2 Samuel 21:10

spread it As a rough tent to shelter her while she watched the corpses. The usage of the word is decisive against understanding it to mean spread it under her for a bed, as is done by the Vulg. and most commentators.

dropped upon them Was poured upon them (cp. Exodus 9:33): that is, until heavy rains shewed that the crime was expiated and the judgment of drought withdrawn. The bodies were left hanging, instead of being taken down on the day of execution (Deuteronomy 21:23), until assurance was given that the satisfaction had been accepted. If the rain did not fall until the usual season, Rizpah must have kept her devoted watch for six months, from April to October.

neither the birds … nor the beasts To become the prey of bird and beast the certain fate of an unburied corpse was the depth of ignominy. Cp. 1 Samuel 17:44; 1 Samuel 17:46. "If an animal falls at night," writes an Eastern traveller, "it is not attacked till daylight, unless by the jackals and hyænas; but if it be slaughtered after sunrise, though the human eye may scan the firmament for a vulture in vain, within five minutes a speck will appear overhead, and wheeling and circling in a rapid downward flight, a huge griffon will pounce on the carcase. In a few minutes a second and third will dart down; another and another follows griffons, Egyptian vultures, eagles, kites, buzzards and ravens, till the air is darkened by the crowd. -Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." " Tristram's Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 169.