2 Samuel 21:1

A three-year famine led David to seek God, who revealed it was judgment for Saul's slaughter of the Gibeonites. It matters because it shows that unatoned bloodguilt brings consequences upon a nation.

Cross-references · 24

• Josh 7:11–12Israel has sinned. Yes, they have even transgressed my covenant which I commanded them. Yes, they have even taken some of the devoted things, and have also stolen, and also deceived. They have even put it among their own stuff.
• Gen 26:1There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.
• Gen 12:10There was a famine in the land. Abram went down into Egypt to live as a foreigner there, for the famine was severe in the land.
• Jer 14:1–18This is Yahweh’s word that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.
• Ps 91:15He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him, and honor him.
• 1 Sam 22:17–19The king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn, and kill the priests of Yahweh; because their hand also is with David, and because they knew that he fled, and didn’t disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king wouldn’t put out their hand to fall on the priests of Yahweh.
• 1 Sam 23:11Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? Yahweh, the God of Israel, I beg you, tell your servant.” Yahweh said, “He will come down.”
• Job 5:8–10“But as for me, I would seek God. I would commit my cause to God,
• Lev 26:19–20I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like brass.
• Ps 50:15Call on me in the day of trouble. I will deliver you, and you will honor me.”
• Lev 26:26When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.
• 2 Sam 5:19David inquired of Yahweh, saying, “Shall I go up against the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hand?” Yahweh said to David, “Go up; for I will certainly deliver the Philistines into your hand.”
• Num 27:21He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire for him by the judgment of the Urim before Yahweh. At his word they shall go out, and at his word they shall come in, both he, and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation.”
• 2 Kgs 8:1Now Elisha had spoken to the woman whose son he had restored to life, saying, “Arise, and go, you and your household, and stay for a while wherever you can; for Yahweh has called for a famine. It will also come on the land for seven years.”
• 1 Sam 23:4Then David inquired of Yahweh yet again. Yahweh answered him, and said, “Arise, go down to Keilah; for I will deliver the Philistines into your hand.”
• 1 Kgs 18:2Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria.
• 1 Kgs 17:1Elijah the Tishbite, who was one of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, “As Yahweh, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.”
• Job 10:2I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.
• 1 Sam 23:2Therefore David inquired of Yahweh, saying, “Shall I go and strike these Philistines?” Yahweh said to David, “Go strike the Philistines, and save Keilah.”
• Josh 7:1But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the devoted things; for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against the children of Israel.
• 2 Kgs 6:25There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.
• 2 Sam 5:23When David inquired of Yahweh, he said, “You shall not go up. Circle around behind them, and attack them in front of the mulberry trees.
• Gen 41:57All countries came into Egypt, to Joseph, to buy grain, because the famine was severe in all the earth.
• Gen 43:1The famine was severe in the land.

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.