Rizpah
Fierce, grieving mother who spread sackcloth on the bare rock of Gibeah for six months — from barley harvest until the autumn rains — beating off vultures by day and jackals by night until King David honored her slain sons with burial.
Daughter of Aiah and royal concubine of King Saul, Rizpah bore two sons, Armoni and Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 3:7; 2 Samuel 21:8). When a three-year famine exposed Saul's bloodguilt in slaughtering the covenant-protected Gibeonites, Rizpah's two sons and five grandsons of Saul were handed over and executed on the mountain at Gibeah at the start of barley harvest (2 Samuel 21:1–9).
Refusing to abandon her sons' unburied bodies to disgrace, Rizpah took coarse sackcloth, spread it for herself on the bare limestone rock, and kept a relentless vigil from April to October — allowing neither the birds of the air to come upon them by day nor the beasts of the field by night. When King David heard what Rizpah had done, her maternal devotion moved the throne: David gathered the bones of Saul, Jonathan, and the seven sons for honorable burial in Kish's tomb, and God heeded the prayer for the land and sent the rain (2 Samuel 21:10–14).
The Bond (Storge) — Rizpah's Vigil on the Rock of Gibeah
Rizpah guards her sons' bodies on the rock of Gibeah for six months until King David buries them.
