Rizpah Bible Study – 10 Key Points for Bible Study 09/13/14

1. Her name means, “A Hot Stone or Coal”. (4, page199)

2. Rizpah, concubine to King Saul, is first mentioned in the Bible after Saul’s death, when one of Saul’s generals is accused of seducing her. ( 3, page 257)

3. Rizpah was the mother of Armoni and Mephibosheth. Though a woman with few rights and little power, she displayed great courage and loyalty after the death of her sons. (4 page 199).

4. Joshua had promised to live in peace with the Gibeonites, but Saul had murdered many of them during his reign, attempting to annihilate them. As a result of Saul’s oath-breaking, Israel suffered a famine for three years running. (4, page 200)

5. She (Rizpah) appears again later, near the end of David’s reign, during a three-year famine sent by God as punishment for Saul’s massacre of the Gibeonites. (3, page 57)

6. ( David ) the king took… the two sons of…Rizpah, whom she had borne to Saul, together with five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab…He handed them over to the Gibeonites, who killed and exposed them on a hill before the Lord. (5 page 111)

7. Executed for their father’s crime, their bodies were left to rot on the hillside, despite a law requiring burial by sunset. (4,page 200)

8. In her sorrow, Rizpah spread sackcloth for herself on a rock to keep watch over her dead sons until the harvest was finished and the rains came. When David heard about this devoted mother, he buried her sons in a family tomb in Ephraim. (3, page 258)

9. Her sorrow: That her only sons were executed and their bodies dishonored because of their father’s crime.(4, page 199)

10. Her Joy: That the bodies of her sons were finally given an honorable burial. (4, page 199)

1. The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Volume Four, In Four Volumes, Abingdon Press, New York 1962.

2. The NIV Study Bible, Zondervan, 1995.

3. Who’s Who in the Bible, An Illustrative Biographical Dictionary, Dietrich Gruen, Contributing Editor, Publications International, LTD., 1998.

4. Women of the Bible, One Year Devotional Study of Women in Scripture, Ann Spangler and Jean E. Syswerda, Zondervan, 2007.

5. Women of the Bible, 52 Bible Studies for Individuals and Groups, Jean E Syswerda, Zondervan, 1999

Announcement: The Ninth Anniversary Celebration & Pot Luck will be held with our Saturday Bible Study, September 27, 2014 at 4:00pm. Please contact Glenda for information at 727-542-4683.