Bible Strands
2 Samuel 4:10
when someone told me, ‘Look, Saul is dead,’ and thought he was a bearer of good news, I seized him and put him to death at Ziklag. That was his reward for his news!
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — David addresses Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, immediately after they bring him the head of Ish-bosheth. He interrupts their expected reward by recounting his prior execution of a man who falsely claimed to have killed Saul at Ziklag.
The words — The term מַגִּיד (maggid), rendered the one who told, identifies the messenger who assumed his report was welcome. David isolates this word to underscore the man’s mistaken belief that he carried good news.
The thread — This report mirrors the arrival in 2 Samuel 1:2 where a man comes from Saul’s camp with torn clothes and dust on his head. Both passages document David’s judicial response to unauthorized claims about the king’s death.
Why it lands — The text records David’s refusal to accept violence against God’s anointed as a means of advancing his own position. It requires readers to distinguish between receiving information and acting on it without divine authorization.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
When one told me, saying, Behold, Saul is dead, thinking to have brought good tidings, I took hold of him, and slew him in Ziklag, who thought that I would have given him a reward for his tidings:
Cross-references
- 2 Samuel 1:2 On the third day a man with torn clothes and dust on his head arrived from Saul’s camp. When he came to David, he fell to the ground to pay him homage.