Bible Commentaries

David's Conduct on Hearing of Saul's Death. His Elegy upon Saul and Jonathan - 2 Samuel 1

David received the intelligence of the defeat of Israel and the death of Saulin the war with the Philistines from an Amalekite, who boasted of havingslain Saul and handed over to David the crown and armlet of the fallenking, but whom David punished with death for the supposed murder ofthe anointed of God (vv. 1-16). David mourned for the death of Saul andJonathan, and poured out his grief in an elegiac ode (2 Samuel 1:17-27). Thisaccount is closely connected with the concluding chapters of the first bookof Samuel.

David receives the news of Saul's death. - 2 Samuel 1:1-4. After thedeath of Saul, and David's return to Ziklag from his campaign against theAmalekites, there came a man to David on the third day, with his clothestorn and earth strewed upon his head (as a sign of deep mourning: see at 1 Samuel 4:12), who informed him of the flight and overthrow of the Israelitisharmy, and the death of Saul and Jonathan.

2 Samuel 1:1-3

2 Samuel 1:1 may be regarded as the protasis to 2 Samuel 1:2, so far as thecontents are concerned, although formally it is rounded off, and ויּשׁב forms the apodosis to ויהי: “It came to pass after thedeath of Saul, David had returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites (1Samuel 30:1-26), that David remained at Ziklag two days. And it came topass on the third day,” etc. Both of these notices of the time refer to theday, on which David returned to Ziklag from the pursuit and defeat of theAmalekites. Whether the battle at Gilboa, in which Saul fell, occurredbefore or after the return of David, it is impossible to determine. All thatfollows from the juxtaposition of the two events in 2 Samuel 1:1, is that they werenearly contemporaneous. The man “came from the army from with Saul,”and therefore appears to have kept near to Saul during the battle.

2 Samuel 1:4

David's inquiry, “How did the thing happen?” refers to thestatement made by the messenger, that he had escaped from the army ofIsrael. In the answer, אשׁר serves, like כּי in otherpassages, merely to introduce the words that follow, like our namely (vid.,Ewald, §338, b.). “The people fled from the fight; and not only have manyof the people fallen, but Saul and Jonathan his son are also dead.” וגם … וגם: not only … but also.

2 Samuel 1:5-10

To David's further inquiry how he knew this, the young manreplied (2 Samuel 1:6-10), “I happened to come (נקרא = נקרה)up to the mountains of Gilboa, and saw Saul leaning upon his spear; thenthe chariots (the war-chariots for the charioteers) and riders were pressingupon him, and he turned round and saw me, … and asked me, Who art thou?and I said, An Amalekite; and he said to me, Come hither to me, and slay me, for the cramp (שׁבץ according to the Rabbins) hath seized me (sc., so that I cannot defend myself, and must fall into the hands of the Philistines); for my soul (my life) is still whole in me. Then I went to him, and slew him, because I knew that after his fall he would not live; and took the crown upon his head, and the bracelet upon his arm, and brought them to my lord” (David). “After his fall” does not mean “after he had fallen upon his sword or spear” (Clericus), for this is neither implied in נפלו nor in על־חניתו נשׁען (“supported, i.e., leaning upon his spear”), nor are we at liberty to transfer it from 1 Samuel 31:4 into this passage; but “after his defeat,” i.e., so that he would not survive this calamity. This statement is at variance with the account of the death of Saul in 1 Samuel 31:3.; and even apart from this it has an air of improbability, or rather of untruth in it, particularly in the assertion that Saul was leaning upon his spear when the chariots and horsemen of the enemy came upon him, without having either an armour-bearer or any other Israelitish soldier by his side, so that he had to turn to an Amalekite who accidentally came by, and to ask him to inflict the fatal wound. The Amalekite invented this, in the hope of thereby obtaining the better recompense from David. The only part of his statement which is certainly true, is that he found the king lying dead upon the field of battle, and took off the crown and armlet; since he brought these to David. But it is by no means certain whether he was present when Saul expired, or merely found him after he was dead.

2 Samuel 1:11-12

This information, the substance of which was placed beyond all doubt by the king's jewels that were brought, filled David with the deepest sorrow. As a sign of his pain he rent his clothes; and all the men with him did the same, and mourned with weeping and fasting until the evening “for Saul and for Jonathan his son, for the people of Jehovah, and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword” (i.e., in battle). “The people of Jehovah” and the “house or people of Israel” are distinguished from one another, according to the twofold attitude of Israel, which furnished a double ground for mourning. Those who had fallen were first of all members of the people of Jehovah, and secondly, fellow-countrymen. “They were therefore associated with them, both according to the flesh and according to the spirit, and for that reason they mourned the more” (Seb. Schmidt). “The only deep mourning for Saul, with the exception of that of the Jabeshites (1 Samuel 31:11), proceeded from the man whom he had hated and persecuted for so many years even to the time of his death; just as David's successor wept over the fall of Jerusalem, even when it was about to destroy Himself” (O. v. Gerlach).

2 Samuel 1:13

David then asked the bringer of the news for further information concerning his own descent, and received the reply that he was the son of an Amalekite stranger, i.e., of an Amalekite who had emigrated to Israel.

2 Samuel 1:14-16

David then reproached him for what he had done: “How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the Lord's anointed?” and commanded one of his attendants to slay him (2 Samuel 1:15.), passing sentence of death in these words: “Thy blood come upon thy head (cf. Leviticus 20:9; Joshua 2:1;(1); for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain the Lord's anointed.”

(Note: “Thy mouth hath testified against thee, and out of it thou art judged (Luke 19:22), whether thou hast done it or not. If thou hast done it, thou receivest the just reward of thy deeds. If thou hast not done it, then throw the blame upon thine own lying testimony, and be content with the wages of a wicked flatterer; for, according to thine own confession, thou art the murderer of a king, and that is quite enough to betray thine evil heart. David could see plainly enough that the man was no murderer: he would show by his example that flatterers who boast of such sins as these should get no hearing from their superiors.” - Berleb. Bible.)

David regarded the statement of the Amalekite as a sufficient ground for condemnation, without investigating the truth any further; though it was most probably untrue, as he could see through his design of securing a great reward as due to him for performing such a deed (vid., 2 Samuel 4:10), and looked upon a man who could attribute such an act to himself from mere avarice as perfectly capable of committing it. Moreover, the king's jewels, which he had brought, furnished a practical proof that Saul had really been put to death. This punishment was by no means so severe as to render it necessary to “estimate its morality according to the times,” or to defend it merely from the standpoint of political prudence, on the ground that as David was the successor of Saul, and had been pursued by him as his rival with constant suspicion and hatred, he ought not to leave the murder of the king unpunished, if only because the people, or at any rate his own opponents among the people, would accuse him of complicity in the murder of the king, if not of actually instigating the murderer. David would never have allowed such considerations as these to lead him into unjust severity. And his conduct requires no such half vindication. Even on the supposition that Saul had asked the Amalekite to give him his death-thrust, as he said he had, it was a crime deserving of punishment to fulfil this request, the more especially as nothing is said about any such mortal wounding of Saul as rendered his escape or recovery impossible, so that it could be said that it would have been cruel under such circumstances to refuse his request to be put to death. If Saul's life was still “full in him,” as the Amalekite stated, his position was not so desperate as to render it inevitable that he should fall into the hands of the Philistines. Moreover, the supposition was a very natural one, that he had slain the king for the sake of a reward. But slaying the king, the anointed of the Lord, was in itself a crime that deserved to be punished with death. What David might more than once have done, but had refrained from doing from holy reverence for the sanctified person of the king, this foreigner, a man belonging to the nation of the Amalekites, Israel's greatest foes, had actually done for the sake of gain, or at any rate pretended to have done. Such a crime must be punished with death, and that by David who had been chosen by God and anointed as Saul's successor, and whom the Amalekite himself acknowledge in that capacity, since otherwise he would not have brought him the news together with the royal diadem.

David's elegy upon Saul and Jonathan. - An eloquent testimony to thedepth and sincerity of David's grief for the death of Saul is handed downto us in the elegy which he composed upon Saul and his noble sonJonathan, and which he had taught to the children of Israel. It is one of thefinest odes of the Old Testament; full of lofty sentiment, and springingfrom deep and sanctified emotion, in which, without the slightest allusionto his own relation to the fallen king, David celebrates without envy thebravery and virtues of Saul and his son Jonathan, and bitterly laments their loss. “He said to teach,” i.e., he commanded the children of Judah to practise or learn it. קשׁת, bow; i.e., a song to which the title (Kesheth) or bow was given, not only because the bow is referred to (2 Samuel 1:22), but because it is a martial ode, and the bow was one of the principal weapons used by the warriors of that age, and one in the use of which the Benjaminites, the tribe-mates of Saul, were particularly skilful: cf. 1 Chronicles 8:40; 1 Chronicles 12:2; 2 Chronicles 14:7; 2 Chronicles 17:17. Other explanations are by no means so natural; such, for example, as that it related to the melody to which the ode was sung; whilst some are founded upon false renderings, or arbitrary alterations of the text, e.g., that of Ewald (Gesch. i. p. 41), Thenius, etc. This elegy was inserted in “the book of the righteous” (see at Joshua 10:13), from which the author of the books of Samuel has taken it.

The ode is arranged in three strophes, which gradually diminish in force and sweep (viz., 2 Samuel 1:19-24, 2 Samuel 1:25-26, 2 Samuel 1:27), and in which the vehemence of the sorrow so gradually modified, and finally dies away. Each strophe opens with the exclamation, “How are the mighty fallen!” The first contains all that had to be said in praise of the fallen heroes; the deepest mourning for their death; and praise of their bravery, of their inseparable love, and of the virtues of Saul as king. The second commemorates the friendship between David and Jonathan. The third simply utters the last sigh, with which the elegy becomes silent. The first strophe runs thus:
19 The ornament, O Israel, is slain upon thy heights!

Oh how are the mighty fallen!
20 Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon;

Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph!
21 Ye mountains of Gilboa, let now dew or rain be upon you, or fields of first-fruit offerings:

For there is the shield of the mighty defiled,
The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.

22 From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty,

The bow of Jonathan turned not back,
And the sword of Saul returned not empty.

23 Saul and Jonathan, beloved and kind, in life

And in death they are not divided.

Lighter than eagles were they; stronger than lions.

24 Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,

Who clothed you in purple with delight;

Who put a golden ornament upon your apparel!

The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen! The first clause of 2 Samuel 1:19 contains the theme of the entire ode. הצּבי does not mean the gazelle here (as the Syriac and Clericus andothers render it), the only plausible support of which is the expression“upon thy heights,” whereas the parallel גּבּורים shows that byהצּבי we are to understand the two heroes Saul and Jonathan,and that the word is used in the appellative sense of ornament. The kingand his noble son were the ornament of Israel. They were slain upon theheights of Israel. Luther has given a correct rendering, so far as the sense isconcerned (die Edelsten, the noblest), after the inclyti of the Vulgate. Thepronoun “thy high places” refers to Israel. The reference is to the heightsof the mountains of Gilboa (see 2 Samuel 1:21). This event threw Israel into deepmourning, which commences in the second clause.

The tidings of this mourning were not to be carried out among the enemiesof Israel, lest they should rejoice thereat. Such rejoicing would onlyincrease the pain of Israel at the loss it had sustained. Only two of thecities of Philistia are mentioned by name, viz., Gath, which was near, andAskelon, which was farther off by the sea. The rejoicing of the daughtersof the Philistines refers to the custom of employing women to celebratethe victories of their nation by singing and dancing (cf. 1 Samuel 18:6).

Even nature is to join in the mourning. May God withdraw His blessingfrom the mountains upon which the heroes have fallen, that they may notbe moistened by the dew and rain of heaven, but, remaining in eternalbarrenness, be memorials of the horrible occurrence that has taken placeupon them. בגּלבּע הרי is an address to them; and the preposition בּ with the construct state is poetical: “mountains in Gilboa” (vid., Ewald,§289, b.). In עליכם … אל the verb יהי is wanting. The following words, תרוּמות וּשׂדי, are in apposition to the foregoing: “and let not fields of first-fruit offerings be upon you,” i.e., fields producing fruit, from which offerings of first-fruits were presented. This is the simplest and most appropriate explanation of the words, which have been very differently, and in some respects very marvellously rendered. The reason for this cursing of the mountains of Gilboa was, that there the shield of the heroes, particularly of Saul, had been defiled with blood, namely the blood of those whom the shield ought to defend. גּעל does not mean to throw away (Dietrich.), but to soil or defile (as in the Chaldee), then to abhor. “Not anointed with oil,” i.e., not cleansed and polished with oil, so that the marks of Saul's blood still adhered to it. בּלי poetical for לא. The interpolation of the words “as though” (quasi non esset unctus oleo, Vulgate) cannot be sustained.

Such was the ignominy experienced upon Gilboa by those who had alwaysfought so bravely, that their bow and sword did not turn back until it wassatisfied with the blood and fat of the slain. The figure upon which thepassage is founded is, that arrows drink the blood of the enemy, and asword devours their flesh (vid., Deuteronomy 32:42; Isaiah 34:5-6; Jeremiah 46:10). Thetwo principal weapons are divided between Saul and Jonathan, so that thebow is assigned to the latter and the sword to the former.

In death as in life, the two heroes were not divided, for they were alike inbravery and courage. Notwithstanding their difference of character, and thevery opposite attitude which they assumed towards David, the nobleJonathan did not forsake his father, although his fierce hatred towards thefriend whom Jonathan loved as his own soul might have undermined hisattachment to his father. The two predicates, נאהב, loved and amiable,and נעים, affectionate or kind, apply chiefly to Jonathan; butthey were also suitable to Saul in the earliest years of his reign, when hemanifested the virtues of an able ruler, which secured for him the lastingaffection and attachment of the people. In his mourning over the death ofthe fallen hero, David forgets all the injury that Saul has inflicted uponhim, so that he only brings out and celebrates the more amiable aspects ofhis character. The light motion or swiftness of an eagle (cf. Habakkuk 1:8), andthe strength of a lion (vid., 2 Samuel 17:10), were the leading characteristicsof the great heroes of antiquity. - Lastly, in 2 Samuel 1:24, David commemorates therich booty which Saul had brought to the nation, for the purpose ofcelebrating his heroic greatness in this respect as well. שׁני wasthe scarlet purple (see at Exodus 25:4). “With delights,” or with lovelinesses,i.e., in a lovely manner.

The second strophe (2 Samuel 1:25 and 2 Samuel 1:26) only applies to the friendship of Jonathan:
25 Oh how are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!

Jonathan (is) slain upon thy heights!
26 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan:

Thou wast very kind to me:

Stranger than the love of woman was thy love to me!

2 Samuel 1:25 is almost a verbal repetition of 2 Samuel 1:19. צר (2 Samuel 1:26) denotes the pinching or pressure of the heart consequent upon pain and mourning. נפלאתה, third pers. fem., like a verb הל with the termination lengthened (vid., Ewald, §194, b.), to be wonderful or distinguished. אהבתך, thy love to me. Comparison to the love of woman is expressive of the deepest earnestness of devoted love.

The third strophe (2 Samuel 1:27) contains simply a brief aftertone of sorrow, inwhich the ode does away:
Oh how are the mighty fallen,
The instruments of war perished!

“The instruments of war” are not the weapons; but the expression is afigurative one, referring to the heroes by whom war was carried on (vid.,Isaiah 13:5). Luther has adopted this rendering (die Streitbaren).