Adriel

Adriel the Meholathite is the son-in-law of Saul who marries Merab, the daughter once promised to David. His name returns in the Gibeonite reckoning during David's reign, when his five sons are delivered up to atone for Saul's bloodguilt.

The Marriage to Merab

When Saul's promise of Merab to David goes unfulfilled, the daughter is given elsewhere: "But it came to pass at the time when Merab, Saul's daughter, should have been given to David, that she was given to Adriel the Meholathite as wife" (1Sa 18:19). The notice is brief and supplies the basic identification — Adriel of Meholah, husband of Merab.

The Five Sons Delivered to the Gibeonites

In David's reign, when famine prompts an investigation of Saul's broken oath to the Gibeonites, the sons connected to Adriel are listed among those given over: "But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite: And he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the mountain before Yahweh, and they fell [all] seven together. And they were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest" (2Sa 21:8-9).

The verse names Adriel's wife as Michal, not Merab; it identifies him as "the son of Barzillai the Meholathite," giving his patronymic. Two of Saul's grandsons by Rizpah and the five sons born to Adriel are executed together at the start of the barley harvest.