First. [That] some Gabaonites [were] slain by King Saul, the Lord himself narrates (2 Kings [2 Samuel] 21:1). But the number of the slain is nowhere set forth. Yet [that] they were very many appears from the divine punishment of this slaughter. For a three-year famine afflicted the Israelite people, in David’s time, as is there narrated; and, that that shed blood might be expiated, it was necessary, by God’s command, to give to the Gabaonites seven of Saul’s posterity, who should be afflicted with the harshest and most shameful death among the Jews — namely, driven to the cross. That [slaughter], then, which had to be punished by so foul a punishment of so many royal heads, and by so dire a famine of so many years upon the whole people of God, must needs have been a very great slaughter. Yet the magnitude of the number is had more clearly and more certainly, in a threefold [way], from v. 5 of the same chapter. For the surviving Gabaonites themselves call Saul, first, “the man who wore them down [attrivit],” [in the] Hebrew, “who consumed [them],” that is, destroyed almost all [of them]; [in] Greek, συνετέλεσεν ἐφ᾽ αὐτούς [synetelesen eph’ autous, “he made an end upon them”]. Secondly, “who oppressed [us] unjustly,” [in] Greek ἐδίωξε [ediōxe], “persecuted.” To remove one or another [man], of one city, is not to oppress or persecute it [the whole city]; but in the Hebrew is had “dimmah lanu,” that is, “he plotted in mind against us,” or “devised evils against us”; and this seems to be signified in the 70 by παραλογία ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐξολοθρεῦσαι ἡμᾶς [paralogia apo tou exolothreusai hēmas, “a cunning device, from [the intent] to destroy us utterly”], that is, “he cunningly and craftily reasoned how he might destroy us.” For “paralogismus” [false reasoning] includes cunning and guile also in this ch. 9, in the 70, v. 22. For, for that [phrase] “why did you wish to deceive us by fraud,” [in] Greek [it] is διατί παρελογίσασθέ με [diati parelogisasthe me, “why did you deceive me”]. And in the Hebrew, for “damah” is “ramah” — so that either [word] seems to import a crafted and premeditated thought, with a certain cunning. Thirdly. In the Hebrew the Gabaonites go on to say: “We have been destroyed or exterminated” — by Saul, namely — “so that it was not permitted [us] to subsist anywhere in all the border of Israel.” Whence most clearly [is] discerned a multitude of slain Gabaonites in all the places of the land of Israel. But the Hebrew text can also be taken otherwise. 1. That this third [clause] be referred to the second, thus: “He craftily contrived how we might be utterly cut off, so that it should nowhere be permitted [us] to subsist in all the borders of Israel.” And the same multitude of the slain is understood. 2. That it be a petition, thus: “Let us destroy [him], I pray,” or “let us exterminate him, lest he (namely, through his posterity) be able anywhere to subsist in all the borders of Israel.” And our Latin version renders this sense, and the Greek 70 themselves. And so, from the magnitude of the penalty and, as it were, of the retaliation [talio] which they seek, let it be understood how great a slaughter the King inflicted on them.
Secondly. But why Saul did this — there is a fourfold opinion. The first [that of] Rashi: because Saul hated the priests, and had killed them in Nob (1 Kings [1 Samuel] 21); and therefore had killed the Gabaonites along with them — or because, these [priests] being killed, all the stipend and daily food of those who were fed by them (as was said) was taken away; or because they were slain together with them. The second [that of] Lyranus: because he wished to hand over all their cities to the Israelite people, and to leave nothing in them for the Gabaonites. The third [that of] Junius and Tremellius: because, when he was exterminating the necromancers [pythons] and soothsayers from the land (1 Kings [1 Samuel] 28:3 and 9), with the same zeal of his he resolved to remove the [Gentile] nations and the pursuits of nations from the midst of Israel, on account of the Lord’s command (Exod. 23, at the end; Deut. 7 and 20). The fourth [that of] Abulensis (q. 16, on that ch. 11, bk. 2): that Saul might supply what had been omitted by the Israelites at this time — namely, that he might kill with death the Gabaonites, to whom Joshua and the other princes ought not to have granted life, and to which [killing] at last all the Israelites had assented. But indeed the cause is delivered in the text itself (v. 2): “Saul wished to strike them out of zeal, as if for the sons of Israel and Judah.” But this cause of “zeal” is very general; and the now-cited opinions try to render a special and proper cause, by showing in what thing this zeal of Saul was placed. But the First is a very inept opinion. For Saul killed the priests not “out of zeal for Israel and Judah,” but out of anger and fury against David, for his own sake. And the Second has [only] as much probability as [does] the Gabaonites’ dwelling in their own cities, concerning which above (q. 16). The Third is false. For the Gabaonites were no longer reckoned to the [Gentile] nations and their superstitions and magic, since, initiated into the sacred [rites] of the Jews, they served their sacred tabernacle and altar
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[served their tabernacle and altar]. The Fourth [opinion], therefore, is to be embraced, which shows the magnitude of Saul’s sin — since he condemned the deed of Joshua, the most wise and most holy Leader and Prophet, the judgment of all the other princes, [and] the assent at last of the people; he preferred his own judgment to [that of] all; he approved the murmuring of the commons tumultuating at the beginning; and he impiously violated the religion [binding force] of the covenants and oaths, now confirmed for a long time.