ⓘWhile David was in the south successfully fighting...
While David was in the south successfully fighting the Amalekites (ch 30), Saul was in the north unsuccessfully fighting the Philistines.
1Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before them, and many fell slain on Mount Gilboa.
2The Philistines hotly pursued Saul and his sons, and they killedSaul’s sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua. 3When the battle intensified against Saul, the archers overtook him and wounded him critically.
4Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and run me through with it, or these uncircumcised men will come and run me through and torture me!” But his armor-bearer was terrified and refused to do it. So Saul took his own sword and fell on it.
5When his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his own sword and died with him.
6So Saul, his three sons, his armor-bearer, and all his men died together that same day.
7When the Israelites along the valley and those on the other side of the Jordan saw that the army of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons had died, they abandoned their cities and ran away. So the Philistines came and occupied their cities.
8The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. 9They cut off Saul’s head, stripped off his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the templesof their idols and among their people. 10They put his armor in the templeof the Ashtoreths and hung his body on the wall of Beth-shan.
11When the people of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, 12all their men of valor set out, journeyed all night, and retrieved the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth-shan.
When they arrived at Jabesh, they burned the bodies there. 13Then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk treein Jabesh, and they fasted seven days.
Commentary
1 Samuel 31:1
The Israelites fled southeast from the Jezreel Valley (29:1) to higher and hillier ground. With their chariots, the Philistines had the advantage in the more level valley.
Mount Gilboa is southwest of the Sea of Galilee, far from the territory of the Philistines.
Commentary
1 Samuel 31:2
Jonathan . . . Malkishua: See 14:49. This is the first mention of Saul’s son Abinadab (cp. 1 Chr 8:33; 9:39).
Commentary
1 Samuel 31:4
David had once held the position of armor bearer (16:21).
kill me: This is one of many parallels between the death of Abimelech in the time of the judges (Judg 9) and Saul, Israel’s first national king (cp. Judg 9:54).
Commentary
1 Samuel 31:8
The victorious army would strip the dead to search for anything valuable (such as clothing, weapons, or jewelry) on the corpses.
Commentary
1 Samuel 31:9
In the ancient world, the death of an enemy king was good news, for it meant that the enemy’s god had been defeated. However, little did the Philistines know that their victory would be short-lived and hollow. David, the Lord’s true anointed king, would soon come to power and pay back the Philistines mightily. Far from defeating Israel’s God, the Philistines were simply fulfilling his purpose.
fastened his body: This practice further degraded the executed person by depriving him of proper burial. It also served as a deterrent to other potential enemies (see also Gen 40:19; Deut 21:21–22; Josh 10:26; Esth 9:6–14).
Beth-shan was a short distance east of Mount Gilboa.
Commentary
1 Samuel 31:11
The people of Jabesh-gilead were returning the favor Saul had done for them when he saved them from the Ammonites and their king Nahash (11:1–13). Jabesh-gilead was about twelve miles southeast of Beth-shan and across the Jordan River.
Commentary
1 Samuel 31:12
burned the bodies: Cremation was rare. It is possible the bodies were burned because decomposition had already set in.
Commentary
1 Samuel 31:13
bones . . . Jabesh: This was not the final resting place of Saul’s remains (see 2 Sam 21:12–14).
The ending of 1 Samuel brings Israel’s history back to the situation at the end of Judges, when “Israel had no king.” Once again, the Philistines were in control. David had God’s anointing but no crown. He had wives but no sons. His affiliation with the hated Philistines might jeopardize his standing among his own people. David’s future path would be challenging, but God was clearly with him.
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