God’s Behavior
There are some stories in the bible that are simply difficult to read. The story of David and the Gibeonites is just such a story. The Gibeonites were a people that Joshua had made a covenant with centuries before, but Saul had broken that covenant and killed a bunch of them. So now, there has been a famine and drought for three years and David has been divinely told that it is because of this breach in covenant. David summons the Gibeonites and asks them how he can make this right, and they respond, “We don’t have a claim on Saul’s wealth or to kill anyone in Israel but give us seven male descendants to be killed and their bodies exposed before the Lord.” All of Saul’s sons have been killed and Saul has been dead for years, but he has grandchildren. So David rounds up Saul’s grandsons, sparing Mephibosheth who is crippled and has no claim to the throne, and hands seven of them over to the Gibeonites to be executed and exposed before the Lord. Rizpah, the mother of two of the men, stays with the bodies to drive off birds and other scavengers so that greater humiliation is not added to an already humiliating death. She does for what appears to be a significant period of time, until the rain begins to fall. David sees that the rain is falling, and that God’s favor is again with Israel. He takes the bodies down and along with Saul and Jonathan’s bones, gives them a proper burial, thus, again, honoring the house of Saul.
The story is difficult for us, in part, because we tend to see faith through individual lens. It’s MY decision to follow Jesus; Jesus is MY personal savior; this is MY personal faith. And while this is certainly true, most of the bible is written with a collective lens. It’s written to God’s people. So while in the narrative, the Law of Moses, which David would adhere to, would not allow for a person to be executed for the sins of his or her parents, David is not dealing with this through and individual perspective. He’s dealing with it through a collect perspective and he’s passing judgment on the basis of a covenant established between two nations and in accordance to the practices and customs consistent with that time in human history. Once we jump that hurdle, we can create a theological framework to understand this narrative and others like it.
Covenants in the Old Testament were largely based on one’s capacity to adhere to the provisions of that covenant. If you kept the covenant, good things happened; if you didn’t, bad things happened. Today, we are dealt with in much the same way, except, we have different covenant. The New Covenant is a covenant of grace and is based on God’s fulfilment of that covenant. God is the one who determines the outcome of that covenant and it’s always good for his people.
So in understanding this story, and frankly other stories like it, it’s helpful to understand that the Old Covenant, reveals to us how we deserve to be treated. But the New Covenant reveals to us how we aretreated. The Old Covenant is a covenant of sin and death. The New Covenant is a covenant of grace and life. The Old Covenant is based on our merit. The New Covenant is based on God’s merit. The Old Covenant is determined by our behavior. The New Covenant is determined by God’s behavior.