person
Rizpah
רִצְפָּה
Rizpah was a concubine of King Saul and the mother of Armoni and Mephibosheth, who were executed by the Gibeonites.
- verses
- 4
- first named
- 2 Samuel 3:7
- last named
- 2 Samuel 21:11
- period
- United Monarchy
- role
- Woman
Description
Who was Rizpah?
Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, was a concubine of King Saul (2Sa.3.7). She bore Saul two sons, Armoni and Mephibosheth (2Sa.21.8). After Saul's death, Abner, the commander of Saul's army, had relations with Rizpah, which was seen as a challenge to the authority of Saul's son and successor, Ish-bosheth (2Sa.3.7). Years later, during the reign of King David, a famine struck Israel for three years (2Sa.21.1). The Lord revealed that the famine was a consequence of Saul's attempt to kill the Gibeonites, with whom Israel had made a treaty (2Sa.21.1-2; Jos.9.3-27). To make atonement, the Gibeonites demanded the execution of seven of Saul's male descendants, including Rizpah's sons, Armoni and Mephibosheth (2Sa.21.5-9). Rizpah displayed great devotion and grief by protecting the bodies of her sons from birds and wild animals, staying with them from the beginning of the harvest until the rains came (2Sa.21.10). When David heard of Rizpah's actions, he ordered the proper burial of the bones of Saul, Jonathan, and the seven executed men (2Sa.21.11-14). Rizpah's story highlights the tragic consequences of Saul's disobedience and the depths of a mother's love and grief in the face of loss.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Child of
- Aiahregistry2 Samuel 21:82 Samuel 3:72 Samuel 21:10 +1
Mother of
- Armoniregistry2 Samuel 21:8
- Mephiboshethregistry2 Samuel 21:8
Spouse of
- Saulregistry2 Samuel 21:11
Stands in the same events as
Places
Where this happens
A person is placed by the events they take part in, and an event has to clear three things to place them: it must say where it happened, that place must be one the gazetteer can put a coordinate on, and the verse must report it rather than foretell, command or ask it. Nothing anchored here clears all three. Where the text names a setting no gazetteer surveys — a vineyard, a palace, a plot of ground — it is left off rather than guessed at; where a place is named only in a prophecy, the map does not draw what was said to be coming as though it had happened; and a place reached only through a relation is not inherited, because standing beside somebody is not being somewhere.
No verse Atlas has read as a report puts this person anywhere.
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Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 4, across 1 book.
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Where they appear
Chapter by chapter
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Sources