2 Samuel 21:6

• seven of his male descendants: The law codes of other ancient Near Eastern nations sometimes permitted members of a family to be punished for crimes a guilty individual had committed. But Deuteronomy 24:16 did not allow this practice among the Israelites. Only God could impose such penalties (Deuteronomy 5:9).

  The few instances in the Bible when offspring were punished were not regular criminal cases. Instead, they involved offenses against God, such as violation of the kherem (a ban on goods in wars of total destruction ordered by God; Joshua 7:24–25) or of national oaths (as here).

• At Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the LORD: This probably refers to the high place at Gibeon, which Solomon later visited (1 Kings 3:3–4; 2 Chronicles 1:3). If the Hebrew reading is correct, , the Gibeonites were likely speaking with irony (using words to mock rather than praise). They may have been calling Saul “the chosen of the Lord” in a sarcastic way.

The final chapters of 2 Samuel form a coda (a concluding section). This section brings together and summarizes the main themes from earlier chapters.

These chapters are thematic, not chronological (arranged by topic, not by time). Because of this, not all the events happened at the end of David’s reign (for example, 2 Samuel 22:1).

The material is arranged using a common Hebrew literary pattern called a chiasm (a mirror-like structure). In a chiasm, the first and last sections match, and the middle section is the focus.

The structure of this chiasm is as follows:

• A: Saul’s sin against the Gibeonites and the punishment that affected the whole community (2 Samuel 21:1–14)

  • B: David’s warriors and their heroic deeds (2 Samuel 21:15–22)

    • C: David’s Psalm (2 Samuel 22:1–51)

    • C′: David’s Psalm (2 Samuel 23:1–7)

  • B′: David’s warriors and their heroic deeds (2 Samuel 23:8–39)

• A′: David’s sin involving the census and the punishment that affected the whole community (2 Samuel 24:1–25)

A chiasm draws attention to the center section. Here, the center is David’s hymns. These hymns do not focus on David himself. Instead, they focus on David’s God.