Chapter 21 of Shmuel B deals with a famine that struck the Land of Israel in the days of David for three consecutive years, and with the inquiry that King David conducted in order to discover the root of the matter. The chapter teaches great principles: how the Holy One, blessed be He, judges a person, what power a king has to judge outside the ordinary rules of law, and what the limits of prayer are when saving one person leads to harm coming upon another.
וַיְהִי רָעָב בִּימֵי דָוִד שָׁלֹשׁ שָׁנִים שָׁנָה אַחֲרֵי שָׁנָה וַיְבַקֵּשׁ דָּוִד אֶת־פְּנֵי יְהֹוָה, וַיֹּאמֶר יְהֹוָה אֶל־שָׁאוּל וְאֶל־בֵּית הַדָּמִים עַל אֲשֶׁר־הֵמִית אֶת־הַגִּבְעֹנִים׃ - And there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year, and David sought the face of Hashem, and Hashem said: It is because of Shaul and because of the house of blood, in that he put to death the Givonim.
King David pleads before the Holy One, blessed be He, in order to understand why the famine had come. And the answer lists two sins: "because of Shaul" and "because of the house of blood, in that he put to death the Givonim."
The first sin is against Shaul himself: that he was not eulogized properly. Shaul was buried in haste by the men of Yavesh Gilad, without being eulogized as befitting and without being mourned as befitting. And Shaul was a giant among giants. It is said of him, "Shaul was a year old when he became king" - like a one year old infant without sin. And Shmuel said to him, "Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me" - in my abode. Who can imagine the greatness of the level of Shmuel the prophet in the World of Truth, and Shaul merits to be with him in his abode. Shaul was a tzaddik, and since he was not eulogized as befitting, this sin demands its due and requires rectification.
The second sin: "and because of the house of blood, in that he put to death the Givonim." Shaul killed Nov, the city of the Kohanim, and there he also put to death the Givonim. The Givonim are not from Israel: they are the ones who deceived Yehoshua and came as if from a distant land in order to convert, when in fact they were dwelling within the Land and it was forbidden to convert them. As a result, Yehoshua made them hewers of wood and drawers of water for the House of Hashem.
In understanding "in that he put to death the Givonim" there are two opinions. One opinion, as the words of the Yerushalmi: in that same place of Nov, the city of the Kohanim, there were seven Givonim - two hewers of wood, two drawers of water, a beadle, a chazan, and a scribe - and Shaul killed them as well when he killed Nov. The second opinion: Shaul did not actually kill them with his own hands, but rather the Givonim were sustained from Nov, the city of the Kohanim, and when Shaul killed Nov he caused their death and their harm. For this matter he was punished.
Chazal note precisely: "And there was a famine... three years... and David sought the face of Hashem" - when did he seek? In the third year. Could he not have inquired already in the first year? Rather, in the first year David said to Israel: perhaps there are idol worshippers among you, as it is written, "and you will serve other gods and bow down to them, and He will shut up the heavens." They checked and found none. In the second year he said to them: perhaps there are transgressors among you - the intent of Chazal is always to forbidden relations - as it is written, "and the showers were withheld, and there was no latter rain, yet you had the brazen forehead of a harlot." They checked and found none. In the third year he said: the matter depends on none other than me. Immediately "David sought the face of Hashem" - he inquired through the Urim VeTumim. David understood that there were no clear individual sins here, but rather a more encompassing matter concerning the one who encompasses the entire kingdom, and that is the king himself, for everything that occurs in the kingdom stems from him.
The Sages teach: do not be puzzled at how the Holy One demands both Shaul's honor and his wrongdoing at one and the same time. On one hand He says that Shaul did not act properly and killed the Givonim, and on the other hand He holds Israel accountable for not eulogizing him as befitting. How can both be? Rather, so it is written: "in the place where his judgment is, there is his deed" - in the very place where a person is judged, there his righteous acts are also recalled.
This is a great principle. When a person has a quarrel with someone, even with his wife, even with his children, he forgets all the good in the other side and remembers only the bad. Ask her: and does your husband have no good qualities? Yes, of course... and if you start to enumerate, you will discover a wonderful husband, a wonderful wife. It is only that when we have a conflict with someone, we forget his virtues. With the Holy One there is no such thing. In the very place where they tell a person "you did such and such, and it was not good," they also tell him "but here you were righteous, here you performed a mitzvah, here you acted with self sacrifice." And so the judgment is balanced. Therefore here: on one hand, why did you not eulogize Shaul properly, and on that very same occasion Shaul too is judged over Nov, the city of the priests.
Why was Shaul not called to account in his own time, and why did they wait until the days of David? The Sages teach: the generation of Shaul was not strong enough to bear this hardship. To what may the matter be compared? To a sick person who needs surgery, and they tell him: if we put you under anesthesia now, you will not wake up. They wait until he grows stronger and recovers a little, and then he can be anesthetized and operated on and all will be well. So too here: Shaul's generation was a weak generation, from which one could not demand accountability and carry out judgments and sentences. David's generation was already strong in its faith, and from them one could demand accountability.
The Malbim says: the verses indicate as Rav Saadia Gaon explained, and the Abarbanel after him, that when Shaul killed Nov, the city of the priests, there were also people from the Givonim there. And the Abarbanel enumerates three punishments with which Shaul was punished. The first: the Holy One commanded him at Gilgal to wait until Shmuel came and then to offer the burnt offering, and he did not heed. The punishment: your kingship will not continue to your sons after you, but you yourself will reign until the end of your days. The second: that he spared Agag and the flock. The punishment: that in his own days his kingship was torn away and his days were shortened; no longer only in his sons, but in his own kingship. The third: that he killed the priests of Hashem at Nov. The punishment: that he and his sons died by the sword.
And why was it agreed from Heaven at all that the priests of Nov should be put to death? Because those priests were descendants of Eli, and about them it was said "and the increase of your house shall die as men" - young ones, for the sin of the terrible deeds of Chofni and Pinchas in the Mishkan. This was their punishment, and therefore they were punished. The priests paid their price, and Shaul on the other hand paid his price; each one pays for his own.
And the killing was actually carried out by the hand of Doeg the Edomite. His name is written "Doyeg," and the Sages said: you were caught like a fish (dag). With what does one catch a fish? By its tongue. He said to him: you were caught by your tongue - you spoke about them, and now you also exact vengeance from them. And by this his sin grew many times over: not only did he speak lashon hara and was the cause, but he even murdered them with his own hands. But Shaul was the king, and therefore Shaul was punished, and his punishment was death by shortened days in war, he and his sons - a terrible and dreadful punishment. And furthermore: to die at the hands of gentiles and not at the hands of Israel, this is, as it were, a disgrace.
Regarding the killing of the Givonim, the Malbim says, Shaul was not called to account in his lifetime, because their killing was not so severe. This is a different reason from what we said earlier (that the generation was not strong): in his view the matter was not severe enough to warrant being held accountable for it in his lifetime, and therefore he was held accountable for it after his death, in his sons and in the sons of his concubine, as we shall see further on. And Israel is punished for two reasons: first, that they did not eulogize Shaul properly, and this is a debt upon them; and second, that they did not protest. Had there been a collective protest, Shaul would not have done such a thing. For you see that even a king in their time feared the people, and would not do whatever came into his mind.
Up to here is the interpretation of the Abarbanel. The Malbim says: I say, according to what has been revealed to me from the verses, that after the Givonim who were in the city of Nov were killed, Shaul went on and poured out the fire of his wrath upon the rest of the Givonim in all the cities of Israel. He was not content with those in Nov, but exacted vengeance also from the rest of the Givonim and commanded either to destroy them or to expel them from the land. And his reasoning: if the priests in Nov rebelled against me, and the Givonim are their helpers, then one can no longer rely on the Givonim throughout all the dispersions of Israel. And even though they had been given a role to serve at the altar of Hashem by supplying wood and water, Shaul came and put a stop to the matter; and even though they had an oath from Yehoshua not to harm them, by Shaul's order they began from then on to harm them and to expel them. And this is what is written "who devised against us... that we should be destroyed from remaining in all the territory of Israel" - according to its plain meaning, that they expelled us from remaining in all the territory of Israel.
Even after Shaul's death, when Ish Boshet reigned in his place, the people still harbored that old hatred toward them and refused to accept them. Until David reigned there was no felt need to set the matter right: the Givonim were despised and lowly in their eyes, driven out, and so they saw no wrong in it. Only now, with the beginning of David's reign, is there someone to deal with, for David had no quarrel with the Givonim. On the contrary, the Givonim were the ones who assisted the Kohanim, and the Kohanim assisted David, so that not only did he have no quarrel with them, he actually owed them gratitude. Therefore now the matter came to be set right.
וַיִּקְרָא הַמֶּלֶךְ לַגִּבְעֹנִים וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵיהֶם, וְהַגִּבְעֹנִים לֹא מִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הֵמָּה כִּי אִם־מִיֶּתֶר הָאֱמֹרִי וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל נִשְׁבְּעוּ לָהֶם, וַיְבַקֵּשׁ שָׁאוּל לְהַכֹּתָם בְּקַנֹּאתוֹ לִבְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל וִיהוּדָה׃ - And the king called the Givonim and spoke to them, and the Givonim were not of the children of Israel but of the remnant of the Emori, and the children of Israel had sworn to them, and Shaul sought to strike them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Yehuda.
"And spoke to them" - and it does not say what he said. The Malbim explains: he informed them that on their account there was wrath, and because of them the famine. And out of this it became clear that "the Givonim were not of the children of Israel": for had they been of Israel they would have been appeased and reconciled and would have accepted the request for pardon, since Israel are merciful, the children of the merciful. But the Givonim are not like Israel, and when they came to appease them they refused in any way to forgive, to forget, or to relent. "And Shaul sought to strike them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Yehuda" - and on that occasion Shaul sought to strike them, because he did not sense that they were of the children of Israel, but rather saw them as removed from Israel.
וַיֹּאמֶר דָּוִד אֶל־הַגִּבְעֹנִים מָה אֶעֱשֶׂה לָכֶם וּבַמָּה אֲכַפֵּר וּבָרְכוּ אֶת־נַחֲלַת יְהֹוָה׃ - And David said to the Givonim: What shall I do for you, and with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of Hashem?
"What shall I do for you" - what justice do you ask me to carry out on your behalf. "And with what shall I make atonement" - in what way can I remove from you the anger you feel toward us: through vengeance? through money? in what form? "That you may bless the inheritance of Hashem" - that you should pray for us that Hashem restore the rain and the blessing to His inheritance. For because of your anger there is no rain, and if you are appeased, rain will fall.
וַיֹּאמְרוּ לוֹ הַגִּבְעֹנִים אֵין־לָנוּ כֶּסֶף וְזָהָב עִם־שָׁאוּל וְעִם־בֵּיתוֹ וְאֵין־לָנוּ אִישׁ לְהָמִית בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל, וַיֹּאמֶר מָה־אַתֶּם אֹמְרִים אֶעֱשֶׂה לָכֶם׃ - And the Givonim said to him: We have no claim of silver or gold against Shaul and his house, and it is not for us to put any man to death in Israel. And he said: What do you say, that I should do for you?
Chazal say: they told him, we have no matter of silver or gold with Shaul. Then what? Lives. We do not ask silver or gold from Shaul; we want a life for a life. "And it is not for us to put any man to death in Israel" - from Israel we require no lives, for they did not sin against us; but with Shaul, lives is what we require.
And Chazal further say: David sought to appease them with money, and they refused. David said: perhaps they are embarrassed before one another, thinking, shall we give up our honor for the sake of money? He said: I will go and take each of them aside privately, face to face, and perhaps when a man is not embarrassed before the others he will say, fine, for such and such a sum we will close the matter. And he approached to speak with them one by one, but they were not of the children of Israel and were not appeased. And where is this hinted? "We have no" is written "I have" and read "we have": for he truly turned to each one personally, and each said to him "I have no claim of money against Shaul," and collectively they all said "we have no silver or gold against Shaul."
The Malbim explains the verse thus: Israel oppressed the Givonim and took all that they had, for once they saw that King Shaul had loosened the reins and rendered their blood forfeit, they plundered them and drove them out and pushed them beyond every border of Israel. Therefore they say: silver and gold we ask the people to return, but from Shaul we do not ask silver and gold; and on the other hand, from the people we do not demand lives, but rather silver and gold. Thus the verse is understood: "We have no claim of silver or gold against Shaul" - for from Shaul we demand lives, since he took from us life and not silver and gold. "And it is not for us to put any man to death in Israel" - for from Israel we demand money, since they did not take lives from us. In essence they are asking that each one restore what was taken from them.
וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֶל־הַמֶּלֶךְ הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר כִּלָּנוּ וַאֲשֶׁר דִּמָּה־לָנוּ נִשְׁמַדְנוּ מֵהִתְיַצֵּב בְּכׇל־גְּבֻל יִשְׂרָאֵל׃ - And they said to the king: The man who destroyed us and who plotted against us that we should be wiped out from remaining within all the border of Israel.
He did two things to them. "Destroyed us" - he actually put some of us to death at Nov, the city of the priests. "And who plotted against us" - by his intention and decree we were to be wiped out from remaining within all the border of Israel, for he drove us out and we became prey in the hands of all Israel. For from the moment they saw that our honor counted for nothing in the eyes of the king, and that he was content to disgrace us, no man any longer regarded our honor, and all the border of Israel came and pushed us aside. From here comes their request: that a strong and great act be done, an act that would deter and shake the whole nation, through which our honor would return as it was at first, and we would no longer be treated as exiles fit to be disgraced and pushed away, but with the honor due to us.
יֻתַּן־לָנוּ שִׁבְעָה אֲנָשִׁים מִבָּנָיו וְהוֹקַעֲנוּם לַיהֹוָה בְּגִבְעַת שָׁאוּל בְּחִיר יְהֹוָה, וַיֹּאמֶר הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲנִי אֶתֵּן׃ - Let seven men from his sons be given to us, and we will hang them before Hashem in Givat Shaul, the chosen of Hashem. And the king said: I will give them.
A life for a life: they killed seven of us, and we ask for seven men from his sons. And what is the meaning of "in Givat Shaul, the chosen of Hashem"? Surely they come as those angry at Shaul, so would they praise him and call him the chosen of Hashem? Say Chazal: they said "in Givat Shaul," and a heavenly voice went forth and added "the chosen of Hashem." This was not their wording but an addition of the heavenly voice for the honor of Shaul.
And what did they seek to achieve by this? That the nation should learn a kal vachomer: if such judgment was carried out on the king's sons for the harm they did to us, all the more so anyone from the rest of the nation who would dare to harm us would be dealt with by a harsh judgment. They sought an act that would make clear to all that their blood was no longer free for the taking.
Says the Malbim: this matter runs contrary to the law of the Torah in several respects. First, two people are not put to death on one day, but one person each day. Second, "children shall not be put to death for fathers," yet here sons died for the sin of the father. Third, their bodies were hung on the tree for a long time. But all this could be done only by a king, as the Rambam ruled: the king puts many to death on a single day, and hangs them and leaves them for many days, in order to instill fear and break the arm of the wicked of the world. And from where did the Rambam learn this? From David the king.
And as we have already seen in the past in the words of the Malbim: a king is permitted to judge not according to the accepted rules of law followed by a court. He does not need witnesses and proofs as a court does, and he does not need the interrogations and examinations of cross questioning, but rather judges according to his own understanding and grasp, even with a punishment more severe than what is deserved. So we saw with David himself in the case of the poor man's ewe, when he said "the man deserves death" and "he shall pay for the ewe fourfold" - and we asked: where does the Torah say that one who steals money should be put to death? And where does the Torah say that for stealing a ewe one pays fourfold, which is eightfold? Rather, the king has the power to restore religion to its proper standing, and for this purpose he is permitted to do even extreme things. Similar to what the Gemara brings, that in a certain generation they saw a man riding on an animal on Shabbat, and the next day they took him out to be stoned. Now do we stone a person for a shevut, for a rabbinic prohibition? Rather, they saw that that generation was breached, and it was necessary to fence in the breaches of the generation, and therefore they acted so.
וַיַּחְמֹל הַמֶּלֶךְ עַל־מְפִיבֹשֶׁת בֶּן־יְהוֹנָתָן בֶּן־שָׁאוּל עַל־שְׁבֻעַת יְהֹוָה אֲשֶׁר בֵּינֹתָם בֵּין דָּוִד וּבֵין יְהוֹנָתָן בֶּן־שָׁאוּל׃ - And the king spared Mefiboshet son of Yehonatan son of Shaul, on account of the oath of Hashem that was between them, between David and Yehonatan son of Shaul.
David had made a covenant with Yonatan and swore that he would not harm him or his descendants, but rather protect them, and this is "the oath of Hashem that was between them," which is why he spared him. But Chazal ask: is it permitted to spare someone? Imagine that the gentiles come and say: hand over to us seven men, and these are the seven. If I went and smuggled one out, and they came and took someone else in his place, what is my judgment? As a murderer. It is as if I handed over that other person. If so, how could David rise up and remove one from the list and put another in his place?
Chazal answer as follows: if the Urim VeTumim already seized him, it is finished, this is the man, and he cannot be removed; but if it had not yet seized him, there is no problem at all, since it had not yet been said that he is the one. What then is the meaning of "and he had mercy"? That David prayed for mercy that he would not be caught by the Urim VeTumim. From here we learn that prayer helps, but from here we also learn its limits.
For if, Heaven forbid, they took a man's son and placed him in a group condemned to death, and said: we need twenty men, and they took his son too, is the father permitted to pray that his son be saved? It is forbidden. From this you learn that it is forbidden, and so it is ruled in halacha. For all that was permitted to David was only to pray that the Aron not seize him; but had the Aron seized him, it would no longer help to pray that Hashem have mercy on him, because if I pray that they remove him, I necessarily put another in his place, and this is forbidden. To pray that everyone be saved is permitted; that Hashem change their minds and all be saved, that Hashem cut down the gentiles, all these are permitted. But to pray that specifically my son be saved from here is forbidden.
We learned here another principle: a person can pray and fast for years, but if the solution he proposes is not the solution the Torah directs, it is of no benefit. David inquired of Hashem, and he was not told "declare a day of fasting and the story is over." He was told that there was a grievance of the Givonim that had to be appeased, and the appeasement is specifically through killing seven of Shaul's descendants corresponding to their seven slain. So said the Urim VeTumim, and a person does not choose a different solution for himself. It is like a man who is told: the engine is not working, and he replies: I will replace the battery. What good is a strong battery when the problem is in the engine? This only reveals that you do not understand. So too if we propose solutions to the Creator of the world, while He directs us that the solution lies on another plane: what good is another day of fasting? The point of the solution is in appeasing the Givonim.
The famine in David's days did not come by chance: after two investigations that yielded nothing, David understood that the root of the matter was in the kingship itself, and he inquired of the Urim VeTumim. Two sins were revealed: that Shaul was not properly eulogized, and that he had killed the Givonim in Nov and continued to pursue their remnant throughout the borders of Israel, and Israel did not protest. The Holy One, blessed be He, demands His own honor and demands justice for wrongdoing alike, for "as His judgment, so is His deed," and this is a trait we should learn from in our relationship with others. The Givonim refused to be appeased with money and demanded a life for a life, and David as king was permitted to carry out a judgment that was not according to the ordinary procedures of a court, in order to reestablish the faith and restore their trampled honor. And in "and the king had mercy on Mefiboshet" we learned the limit of prayer: it is permitted to pray that one not be caught, but one does not pray for the salvation of one person when it means handing over another in his place, for the true solution always lies where the Holy One, blessed be He, directs, and not where it is convenient for us to seek it.