2 Samuel 4:9-12·~1 min

The Execution of Rechab and Baanah

David invokes the living LORD who has redeemed him, recalls the fate of the messenger from Saul's death, and declares that men who kill a righteous man in his own bed will answer with their blood.

B⁹ut David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the LORD lives, who has redeemed my life from all distress, ¹⁰when someone told me, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was a bearer of good news, I seized him and put him to death at Ziklag. That was his reward for his news! ¹¹How much more, when wicked men kill a righteous man in his own house and on his own bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hands and remove you from the earth!”

David's men execute Rechab and Baanah, display their bodies in disgrace, and bury Ish-bosheth's head in Abner's tomb at Hebron.

¹²So David commanded his young men, and they killed Rechab and Baanah. They cut off their hands and feet and hung their bodies by the pool in Hebron, but they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in Abner’s tomb in Hebron.

Section summaryDavid answers by swearing by the LORD who has preserved him and by recalling how he punished the man who brought Saul's death as good news. He judges Ish-bosheth's killers more severely still, has them executed and disgraced, and gives Ish-bosheth's head burial in Abner's tomb.

Role in the chapterThis section interprets the whole chapter through David's moral judgment. It shows that Saul's house is ending, but not by a rule that rewards treachery or calls murder righteousness.