The Murder of Ishbosheth
1 When Saul’s son heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands became feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled. 2 Saul’s son had two men who were captains of raiding bands. The name of one was Baanah and the name of the other Rechab, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, of the children of Benjamin (for Beeroth also is considered a part of Benjamin; 3 and the Beerothites fled to Gittaim, and have lived as foreigners there until today). 4 Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the news came about Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel; and his nurse picked him up and fled. As she hurried to flee, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth. 5 The sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, went out and came at about the heat of the day to the house of Ishbosheth as he took his rest at noon. 6 They came there into the middle of the house as though they would have fetched wheat, and they struck him in the body; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped. 7 Now when they came into the house as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him, killed him, beheaded him, and took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night. 8 They brought the head of Ishbosheth to David to Hebron, and said to the king, “Behold, the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life! Yahweh has avenged my lord the king today of Saul and of his offspring.” 9 David answered Rechab and Baanah his brother, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, and said to them, “As Yahweh lives, who has redeemed my soul out of all adversity, 10 when someone told me, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ thinking that he brought good news, I seized him and killed him in Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news. 11 How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house on his bed, should I not now require his blood from your hand, and rid the earth of you?” 12 David commanded his young men, and they killed them, cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ishbosheth and buried it in Abner’s grave in Hebron.
Two officers assassinate their own king in his bed and bring the head to David expecting thanks — the third time a man has misread him, and the last.
When Saul’s son heard that Abner was dead in Hebron, his hands became feeble, and all the Israelites were troubled.
Without Abner there is no northern kingdom, only a frightened man on a throne he never held. The account gives him no words at all, in this chapter or any other; he is the book's portrait of a figurehead, and his own officers can read the situation as well as anyone.
Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the news came about Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel; and his nurse picked him up and fled. As she hurried to flee, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.
The narrator interrupts the assassination to introduce a five-year-old dropped by a nurse on the day of Gilboa. The placement is deliberate: with Ishbosheth about to die, this crippled child is what remains of Saul's house — no threat to anyone, and the only person left for a covenant to reach. Chapter nine is being set up five chapters early.
They came there into the middle of the house as though they would have fetched wheat, and they struck him in the body; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped.
The killing is squalid: two captains of raiding bands, a house at noon, a man asleep through the heat of the day, a pretext about grain. Then the beheading and an all-night march down the Jordan valley with the head in a bag.
They brought the head of Ishbosheth to David to Hebron, and said to the king, “Behold, the head of Ishbosheth, the son of Saul, your enemy, who sought your life! Yahweh has avenged my lord the king today of Saul and of his offspring.”
They have brought a trophy and a theological justification — God's vengeance, delivered by their hands. It is the third time in four chapters that someone has assumed David would be pleased by a rival's death, and the pattern says something about the world these men lived in: everyone around David expects him to behave the way kings behave.
when someone told me, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ thinking that he brought good news, I seized him and killed him in Ziklag, which was the reward I gave him for his news.
David cites the precedent himself, and then states the aggravating difference: that man claimed to have finished a dying king on a battlefield; these two have slain a righteous person in his own house on his bed 2 Samuel 4:11. Ishbosheth is called righteous — not competent, not legitimate, but innocent of any crime deserving this — and the murder of a sleeping man in his own house is named as what it is.
The execution that follows is severe, with the bodies displayed at the pool of Hebron 2 Samuel 4:12, and the last line of the chapter is the merciful one: the head is buried in Abner's grave. David gives the puppet king the burial of a prince, in the tomb of the general who made him. The road to a united kingdom is now clear, and David has arrived on it with clean hands and two public funerals to prove it.
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