Today we encounter one of the most unusual stories in the Bible. Usually children don’t suffer for the sins of their parents, and parents don’t suffer for the sins of their children. This principle is even stated in Ezekiel.

“For all people are mine to judge—both parents and children alike. And this is my rule: The person who sins is the one who will die.” (Ezekiel 18:4, NLT)

But a famine was in Israel, and David didn’t know why. After three years he inquired of God who said that it was because Saul put the Gibeonites to death…some forty years earlier! Why did it take so long for God to judge this sin? He is patient, but perhaps the Gibeonites had been praying forty years for justice.

You may recall that the Gibeonites were one of the original inhabitants of the land. When Joshua and the children of Israel began to conquer, the Gibeonites pretended to live far away. Joshua and the elders made a treaty with them. Later, when it was discovered who they really were, Joshua let the Gibeonites live, but he made them servants in the house of the LORD. However, about 300 years later, in Saul’s zeal for Israel, he ignored the treaty and ruthlessly killed the Gibeonites. Now God was holding Saul’s house responsible.

The only restitution that the Gibeonites would accept was for seven of Saul’s male descendants to be executed. David spared Mephibosheth because of his covenant with Jonathan. But he gave them seven others whom they killed and exposed on a hill—no doubt as a warning to anyone else who would harm them. David collected their bones and the bones of Saul and Jonathan and buried them in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish. Afterward, God heard the people’s prayers, and the famine ended.

It is tragic that these seven men had to pay the ultimate price for their grandfather’s sin. God held the entire house of Saul responsible to make restitution four decades later. It makes me wonder…are there any sins for which I must make amends? I certainly wouldn’t want to pass on that responsibility to my grandchildren! May God examine us and show us anything we need to make right with others. And may we do it quickly!