Caught in His Own Net
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him. -Proverbs 26:27
Here’s an important principle taught in Scripture: if you plan mischief and evil upon someone else, it may end up happening to you instead.
Take a clear example from the Bible as a warning:
Saul’s attempted genocide
Take the instance of Saul, while he was reigning as king over Israel. The Bible says that he tried to wipe out the Gibeonites. For it says, “and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah” (2 Samuel 21:2). Yet he was behaving foolishly, and disregarded the covenant that Joshua and the people had made with the Gibeonites hundreds of years prior.
And Joshua made peace with them [the Gibeonites], and made a league with them, to let them live: and the princes of the congregation sware unto them. -Joshua 9:15
And even back in the days of Joshua, some people thought to break this covenant with them, and kill the Gibeonites, but princes of the people gave a wise answer, and said, “we will even let them live, lest wrath be upon us, because of the oath which we sware unto them” (Joshua 9:20).
And it turns out, that this very wrath that was mentioned hundreds of years earlier came to the nation of Israel upon Saul’s attempt at destroying the Gibeonites.
Saul’s recompense
Not only was Saul unsuccessful in wiping out the Gibeonites, but after he died, a very similar thing happened to his own family. This is were the proverb at the top of the page comes into play: whoever digs a pit will fall into it.
When Saul attempted genocide on a group of people, it was truly his own family that was being destroyed. For in the process of due time, God brought a famine on the land:
Then there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David enquired of the LORD. And the LORD answered, It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites. -2 Samuel 21:1
After this inquiry, David sought to make an atonement with God, and with the Gibeonites. And the answer that would appease both parties’ wrath? The death of seven of Saul’s sons. And in the end, Saul truly destroyed his own family while he was trying to work evil against others.
And they answered the king, The man that consumed us, and that devised against us that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coasts of Israel, Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the LORD in Gibeah of Saul, whom the LORD did choose. And the king said, I will give them. -2 Samuel 21:5-6
Related posts:
Leave a Reply