The Excluded (Yet Loved) Gibeonites

My weekly quiet time for this week was in II Samuel 21. There, David hands over two sons and five grandsons of Saul to the Gibeonites so they can hang them. Saul during his reign had killed several Gibeonites, Amorites whom Joshua had sworn to spare from annihilation (Joshua 9-10). Consequently, the Gibeonites want their revenge on Saul and his bloody house. And God is eager for Saul's injustice to be corrected, for God sends a famine as punishment on Israel.

I like what the Encyclopedia Judaica article "Gibeonites and Nethinim" has to say:

Although the Gibeonites deserved no better fate than all the rest of the Canaanite nations, in that the covenant made with them was obtained through subterfuge, Joshua nevertheless kept his promise to them, in order to show the world the sanctity of an oath to Israel (Git. 46a). He hesitated to defend them when they were attacked, but God reminded him, "if you estrange those who are distant you will ultimately estrange also those who are near" (Num. R. 8:4). In the course of time it became obvious that the Gibeonites were not worthy of being received into the Jewish fold and Joshua, therefore, left their fate to be decided by the one who was to build the Temple (TJ, Sanh. 6:9, 23c–d).

During David's reign Israel suffered from a drought which was ascertained to be God's punishment for the murder of seven Gibeonites by the descendants of Saul. When David sought to make restitution through ransom, the Gibeonites firmly refused, insisting upon lives from the household of Saul. This cold-bloodedness clearly demonstrated to David the absence in the Gibeonite character of Israel's three basic attributes—mercy, humility, and benevolence—and he consequently excluded them from the assembly of Israel (TJ, Kid. 4:1, 65c). Ezra renewed the edict, which is to be in force even in the Messianic era (ibid.).

The commentator Rashi (eleventh century), who frequently consults rabbinic literature, cites much of the above information to explain the Gibeonites' exclusion from the people of Israel in II Samuel 21:2. Yet, he states the following about v 10:

In the rainy season of Tishrei; for they were not given over for burial. But it is not written: “You shall not allow his body to remain overnight” (Deut. 21:22)? However they said: It is preferable that one letter of the Torah be uprooted so that the Divine Name be publicly hallowed for when passersby would inquire: Who are these? They would say to them: They are princes. And what did they do? They stretched out their hands against those who attached themselves but were [proselytes] not accepted. They would then say: There is no nation that one ought to join like this one.

The rabbis and Rashi think that the Gibeonites were cruel and merciless when they executed the family of Saul, so David excluded them from Israel. Yet, Rashi says that God in II Samuel 21 suspended a law of the Torah that required the removal of hanging corpses on the day of the execution. For Rashi, God did so to make a good impression on other nations, to show that God values the lives even of proselytes who weren't accepted into Israel. God suspends a law that treats the guilty with dignity, yet he does so to demonstrate his compassion. Overall, that's what II Samuel 21 is: God's strict justice mixed with his compassion, even for the executed party. When does God finally send rain to end the famine? After Rizpah (the mother of two of Saul's sons) protected the bodies of Saul's executed sons and grandsons, prompting David to dignify their bones through burial (v 14).

The rabbinic comments on Gibeon's exclusion from Israel catches my attention, for inclusion/exclusion from the community of Israel is an interest of mine (see Deuteronomy 23 for examples of this issue). I wonder what it means for Gibeon to be excluded. That they can't live in the land of Israel? That they can live there, but not as Israelites, meaning they lack Israelite privileges and can't marry Israelites? They obviously weren't barred from the land, for Nehemiah 3:7 presents a Gibeonite helping with repairs. Throughout Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezra 2, Nehemiah 7, etc.), we see the nethinim, whom the rabbis identify as descendants of the Gibeonites, the ones who did the grunt work for God's sanctuary (Joshua 9:21, 23, 27). Even under Ezra, whom the rabbis say excluded the Gibeonites from the assembly of Israel, the Gibeonites were still in the land of Israel, performing their office. The EJ article may explain what the exclusion means, namely, that they couldn't marry Israelites: They were regarded as the descendants of the Gibeonites (Yev. 78b–79a) and the prohibition in their marrying Jews of pure pedigree as having been established by King David (ibid. 78b) and reconfirmed by Ezra (Num. R. 8:4).