Rizpah
Pronounced RIZ-puh
- Meaning
- "Hot stone; Glowing coal"
- Origin
- Hebrew
Rizpah means "hot stone" or "glowing coal" in Hebrew. She was a concubine of King Saul whose extraordinary act of maternal devotion is one of the most moving stories in the Old Testament. When David handed over seven of Saul's descendants to the Gibeonites to be executed in atonement for Saul's broken covenant, two of them were Rizpah's sons. After their deaths, Rizpah set up a vigil on the rock where their bodies hung, protecting them from birds and wild animals day and night, from barley harvest until the rains came — a period of several months. When David heard of Rizpah's faithful vigil, he was moved to properly bury the remains of Saul, Jonathan, and the seven executed men. Rizpah's fierce, unwavering love — maintaining a months-long vigil — shamed a king into doing the right thing.
Spiritual meaning
Rizpah — a 'glowing coal' — burned with fierce maternal love that refused to be extinguished. Her months-long vigil teaches that persistent, sacrificial love can move even kings to act justly.
Related verses (KJV)
"And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock... and suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night."
2 Samuel 21:10 (KJV) →"And after that God was intreated for the land."
2 Samuel 21:14 (KJV) →