I remember a shocking sermon on this woman and she leads me to think of the mothers, God treated us differently, because she gave us a special, unconditional, invaluable love for our children and that is where this great story begins; where a mother, through great sacrificial acts, demonstrates that inexplicable way of loving, even after her children died. This is similar to the love God has for us.
Joshua 9: 1-14 (RVR1960)
1 When all the kings who were on this side of the Jordan heard these things, both in the mountains and on the plains, and on all the coast of the Great Sea before Lebanon, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites,
2 agreed to fight against Joshua and Israel.
3 But the inhabitants of Gibeon, when they heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,
4 used cunning; for they went and pretended to be ambassadors, and took old sacks on their donkeys, and old wine hides, broken and patched,
5 and old shoes and lying on their feet, with old clothes on themselves; and all the bread they brought for the road was dry and moldy.
6 And they came to Joshua to the camp at Gilgal, and they said to him and to the men of Israel, We came from a far country; Make now, therefore, an alliance with us.
7 And the men of Israel answered the Hivites: Perhaps you are living among us. How then can we make a covenant with you?
8 They answered Joshua: We are your servants. And Joshua said to them: Who are you, and where are you from?
9 And they answered: Your servants have come from a far country, for the name of the Lord your God; because we have heard his fame, and everything he did in Egypt,
10 and all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan: to Sihon king of Heshbon, and to Og king of Bashan, who was in Ashtaroth.
11 Wherefore our elders and all the inhabitants of our land said unto us, Take provisions in your hand for the journey, and go to meet them, and say unto them, We are your servants; make an alliance with us now.
12 This our bread we took hot from our houses for the way the day that we left to come to you; and here it is now dry and moldy.
13 These wineskins are also filled with new ones; here they are already broken; also these our clothes and our shoes are already old because of the very long way.
14 And the men of Israel took of their provisions, and they did not inquire of the LORD.
15 And Joshua made peace with them, and made a covenant with them, granting them life; and also the princes of the congregation swore.
16 Three days after they made an alliance with them, they heard that they were their neighbors, and that they lived in their midst.
Galatians 3: 15-18 1960 (RVR1960)
15 Brothers, I speak in human terms: A covenant, even if it is a man's, once ratified, no one invalidates it, nor adds to it.
This means that King David could under no circumstances break the covenant that Joshua had made with the Gibeonites. Even having done it under deceit.
Josue did not pray to God and made the covenant and the pact was: will be with us here and they will live with us. "This being his big mistake"
Later Josue finds out that he has been deceived and sends them to call; are you ganaobitas and they have deceived me, answering these: yes and we were afraid, you forgive us the life and says Josue: already I made pact and I can not break it but they would serve in Israel like lumberjacks and water carriers.
After a long time the Gibeonites lived with the people of God, until one day a king set by man got up; his name was Saul.
Saul wanted to be right in the eyes of God and decided to kill the ganaobitas, even though they warned him of the covenant that Josue had made with them.
La Biblia en 2 Samuel 21: 1-14 nos dice cómo se desarrolló esta historia:
After the death of Saul, David takes the throne and there was hunger and misery for three years in the people of God; and it is when David consults Jehovah and he tells him that what happened is due to Saul and the house of blood when killing the ganaobitas.
David calls the Gibeonites and asks them what do they want in return so that they may bless the inheritance of Jehovah? The ganaobitas were anxious to avenge their people and sóño would achieve through the descendants of Saúl. Being these Armoni and Mefiboset, the two son that Saul had with Rizpa and 5 grandchildren children of his daughter Merab.
And they asked that these be hanged publicly in the eyes of Jehovah, just as they killed our children.
Then came the day they went to look for the sons of Rizpa and this woman cried desperately and screaming, What have my children done? And the guards responded: they are orders of the king, and they will be executed because of his father, and she asks: Why do my children have to pay for their father's mistakes? What fault do my children have of what their father did? Why do you want them?
And these respond: for the hunger to end on earth they must be hanged on the mount.
When he arrived at Mount Rizpa, he wept bitterly behind his children and wore a cloak of sackcloth; With what he defended the bodies of his children of the birds of prey and the beasts of the mount.
Rizpah saw his children die and this woman in her deep pain decided not to leave, she kept saying: "God is going to fulfill the word that he gave to my children; He said my children would be kings."*
The king's order was that the bodies should not be buried, that they should be devoured by wild beasts and birds of prey.
Rizpah took a stone at nightfall and with his cloak covered it and prostrated himself to pray saying that he had not yet seen the fulfillment of God's word about his children.
"Rizpah took a stone and used it as a typology of Christ and the mantle as a typology of authority in the Spirit"
Rizpah teaches us that we can not allow anything, nor can anyone separate us from the promises of our Father, that with his rock that is Christ and his mantle of authority and power, he defended the corpse of his children.
He did not care about the weather, the rottenness condition of those bodies; teaching us that the more difficult the situation is, we should not give up and fight for what God has given us and no one will be able to take them from us.
It was not until the townspeople told the King what Rizpa was doing; and it is then, when he sends to look for the bones of the children of Rizpa, making him a grave worthy of what were "Reyes"
"What God promises us, he fulfills"
