A famine of long duration overspread the land on account of a two years' drought. The distress continued to grow when, at the commencement of the third year, no rain had fallen, and the people turned to the king for help. This misfortune, in which the entire country shared, was interpreted as being God-sent retribution for some secret and unavenged sin. David therefore inquired of the priest Abiathar what sin required expiation, and the answer came, "on account of Saul and his ruthless persecution of the Gibeonites." David then sent to the remnant of the Gibeonites, and inquired of them what atonement they desired. Not satisfied with an expiatory sum of money, they demanded that seven descendants of Saul should be hanged in Gibeah-Saul. The demand of the Gibeonites seemed just, for according to the views of the time, only blood could atone for the shedding of blood and a breach of faith. With a heavy heart David had to comply with the demand of the Gibeonites, and satisfy the desire of the nation. The two sons of Saul's concubine Rizpah, and his grandson, the son of his daughter Merab, were sought out, handed over to the Gibeonites, and killed by them in cold blood, in Gibeah-Saul, the town in which their father had won a crown. David spared only Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, for he remembered the oath made to his friend, that he would always protect his descendants. The corpses of the seven victims were to remain on the gallows until rain should fall from the heavens, but it was long ere the rainfall came. It was in those dire days that the beautiful Rizpah, for whose sake Abner had quarrelled with Ishbosheth, showed of what a mother's love is capable. In order to prevent her sons' corpses from being devoured by eagles and jackals, she made her couch on the rocks on which the bodies were exposed, and guarded them with a watchful eye through the heat of day. Nor did she relax her vigilance in the night, but continued her work of scaring away the beasts of prey from the dead. When at length in the autumn the rain fell, the seven bodies were taken down, and at David's command the last honours were bestowed on them. He also seized this opportunity to remove the remains of Saul and Jonathan from Jabesh-Gilead, and to bury them, together with the remains of their kindred, in the family tomb of the house of Kish at Zelah. It appears that, on this occasion, David caused his deeply touching lament for the death of Saul and of Jonathan to be reproduced, in order to express publicly how deeply the destruction of the royal house of Benjamin had affected him. He directed that the elegy should be committed to memory by the youths of the country. Jonathan's surviving son, Mephibosheth (who had been living in the house of a much-respected man on the other side of the Jordan) was brought to Jerusalem, and David received him in his own house, placed him at his own table, and treated him as one of his own sons. David also restored