Armoni

One oath honored in the very act of atoning for another oath broken, a detail the narrator surely intends us to notice.

But he took the two sons of Rizpah, Armoni and Mephibosheth, a different Mephibosheth, named perhaps after the same family tradition, and the five sons of Merab, Saul's daughter, and delivered them to the Gibeonites.

The text records the execution with terrible brevity.

"They hanged them on the mountain before the Lord, and the seven of them perished together." 2 Samuel 21:9, ESV.

No powerful family.

Her father, Aiah, is otherwise unknown.

Her security in old age rested entirely on her two sons, Armoni and Mephibosheth.

And in a single April morning at Gibeah, both were taken from her at once.

Therefore, David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? And with what shall I make atonement that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord?" And the Gibeonites said to him, "We will have no silver or gold from Saul or from his house, nor shall you kill any man in Israel for us." So he said, "Whatever you say, I will do for you." Then they answered the king, "As for the man who consumed us and plotted against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the territories of Israel, let seven men of his descendants be delivered to us, and we will hang them before the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord chose." And the king said, "I will give them." But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul.

So the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, and the five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel, the son of Barzillai, the Meholathite, and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the hill before the Lord.

So 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.

Controversial from today's standards, no doubt.