Ish-bosheth Is Killed

When Saul's son Ish-bosheth heard that Abner had died in Hebron, he became weak with fear, and all Israel was troubled. The chapter also pauses to mention Jonathan's son Mephibosheth, who had become lame in both feet after a fall when his nurse fled with him years earlier.

Ish-bosheth had two captains of raiding bands named Rechab and Baanah. They were brothers, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, from a place counted as part of Benjamin. The passage adds that the Beerothites had fled to Gittaim and lived there as foreigners.

At about the heat of the day, while Ish-bosheth was resting at noon, Rechab and Baanah came to his house. They went into the middle of the house as though they had business there, struck him as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, killed him, cut off his head, and escaped by travelling through the night.

The brothers brought Ish-bosheth's head to David at Hebron. They spoke as though they had done David a favour, saying that the Lord had avenged the king against Saul and his offspring. David answered that the Lord was the one who had rescued him from trouble. He reminded them that when a man once brought news of Saul's death expecting a reward, David had him killed instead.

Then David said that these men had killed a righteous man in his own house on his own bed, so they would answer for his blood. David ordered his young men to kill them. Their hands and feet were cut off, and their bodies were hung beside the pool in Hebron. Ish-bosheth's head, however, was buried in Abner's grave in Hebron. How does this passage show that David would not call evil good, even when it seemed to help him?