2 Samuel 21:5
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, 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,
The reply of the Gibeonites to the king names Saul as the man who had consumed and oppressed them and schemed against them to destroy them so that none should remain in any of the coasts of Israel. This charge is brought forward in connection with the famine and with inquiry into its cause. His assault broke the covenant made with them, and its effects passed to later generations, for the league had kept Israel from fully expelling the inhabitants of the land as had been intended.
They were still living as a distinct people in Israel in the time of David and were able to lay their own claim before the king, which displays their political standing and that they were not chattel slaves held as property by individual Israelites. The affair shows the custom by which harm done to one person or group was counted as harm to the kindred or community, whose members held together in seeking redress. It shows that oppression is taken seriously by God even when it falls upon those outside the household of faith. The chapter to which the verse belongs teaches collective responsibility, that God holds His people answerable together when the many permit the sins and transgressions of the few to go on.