In honor of Mother’s Day, I read the children’s book Love You Forever to my class. There's a repeating phrase in the story that goes, "I'll love you forever. I'll like you for always. As long as I'm living, my baby you'll be." As I was reading it to my students, I began to think of mothers in the Bible and my mind drifted to Rizpah. You probably won’t find her name on the list of the top women of the Bible. You may never have even heard of her or simply forgotten her, but her story is one that depicts the definition of a mother’s love and perfectly illustrates a mother’s heart.
Rizpah was a concubine of Saul. She wasn’t his wife; she had no royal identity. She was simple a concubine and a mother to two of Saul’s sons. Saul had broken his covenant and the Gibeonites requested that 7 sons of Saul were to be hung; 2 of those sons being Rizpah’s. The men were hung and without another thought, life went on for those people…all except Rizpah. There was not going to be any burial and she was not allowed to take their bodies, so she did the only thing she knew to do: set up a vigil by their bodies.
The Bible tells us that she stayed there, having no protection from weather or animals or robbers, doing everything in her power to keep her sons bodies safe. I can picture her scattering birds away that came to peck at her sons’ flesh. Or scaring away the hungry animals preying on her babies. Not a picture of a demented maniac, but rather a devoted mother. She thought more of her sons’ lifeless bodies than she did for her own. She stayed there until she eventually died. Word got back to David and when he heard of her sacrifice, he took the bones of Rizpah’s sons and gave them a proper burial.
Rizpah demonstrated a love that only a mother could have. She wouldn’t leave her children alone to be harmed, even though they weren’t even alive. She was willing to sacrifice her own life, to protect their remains. She still loved the two bodies that were left hanging as a symbol of condemnation. She made her home there, right by their lifeless sides.
I’m sure that just like in the children’s book I mentioned before, Rizpah whispered to her sons, day in and day out, “I’ll love you forever. I’ll like you for always. As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” That was Rizpah’s goal: to love, protect, and honor her children as long as she was living and she did just that.
If you’ve never read that little children’s book or the story of Rizpah, I encourage you to do so…they will touch your heart. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there and I pray that every mother finds the heart and determination that Rizpah had, to love her babies.
“ Rizpah daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest till the rain poured down from the heavens on the bodies, she did not let the birds touch them by day or the wild animals by night.”
2 Samuel 21:10 NIV
