Rizia (Hastings' Dictionary)

An Ash<»rit«, 1 Ch 7*'. RIZPAH (asvn; LXX Pecr^i, except 2 S 21' where A has ■Pe>.#.de).-A concubine of king Saul. She is called the daughter of Aiah (2 hi il ). which may imply that she was a descendant of Uiat Hivite clan in the S.E.

of P-'f ^- ^^^°^^ which Esau is said to have taken one of his wives '%htn the Philistines struck down the kingdom of Saul, and David established himself m Hebron, Riziiah must have withdrawn to Mahanaim amon| the few who clung to the ruined house, lor (2 S 36-") when Abner held towards Ishbosheth the position, and was suspected of cherishing the de- ii.ms, of a Mayor of the Palace, some who doubted hil loyalty accused him of having entered into an intri-'ue with his dead master's concubine.

Ihe sting'of the accusation lay in the fact that such an alliance was regarded at that period as a sure step toward claiming the throne (cf. 2 S 16 , »nd ^\fa'Lte? period in David's reign (the exact date of the incident is uncertain, since the story is found in an appendix to the history of Davull a three years' famine fell upon the land (2 b -1 ).

The oracle, when consulted, decided that J was angry with His people, and that the cause of that an°er was to be found in the fact tbat Saul, ins'tead of remaining true to the oath of the con- gregation (Jos 9), had deprived the Gibeonites of the privileges which the oath secured them, and had oppressed this clan. David accordingly ap- proached the Gibeonites with ofl-ers to .

stanck the feud These rejected all money compensation, and,' denying that they had any quarrel with Israel at farge, demanded the blood of the giulty house. Seven descendants of Saul-hve of them sons of Merab ; two, Armoni and Alephibosheth, sons of Ki/pah— were thereupon seized and de- livered overdo their vengeance. The Gibeonites brou-ht them up to Gibeon, which, from its name 'the hUl of God,' evidently bore a sacro-sanct character, and there exposed* the ^^?'

^'']'f^^J: To the rock on this hill the unhappy Kizpah resorted, and, spreading her mourning cloak of sackcloth, keptAreary watch beneath her dead l^o scare from their prey the ^V'T''"f r'^^Xt T lie daytime, the prowling jackals ot the night. Ihe judicial execution had taken place in the early iays of barley harvest. It lends a sharper toucli to the pictu/e, if one can see the reapers cou.

e and -o m the fields, while above them the silent woman crouched beside her dead, whose death was toavert the curse from those fields, tor bI.c mus watch on the height untU the merciful ram of heaven squalled the end. The fall of rain is no inserted as a mere mark o the le-.^th » ''2^, euard; it is not 'the periodic rains in OcU be S are referred to. Probably it >« "'e"t'.

n«d as the si<Ti from which men concluded that tue famine-drought was broken, that the sacrifice was eft'-tual, that the anger of J" was averted from His land, and that now at last the motber m ght tease from her fearful watch. A. C. \N ELCil. • The word used is rare and uncertain in its meaning. W n«.,i« alai? Nu 2.S4. The likeliest sense is the general o^« explanation. See. further, ort. Ha-sowo. ROAD (Anglo-Sax.

rad, a journey, literally 'a riding,' from riilnn to ride) is found in AV only once, I S 27'" ' Whither have j'e made a road to- day?' The sense is a riding into a country with hostile intent, a ' raid ' * (so KV): Cf. Calderwood, lUst. 143, 'AH who were under the danger of the lawes for the roade of Ruthven were cliarged to crave pardon ' ; and Spenser, FQ VI. viii.

35 — ' In thcee wylde deserts where she now atKxIe, There dwelt a salvajje nation, which did live of su-alth and spoile, and niakij)^ nightly rode Into their neigbboure bordere.' See Way. J. Hastings. ROBBER, ROBBERY See Crimes and Pun- ISII5IE.S-I'S, vol. i. p. o2'2''.