Lives of Scripture

Armoni was one of two sons born to Saul by his concubine Rizpah (2 Samuel 21:8). During David's reign, a three-year famine struck Israel, and David learned it was because of "Saul and his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death," violating an oath Israel's leaders had sworn generations earlier under Joshua (21:1-2; see Joshua 9). Seeking to make atonement, David asked the Gibeonites what they wanted, and they demanded seven of Saul's male descendants be handed over for execution. David gave them Armoni and his brother Mephibosheth (not the same Mephibosheth as Jonathan's crippled son, whom David spared for Jonathan's sake), along with five sons of Saul's daughter Merab, and the Gibeonites hanged all seven "before the LORD" at Gibeah (21:6-9). Rizpah, Armoni's mother, then took sackcloth and kept vigil over the exposed bodies from the beginning of the harvest until the rains finally came, driving off birds and animals by day and night (21:10). When David heard of her devotion, he retrieved the bones of Saul and Jonathan along with the bones of the seven and gave all of them proper burial in the family tomb, "and after that God was moved by prayer for the land" (21:12-14). Armoni's death is one of Scripture's starkest reminders that sin's consequences can outlast the sinner and fall on those who never chose it -- and that even in the middle of that grief, faithful love like Rizpah's is seen and answered by God.