2 Samuel 21:6

Hang them up. The Gibeonites may have had in mind the incident recorded in Num. 25:4, where the heads of the people guilty of the crime of Baal-peor were to be hung “up before the Lord,” that “the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.” The present situation was different, however, for instead of the guilty themselves being punished, the children were substituted.

Gibeah. The LXX reads “Gibeon,” which some regard as correct (see RSV). However, there is good reason to retain the reading of the Hebrew text. Gibeah was the home of Saul (1 Sam. 10:26; 11:4). It would seem fitting that expiation for Saul’s crime be made at his ancestral home. It is true that at that time there was a national shrine at Gibeon, the place where the tabernacle then stood and where the Israelites offered sacrifices (1 Kings 3:4; 1 Chron. 16:39, 40; 2 Chron. 1:3). But there is no reason to believe that the execution of these descendants of Saul was regarded as a propitiatory human sacrifice and that it therefore had to be carried out at Gibeon, as if it would be more acceptable there.