in Israel - They mean that it is not against the nation of Israel, but against the individual Saul, that they cry for vengeance. The demand for Saul's sons is exactly similar to that which dictated David's own expression in 2 Samuel 24:17, "against me, and against my father's house."

Seven men - Seven was a sacred number not only with the Hebrews but with other Oriental nations Numbers 23:1, Numbers 23:29, and is therefore brought in on this occasion when the judicial death of the sons of Saul was a religious act intended to appease the wrath of God for the violation of an oath Numbers 25:4.

Whom the Lord did choose - Rather, "the Lord's chosen," or elect. The same phrase is applied to Moses Psalm 106:23, to the Israelites Isaiah 43:20, and to Christ Isaiah 42:1.

The Lord's oath - The calamity brought upon Israel by Saul's breach of the oath to the Gibeonites would make David doubly careful in the matter of his own oath to Jonathan.

Rizpah - See the marginal reference. A foreign origin was possibly the cause of the selection of Rizpah's sons as victims.

Sons of Michal - An obvious error for "Merab" (1 Samuel 18:19 note).

In the first days - The barley harvest (about the middle or toward the end of April) was earlier than the wheat harvest Exodus 9:31; Ruth 1:22.

Dropped - Rather, "poured," the proper word for heavy rain Exodus 9:33. The "early rain," or heavy rain of autumn, usually began in October, so that Rizpah's devoted watch continued about six months. How rare rain was in harvest we learn from 1 Samuel 12:17-18; Proverbs 26:1. The reason of the bodies being left unburied, contrary to Deuteronomy 21:23, probably was that the death of these men being an expiation of the guilt of a violated oath, they were to remain until the fall of rain should give the assurance that God's anger was appeased, and the national sin forgiven.

Birds of the air ... beasts of the field - It is well known how in the East, on the death e. g. of a camel in a caravan, the vultures instantly flock to the carcass. (Compare Matthew 24:28.)