Biblical Babe: Rizpah

Instead, the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons that Rizpah daughter of Aiah bore to Saul, and the five sons that Merab daughter of Saul bore to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite, and he handed them over to the Gibeonites. They impaled them on the mountain before the LORD; all seven of them perished at the same time. They were put to death in the first days of the harvest, the beginning of the barley harvest. Then Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it on a rock for herself, and she stayed there from the beginning of the harvest until rain from the sky fell on the bodies; she did not let the birds of the sky settle on them by day or the wild beasts [approach] by night. David was told what Saul’s concubine Rizpah daughter of Aiah had done. And David went and took the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh-gilead, who had made off with them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hung them up on the day the Philistines killed Saul at Gilboa. He brought up the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan from there; and he gathered the bones of those who had been impaled. And they buried the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan in Zela, in the territory of Benjamin, in the tomb of his father Kish. And when all that the king had commanded was done, God responded to the plea of the land thereafter.

During the war between the House of Saul and the House of David, Abner supported the House of Saul. Now Saul had a concubine named Rizpah, daughter of Aiah; and [Ish-bosheth] said to Abner, “Why have you lain with my father’s concubine?” Abner was very upset by what Ish-bosheth said, and he replied, “Am I a dog’s head from Judah? Here I have been loyally serving the House of your father Saul and his kinsfolk and friends, and I have not betrayed you into the hands of David; yet this day you reproach me over a woman! May God do thus and more to Abner if I do not do for David as the LORD swore to him— to transfer the kingship from the House of Saul, and to establish the throne of David over Israel and Judah from Dan to Beer-sheba.” [Ish-bosheth] could say nothing more in reply to Abner, because he was afraid of him.