Year 1, Day 338: 2 Samuel 21

Here in 2 Samuel 21 we have a really neat apparent contradiction within the Hebrew scriptures.  For those of you who don’t particularly enjoy reading tough passages and opening up cans of worms, this blog entry may not be for you.  But before I begin, let me assure you that I will attempt to reconcile the passages so that in the end the contradiction is actually shown to be no contradiction at all.  But I won’t promise that it won’t get hairy along the way.

Blood-Guilt of Saul

Let’s look at God’s remembrance of the blood-guilt from the house of Saul.  First, I have to wonder why God chose this time to remember it.  Why would God wait for the end of David’s reign to bring back something that happened while Saul was alive?  I don’t really have an answer to this one except that God’s timing is perfect – only He knows fully why He does things when He does them.  It could be that the land would not have accepted His will any earlier.  It could be that David wasn’t mature enough to accomplish (or even pursue!) God’s will in this matter until the present time.  It could be that God didn’t want to put too much on David’s plate at a time.  There are plenty of good logical reasons, but we don’t really know why God waits until now to bring back the plight of the Gibeonites.

In any case, God does remember.  This is a cool point in its own.  God does remember those who have injustice done against them – even when they oppose His people!  The Gibeonites were the descendants of the Amorites.  They were not Hebrew people.  But God remembers that Saul showed them no mercy and God seeks righteousness.  It’s cool how God is not just the God of righteousness in favor of His people, but the righteousness of God is so great that it is fairly dispersed among those who love Him and those who actively do not love Him.  He is indeed a righteous God.

The decision to kill 7 of Saul’s sons is made.  This apparently pleases the Lord because the drought is lifted and the blog-guilt is avenged.  Here’s where the apparent contradiction comes into play.  Clearly the Hebrew Scriptures would have us believe that this drought was divine in nature; therefore it was a divine judgment.  Clearly we also understand Saul to be the responsible party.  Yet, Deuteronomy 24:16 clearly tells us that a father should not be put to death on account of the actions of their sons, nor shall the sons be put to death because of the actions of the father.  How is it then that God can find the death of Saul’s sons pleasing if the guilt was Saul’s – unless God contradicts Himself?

I told you that you wouldn’t like it.

Now let me try to reconcile this.  If we look closely at 2 Samuel 21:1, what we see is that the blood-guilt is not just Saul’s, but his whole house.  Although the passage refers to Saul as the guilty party, it is likely that Saul and his sons participated in the battle.  We know from scripture that Saul went out to battle quite frequently with Jonathon – why not with all the other sons except Mephibosheth (who suffered from the crippling foot disorder)?  If Saul did go out to battle against the Gibeonites – then the children of Saul are not being put to death because of Saul’s sin, but because of their own participation in Saul’s greater sin.  The contradiction is resolved and removed.

In the end, though, there is grace – even for the sons of Saul.  Their bones are gathered up with their father and brother.  They are buried with honor.  They were judged and punished.  The blood-guilt was appeased and cast away.  The land is restored; the debt paid.

The Second Goliath

As long as we are talking about contradictions, let’s look at the story with the “second Goliath.”  We know that David killed Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:50.  So what are we to make of this story?  Is it a retelling of the story at a weird place in 2 Samuel?  If so, why does it say that Elhanan killed Goliath?

There are two possible answers to this question.  First, we should note that 1 Chronicles 20:5 gives us a recounting of this verse, but in 1 Chronicles we find that the Philistine killed is Lahmi, Goliath’s brother.  I personally believe this to be the case – and the name in 2 Samuel is likely a copying mistake made by scribes throughout the generations. 

However, there is another possibility.  It could be that Goliath was not so much a name as a title among the Philistines in Gath.  If this is the case, then there certainly could have been more than one Goliath in Gath!  After all, the Goliath killed by David was a remarkable man, as is the Goliath mentioned in this chapter.  There’s every reason to think that the people of Gath called their remarkable men by the name Goliath.

Even if it wasn’t a title there certainly could have been more than one Goliath in Gath.  Especially if there have been many years that have passed since David was young and killed his Goliath on the battlefield.  Names are simply that – names.  There is no reason to see this passage as a contradiction in scripture with the story of David killing Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.

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