Women in white raiment

by John Lemley

Upon the death of Saul, the first king in Israel, Rizpah, a secondary wife, and mother of his two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth, appears on the stage of action. After Saul was defeated and met with death on Mount Gilboa and the Philistines occupied the country west of the Jordan, the seat of government was transferred from Gibeah to Mahanaim for greater protection, and Rizpah accompanied the inmates of the royal household to their new residence.

Ishbosheth, the youngest of Saul’s four legitimate sons, and his rightful heir to the throne, had been proclaimed king in place of his father. Abner, Saul’s uncle, however, had command of the army, and had much to do in administering the affairs of the kingdom; and, because of this relation, and for reasons not stated, he seemed to have had frequent consultations with Rizpah, and this excited Ishbosheth’s jealousy. Among those primitive people, to take the widow of a deceased king was to aspire to the throne. Ishbosheth accused Abner of that ambitious design, and the captain, in his resentment, replied, “Am I a dog’s head, which against Judah do shew kindness this day unto the house of Saul thy father, to his brethren, and to his friends, and have not delivered thee into the hands of David, that thou chargest me to-day with a fault concerning this woman?” Abner was so wroth that he left Ishbosheth and went over to David—a piece of spite which led first to Abner’s death through Joab’s treachery, and ultimately to the murder of Ishbosheth himself.

We hear nothing more of Rizpah till the three years’ famine made it necessary to settle an old score against the house of Saul for that king’s wicked dealings with the Gibeonites. According to the crude, rough justice of the times, they demanded the death of seven of Saul’s descendants. The two sons of Rizpah and five of Saul’s grandsons were handed over to them for crucifixion.

Here Rizpah’s love, and endurance is brought to our notice. The seven crosses to which her two sons and her five relatives were fastened, were planted in the rock on the top of the sacred hill of Gibeah. The victims were sacrificed at the beginning of barley harvest—the sacred and festal time of the Passover—and in the full blaze of the summer sun they hung till the fall of the periodical rain in October. During the whole of that time Rizpah remained at the foot of the crosses on which the bodies of her sons were exposed. She had no tent to shelter her all those months from the scorching sun which beats on that open spot all day, or from the drenching dews of night, but she spread on the rock summit the thick mourning garment of black sackcloth, which, as a widow, she wore, and, crouching there, she kept off bird and beast till their bodies could have honorable burial.

At length the heroic actions of Rizpah were brought to the notice of David, who, with his usual kindness, had the bodies of Saul and his friend Jonathan brought from Jabesh-Gilead, and the bodies taken from the crosses and sepulchred in the family tomb of Kish.

Rizpah, by birth was a Hivite, and probably had not the sustaining grace which God alone can give. She had trained her sons for the splendors of a court. They were cut off in their prime, and her desolate heart had only its pride to sustain her during her superhuman anguish and endurance. Her loving, passionate nature was a bright light in a rude, dark age. With such a beautiful example before us, we need never say the circumstances of our life forbid the possibilities of living for God. The blacker the cloud the brighter may be the rainbow. The harder our situation the more can our life become a protest against it. The lighthouse needs the midnight darkness and the storm-beaten shore to bring out its value and its purpose, and there is no situation so trying and difficult but God can sustain us in it, and when we have learned our lesson enable us to triumph over it.

Rizpah’s loving fidelity has placed her in the front ranks of Bible women whose holy ministries have made them famous. She may very justly be characterized as the Mater Dolorosa of the old dispensation. Her fidelity to the memory of departed loved ones has no equal in the history of the world. And all this without the sustaining grace of God, for it must be remembered poor Rizpah was but a heathen woman, in a rude, dark age of the world. How glad we should be, that in a world where there is so much to sadden and depress, we have a Saviour to go to who knows all about our sorrow, and is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and have blessed communion with Him in whom is the one true source and fountain of all true gladness and abiding joy! In a world where so much is ever seeking to unhallow our spirits, to render them common, how high the privilege of entering into the secret of His pavilion, and there, by consecration and prayer, receive strength for days to come. Such was not Rizpah’s privilege, hence her devotion is all the more remarkable.

The history runs on. David had established his throne, and the visit of the Queen of Sheba marks the climax of the greatness of that kingdom, and the glory and wisdom of Solomon. It is a remarkable proof of the new spirit that had come upon the nation. Hitherto the people of Israel had been wholly agricultural. The great peculiarity of their country was its isolation, situated in the very midst of the nations of the earth, yet it was curiously shut in and shut out. A seaboard without a single navigable river, with a vast desert on the south, a lofty mountain range on the north, and that strange descent of the Jordan valley in the east going down more than a thousand feet below the level of the sea. But Solomon changed all that. His enterprise did not exhaust itself in building the Temple and palace of Jerusalem. He actually crossed the great desert to the south and at the head of the gulf that runs up to the east of the Arabian peninsula he made a harbor and himself superintended the building of a fleet of ships, and sent them to traffic in the east, and brought home the sandalwood and many of the treasures of the Indies, with which he enriched the palace and the garden.

SOLOMON’S MERCHANT SHIPS.