rizpah Summary and Overview

coal; hot stone, the daughter of Aiah, and one of Saul's concubines. She was the mother of Armoni and Mephibosheth (2 Sam. 3:7; 21:8, 10, 11). It happened that a grievous famine, which lasted for three years, fell upon the land during the earlier half of David's reign at Jerusalem. This calamity was sent "for Saul and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites." David inquired of the Gibeonites what satisfaction they demanded, and was answered that nothing would compensate for the wrong Saul had done to them but the death of seven of Saul's sons. David accordingly delivered up to them the two sons of Rizpah and five of the sons of Merab (q.v.), Saul's eldest daughter, whom she bore to Adriel. These the Gibeonites put to death, and hung up their bodies before the Lord at the sanctuary at Gibeah. Rizpah thereupon took her place on the rock of Gibeah (q.v.), and for five months watched the suspended bodies of her children, to prevent them from being devoured by the beasts and birds of prey, till they were at length taken down and buried by David. Her marriage to Abner was the occasion of a quarrel between him and Ishbosheth, which led to Abner's going over to the side of David (2 Sam. 3:17-21).

concubine to King Saul, and mother of his two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth. (B.C. 1080.) The tragic story of the love and endurance with which she watched over the bodies of her two sons, who were killed by the Gibeonites, #2Sa 21:8-11| has made Rizpah one of the most familiar objects in the whole Bible.

RIZ'PAH , a concubine of Saul who watched day and night for many months (probably from March to October) over the bodies of her two sons, who had been put to a violent death by the Gibeonites. 2 Sam 21:10-11. ROAD means "raid" in 1 Sam 27:10. Our "road" is, in the A.V., always "path" or "way."

Saul's concubine, mother of Arboni and Mephibosheth. A Hivite sprung from Aiah, son of Zibeon (Genesis 36:14). Foreigners were generally chosen as inferior wives by Solomon, Rehoboam, etc. Ishbosheth suspected Abner of intercourse, with Rizpah at Mahanaim, which in Eastern ideas was tantamount to aspiring to succeed to Saul's throne (2 Samuel 3:7). Her famous act was (2 Samuel 21:8-11) her watching against bird and beast of prey the hung up corpses of her two sons and five kinsmen on the sacred hill of Gibeah, with which Saul had been so closely connected (1 Samuel 11:4), from the beginning of barley harvest, the sacred Passover season, until the fall of the early rain in October, without tent to screen her from the scorching sun all day and the saturating dews at night, and with only her black widow's sackcloth to rest upon, keeping her from the rocky ground. (See ABNER; ISHBOSHETH; GIBEONITES.) A striking instance of motherly devotion, stronger than death, and clinging at all costs with desperate tenacity even to the lifeless remains of the loved ones (Song of Solomon 8:6; Isaiah 49:15).