Oct 11, 2026 · 28 min · 9 segments
Sometimes change begins with a single act that sets something larger in motion. In Catalysis, we explore how transformation can begin through the courage, persistence, or unexpected actions of one…
So I invite you to settle in a while as we together read this largely unknown story told in a set of chapters that are known as an epilogue to the long saga of King David's reign.
And get ready because like so many narrative stories in the Old Testament, there is complicated history, dynamic family systems, and hard-to-pronounce names to stumble through.
But don't let your unfamiliarity with every detail of this passage let you give up too quickly in this morning's reading, for there is someone you must meet here.
There is someone we must see in this text, a woman who holds this hard story to the grounds of life.
Her name is Rizpah, a name you may be hearing for the first time today, a name you will remember from now on.
The Lord said, "There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death." So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them.
Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites.
David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? How shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?" The Gibeonites said to him, "It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put anyone to death in Israel." He said to them, "What do you say that I should do for you?" They said to the king, "The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of his sons be handed over to us, and we will impale them before the Lord at Gibeon on the mountain of the Lord." The king said, "I will hand them over." But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord that was between them, between David and Jonathan son of Saul.
He gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they impaled them on the mountain before the Lord.
They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest.
Then Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it on a rock for herself from the beginning of the harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens She did not allow the birds of the air to come on the bodies by day or the wild animals by night.
When David was told what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the people of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them up on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa.
He brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan, and they gathered the bones of those who had been impaled.
So I invite you to settle in a while as we together read this largely unknown story told in a set of chapters that are known as an epilogue to the long saga of King David's reign.
And get ready because like so many narrative stories in the Old Testament, there is complicated history, dynamic family systems, and hard-to-pronounce names to stumble through.
But don't let your unfamiliarity with every detail of this passage let you give up too quickly in this morning's reading, for there is someone you must meet here.
There is someone we must see in this text, a woman who holds this hard story to the grounds of life.
Her name is Rizpah, a name you may be hearing for the first time today, a name you will remember from now on.
The Lord said, "There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death." So the king called the Gibeonites and spoke to them.
Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites.
David said to the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you? How shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?" The Gibeonites said to him, "It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put anyone to death in Israel." He said to them, "What do you say that I should do for you?" They said to the king, "The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, let seven of his sons be handed over to us, and we will impale them before the Lord at Gibeon on the mountain of the Lord." The king said, "I will hand them over." But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul's son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord that was between them, between David and Jonathan son of Saul.
He gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they impaled them on the mountain before the Lord.
They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest.
Then Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth and spread it on a rock for herself from the beginning of the harvest until rain fell on them from the heavens She did not allow the birds of the air to come on the bodies by day or the wild animals by night.
When David was told what Rizpah daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the people of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them up on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa.
He brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan, and they gathered the bones of those who had been impaled.
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