2 Samuel 4

Tree of Life Version

Assassination of Ish-bosheth

4 Now when Saul’s son heard that Abner had died in Hebron, his courage sank, and all the Israelites were disturbed. ² Saul’s son had two men who were commanders of raiding bands: the name of one was Baanah and the name of the other Rechab, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite of the sons of Benjamin (for Beeroth is also considered part of Benjamin, ³ though the Beerothites had fled to Gittaim and live there as outsiders to this day).

⁴ (Saul’s son Jonathan had a son whose legs were crippled. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse picked him up and fled. It came about, as she was hurrying to flee, that he fell and was crippled. His name was Mephibosheth.)

⁵ Now the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, Rechab and Baanah, set out and came to the house of Ish-bosheth at the heat of the day, as he was taking his midday nap. ⁶ When they came within the house, as though to get wheat, they stabbed him in the stomach. Then Rechab and his brother Baanah escaped. ⁷ When they had gotten within the house, he was lying on his bed in his bedroom, they stabbed him and killed him, then beheaded him and took his head, and traveled by the way of the Arabah all night. ⁸ Then they brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David in Hebron, and said to the king, “Here is the head of Saul’s son Ish-bosheth, your enemy, who sought your life. Today Adonai has avenged my lord the king of Saul and his offspring.”

⁹ Then David answered Rechab and his brother Baanah, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, saying to them, “As Adonai lives, who redeemed my soul out of all distress, ¹⁰ when someone informed me saying, ‘Look, Saul is dead!’ thinking he was a bearer of good news, I seized him and killed him in Ziklag, instead of rewarding him for his news. ¹¹ How much more, when wicked men have killed a righteous person in his own house and on his bed! Should I not now require his blood from your hands and rid the earth of you?” ¹² Then David commanded the young men, and they slew them, cut off their hands and their legs, and hung them up beside the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth and buried it in the grave of Abner in Hebron.