Then the Gibeonites said to him, "We have no concern of silver or gold with Saul or his house, nor is it for us to put any man to death in Israel." And he said, "I will do for you whatever you say."I'm not sure I'm reading this correctly, because I can't match what this says with what the Gibeonites ask for shortly afterwards. How I see this, it appears that they are saying that they don't hold a grudge against Saul or his family for what happened to them. I would interpret "no concern of" to be roughly "no interest in," and this matches the fact that they don't ask for any money from David.
What doesn't match so well is them saying that it's not for them to kill anyone, and then ask for seven men to be hung. Are they saying they do not hold the power of life or death, and that is what David offers them? If so, it's not obvious to me. I read it as meaning they don't want to kill anyone, that they don't feel it's their place to take lives for the lives of their kinsmen. Perhaps I'm wrong, and my earlier wondering is correct.
No comments:
Post a Comment