Rizpah

Rizpah’s story is told in a few quiet verses in 2 Samuel 21. Seven sons of Saul’s house were hanged on a hill, and Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, whose own two sons were among them, “took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock.” From the start of the barley harvest until rain fell she stayed, and she “suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.” No speech of hers is recorded. When David was told what she had done, the account turns toward the burial of the dead.

4 verses

2 Samuel

2 Samuel 21:8

But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite:

2 Samuel 21:9

And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the LORD: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning of barley harvest.

2 Samuel 21:10

And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.

2 Samuel 21:11

And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.

From Easton's Bible Dictionary

Matthew George Easton, 1897

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.

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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).

From Smith's Bible Dictionary

William Smith, 1884

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, (2 Samuel 21:8-11) has made Rizpah one of the most familiar objects in the whole Bible.