houses, for provifions of all kinds, in all parts of his dominions*; and by that means made ample provifion for the fuftenance of his people, in any exigence that should arise; he was the better enabled to bear this miffortune with equanimity, and intire refignation to the All-ruting Will. And accordingly, whatever remedies or reliefs he might have fought for from natural caufes, and private and public prayers to Almighty GoD, he made no application for the extraordinary aid and interpofition of Providence, till the third year: but in the third year, being well convinced, that the vifitation was judicial, he applied himself to the facred oracle of GoD, to learn the caufe of this extraordinary and continued calamity; and was anfwered, That it was for Saul, and his bloody houfe, because he flew the Gibeonites.

THE hiftory of the Gibeonites is well known they were a remnant of the Amorites, (that abandoned race, whom GoD, for their infufferable abominations, had de

*This appears clearly from 1 Chron. xxvii. 25. And over the ftore-boufes in the fields, in the cities, and in the villages, and in the castles, was Jehonathan, &c.

voted to destruction) who, though they ob tained a league for their lives and properties from the children of Ifrael by fraud; yet, forafmuch as Joshua and the elders had confirmed it by oath, they thought themselves bound to keep it; only tying them down to the fervitude of supplying the tabernacle with wood and water for the public facrifices, and service of those who attend upon them.

THIS unhappy people, notwithstanding it is agreed, on all hands, (from the tradition of the Jews) that they had renounced their idolatry, and performed the other conditions of their covenant, Saul fought all occafions to destroy and did so, to such a degree of guilt, as drew down the divine judgmént upon the land.

WHEN David had learned the true caufe of the public calamity, under which the land laboured, and had been directed (as Jofephus informs us) to refer himself to the Gibeonites, for the measures that should be taken to expiate the guilt; he immediately fent for that afflicted people, and asked them What shall I do for you And wherewith fhall I make the atonement,

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that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord?

To this they answered, that they defired no reparation of private damages, or revenge of injuries; all they required was, that a public facrifice should be made to justice, and the divine vengeance inflicted upon the land. David then, pursuant to the inftructions which he had received from GOD, defired to be informed by them, what they would have done upon that occafion. To which they replied, The man that confumed us, and that devifed against us, that we fhould be deftroyed from remaining in any of the coafts of Ifrael, let feven men of his fons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord, in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did choose. And the king faid, I will give them. But the king Spared Mephibofbeth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the fon of Saul. But the king took the two fons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosbeth, and the five fons of Michal the daughter of VOL. III. Saul,

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Saul, whom he brought up for Adriel, the Son of Barzillai the Meholathite. And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all feven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest. There is no question but they chose to have this execution in Gibeah of Saul, for the reafons affigned by Dr. Patrick; to make the punishment the more remarkable and fhameful; this being the city wherein he lived, both before and after he was king. But why these seven were mark'd out, as victims to the divine vengeance, is not so easy to say.

THE text immediately adds, that this was the beginning of the barley harvest, viz. about March; fo that the facrifice was made in the beginning of the third year. And the facred hiftorian informs us, that they continued hanging in that condition, (a public

* In the original it is bore: Thus Agamemnon and Menelaus, though the children of Plifthenes, are (as Euftathius obferves) called the fons of Atreus, who educated them; and Ruth's child is called a fon born to Naomi, who nurfed it (Ruth iv.): as if education and nurture gave a right of parentage in the estimation of the antients.

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monument of terror to guilt in the highest rank of men) until water dropped upon them from heaven: that is, until God gave manifeft tokens of his reconcilement, by fending gracious fhowers to refresh the land: which, in the opinion of the Hebrew doctors, was not until the ensuing October: an opinion well warranted by the text; which gives us to understand, that the bodies hung there till the flesh fell from the bones +.

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COMMENTATORS have juftly observed from hence, that the hanging of these carcafes, for fo long a time, in the open air, could not be in confequence of any command from David; because it was an open violation of the law of GOD, Deut. xxi. 22, 23. which commanded, that the carcafes of all those who were hanged, should not remain even one night upon the tree; but should by all means be buried on the very day of execution. And the reason of the law; viz. Left the land be defiled, held ftrong in the prefent cafe; iñafmuch as the ftench of fo many carcafes, for fo long a time, in a malignant drought, and in the

† 2 Sam. xxi. 13. And they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.