The commentary on 1 Samuel 31 details the tragic end of King Saul during the battle against the Philistines at Mount Gilboa, where Israel faced severe defeat and loss, including the deaths of Saul's sons. In despair, Saul ultimately takes his own life after being critically wounded, leading to the collapse of his leadership and widespread panic among the Israelites. This event highlights the consequences of Saul's unfaithfulness to God and serves as a cautionary tale about the impacts of bad leadership.

1. 1 SAMUEL 31 COMMENTARY
WRITTEN AND EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Saul Takes His Life
1 Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the
Israelites fled before them, and many fell slain on
Mount Gilboa.
PEASE, "This tragic ending of the life and reign of Saul is clear evidence that the
good guys do not always win. He was not good, but his armies were of the people of
God, and they went down in defeat. God allowed those who were his enemies to
defeat and destroy his people. It was in judgment due to the rebel spirit of the king.
A bad leader brings bad things on his people, and those who follow a bad leader
suffer the consequence of his badness. Robert Roe said, "You never sin as an island.
Not only do you get hurt, but those dearest to you get hurt. In this case Saul lost his
three sons."
CLARKE, "Now the Philistines fought - This is the continuation of the account
given in 1Sa_29:1-11.
The men of Israel fled - It seems as if they were thrown into confusion at the first
onset, and turned their backs upon their enemies.
GILL, "Now the Philistines fought against Israel,.... Being come to Jezreel where
Israel pitched, 1Sa_29:1; they fell upon them, began the battle:
and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines; at the first onset, as it
should seem:
and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa; which was near, and whither fleeing they
were pursued and slain, at least great numbers of them.
HENRY, "The day of recompence has now come, in which Saul must account for the
blood of the Amalekites which he had sinfully spared, and that of the priests which he
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2. had more sinfully spilt; that of David too, which he would have spilt, must come into the
account. Now his day has come to fall, as David foresaw, when he should descend into
battle and perish, 1Sa_26:10. Come and see the righteous judgments of God.
I. He sees his soldiers fall about him, 1Sa_31:1. Whether the Philistines were more
numerous, better posted, and better led on, or what other advantages they had, we are
not told; but it seems they were more vigorous, for they made the onset; they fought
against Israel, and the Israelites fled and fell. The best of the troops were put into
disorder, and multitudes slain, probably those whom Saul had employed in pursuing
David. Thus those who had followed him and served him in his sin went before him in
his fall and shared with him in his plagues.
JAMISON, "1Sa_31:1-7. Saul having lost his army at Gilboa, and his sons being
slain, he and his armor-bearer kill themselves.
Now the Philistines fought against Israel — In a regular engagement, in which
the two armies met (1Sa_28:1-4), the Israelites were forced to give way, being annoyed
by the arrows of the enemy, which, destroying them at a distance before they came to
close combat, threw them into panic and disorder. Taking advantage of the heights of
Mount Gilboa, [the Israelites] attempted to rally, but in vain. Saul and his sons fought
like heroes; but the onset of the Philistines being at length mainly directed against the
quarter where they were, Jonathan and two brothers, Abinadab or Ishui (1Sa_14:49)
and Melchishua, overpowered by numbers, were killed on the spot.
K&D, "The account of the war between the Philistines and Israel, the commencement
of which has already been mentioned in 1Sa_28:1, 1Sa_28:4., and 1Sa_29:1, is resumed
in 1Sa_31:1 in a circumstantial clause; and to this there is attached a description of the
progress and result of the battle, more especially with reference to Saul. Consequently, in
1Ch_10:1, where there had been no previous allusion to the war, the participle ‫ים‬ ִ‫מ‬ ָ‫ח‬ ְ‫ל‬ִ‫נ‬ is
changed into the perfect. The following is the way in which we should express the
circumstantial clause: “Now when the Philistines were fighting against Israel, the men of
Israel fled before the Philistines, and slain men fell in the mountains of Gilboa” (vid.,
1Sa_28:4). The principal engagement took place in the plain of Jezreel. But when the
Israelites were obliged to yield, they fled up the mountains of Gilboa, and were pursued
and slain there.
PULPIT, "1Sa_31:1, 1Sa_31:2
The Philistines fought. Literally it is a participle present, "the Philistines are
warring," as if it were a mere resumption of 1Sa_28:1. In the battle fought on the day
following Saul’s visit to the witch the Israelites were defeated, and fell in large numbers
slain in Mount Gilboa, either because the Philistines had attacked them there, or
because, after fighting in the valley of Jezreel, they had made on its steep ridges their last
defence. Among those thus slain were the three sons of Saul mentioned in 1Sa_14:49,
where see note.
BENSON, "1 Samuel 31:1. Now the Philistines fought against Israel — That is, gave
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3. them battle. As they began the quarrel, (1 Samuel 29:1,) so they seem to have begun
the fight. It must be observed that the foregoing chapter is a digression, to relate
what happened to David at this time. The sacred writer now resumes the thread of
the narrative in regard to Saul, relating what befell him upon his return from
Endor. And it seems he was scarce returned before the Philistines attacked his
camp, and, after some resistance, broke into it. Delaney thinks that they were
encouraged to this attempt by some secret information of Saul’s having stolen out of
the camp the evening before, with his general, Abner, (who is supposed to have been
one of his attendants,) and another person. Certainly intelligence of that kind could
not be hard to be obtained, and, if obtained, would be a strong encouragement to
such an attack. And if this were the case, Saul’s applying to the enchantress was the
immediate cause of his destruction. See 1 Chronicles 10:13, where one cause of his
death is stated to be his applying for counsel to one who had a familiar spirit.
COFFMAN, "THE DEATH OF SAUL AND HIS SONS ON MOUNT GILBOA
"Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled before the
Philistines, and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. And the Philistines overtook Saul and
his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchishua, the sons
of Saul. The battle pressed hard upon Saul, and the archers found him; and he was
badly wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armor-bearer. "Draw your
sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me
through, and make sport of me." But his armor-bearer would not, for he feared
greatly. Therefore Saul took his own sword, and fell upon it. And when his armor-
bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword, and died with him. Thus
Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor-bearer, and all his men, on the same
day together. And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley
and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and
his sons were dead, they forsook their cities and fled; and the Philistines came and
dwelt in them."
This paragraph records the near destruction of Israel. The reign of Saul was here
terminated in bloody disaster; and many of the Israelites fled for the dens and caves
of the Judean hills, leaving their cities to the tender mercies of the Philistines.
"All the men of Israel" (1 Samuel 31:1). Significantly, not `all the men of Israel'
were slain. These words refer to the particular detachment of Abner's army which,
along with Saul and his sons, was surrounded on Mount Gilboa and annihilated. A
thing like this could have happened only because Saul's day of grace had expired,
and God fulfilled what he had said through his prophet Samuel, that the Lord had
rejected him from being king over Israel.
"Now the Philistines fought against Israel" (1 Samuel 31:1). Payne, like most
modern scholars saw this battle as coming immediately after 1 Samuel 29:11,[1]
following, as so many do, the alleged "prophecy of Samuel" (1 Samuel 28:19) to the
effect that Saul and his sons would die the next day. (See our comment on this in 1
Samuel 28.) There is a very real possibility that the opinion of Methodius is correct,
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4. that the prophecy was a fraudulent imposition upon Saul by the witch, and that the
`prophecy itself' was not fulfilled.
H. P. Smith's claim that there are two contradictory Biblical accounts of Saul's
death, the one here, and the one in 2 Samuel 1:6-10,[2] is incorrect, being only an
example of another radical scholar's willingness to believe an Amalekite rather than
the inspired record. One must be naive indeed to accept the word of that self-
seeking Amalekite who came to David with his tale regarding Saul's death, as
anything but a lie. David himself considered it a lie and put the prevaricator to
death.
LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:1 is connected with 1 Samuel 29:1 (comp. 1 Samuel 28:1; 1
Samuel 28:4 sq.). The partcp. “were fighting” [so the Heb.] presupposes the account
given in 1 Samuel 28:1; 1 Samuel 28:4 and 1 Samuel 29:1 of the preparations for the
battle, and thence forms an adjectival sentence, which is to be understood thus:
“When now the Philistines,” etc., “the men of Israel fled,” etc. Driven from the place
the men of Israel took refuge in mount Gilboa (see 1 Samuel 28:4), and were thither
followed by the Philistines and slain. [Or, less probably, the mountain itself may
have been the scene of battle.—Tr.]
WHEDON "1. The men of Israel fled — It was probably whispered among the
Israelitish troops that Saul had received a communication from Samuel, and that
their defeat and their leader’s death had been foretold. This would unnerve their
bravest heroes, and spread terror among all. And after his return from that
midnight conference with the witch of Endor Saul himself could have had no spirit
to fight.
COKE, "1 Samuel 31:1. Now the Philistines fought against Israel— That is, as most
interpreters understand it, began to fight against, or attacked, the Israelites. The
word ‫נלחמים‬ nilchamim, as Dr. Delaney observes, might as properly have been
rendered assaulted. He is of opinion, not only that the Philistines attacked Saul in
his camp, but that they did so soon after his return from Endor, and that, probably,
they were encouraged to this attempt by some secret information of Saul's having
stolen out of the camp the evening before with his general (for Abner is supposed to
have been one of his attendants) and another person: and if this was the case, then
his applying to the Pythoness was the immediate cause of his destruction; now this
gives light to 1 Chronicles 10:13 and at the same time receives light from it.
ELLICOTT, "(1) Now the Philistines fought against Israel.—The narrator here is
very abrupt. No doubt a devoted patriot, it was very bitter for him to write the story
of the fatal day of Gilboa. Yet there were certain things belonging to that fated day
which were necessary for every child of Israel to know. It was right that the
punishment of the rejected king should be known; right too that the people should
be assured that the remains of the great first king lay in no unknown and
unhonoured sepulchre. It was well too that coming generations should honour the
devoted loyalty of the grateful men of Jabesh-Gilead. But the narrator hurries over
his unwelcome task; very curtly he picks up the dropped threads of 1 Samuel
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5. 28:1-5; 1 Samuel 29:2. The march of the Philistines northward into the valley of
Jezreel has been told, and their gallant array—as under the many banners of their
lords they passed on by hundreds and by thousands—has been glanced at. The
assembling of the armies of Israel at Shunem, overlooking the Jezreel vale, has been
narrated; and there the historian dwelt on the terror of King Saul, which led to the
visit to the witch of En-dor. David’s fortunes at this juncture then occupied the
writer or compiler of the Book; but now he returns, with evident reluctance, to the
battle which rapidly followed the En-dor visit of Saul.
He simply relates that the hosts joined battle. The locality of the fight is not
mentioned, but it was most likely somewhere in that long vale which was spread out
at the foot of the hills occupied by the hostile camps
CONSTABLE, "The battle of Mt Gilboa 31:1-6
God had announced that Saul would deliver His people from the hand of the
Philistines (1 Samuel 9:16). However, Saul frustrated God's purpose by not
following the Lord faithfully. Consequently the Philistines got the better of Saul and
his soldiers (cf. Joshua 1:7-9). This battle took place in 1011 B.C., the last year of
Saul's reign. Three other important battles took place nearby in the Jezreel Valley:
Deborah and Barak's defeat of Sisera (Judges 4:15; Judges 5:21), Gideon's victory
over the Midianites (Judges 7), and Pharaoh Neco's killing of King Josiah (2 Kings
23:29). The name of God does not appear in this chapter, perhaps suggesting that
He had now given up Saul to the consequences of his apostasy (cf. Romans 1).
Jonathan, a faithful son and subject of the king, followed his father into battle. The
death of this godly man because of his father's sins seems unfair as well as tragic,
but God permitted it. David would replace Saul on the throne. Another son of Saul,
Ish-bosheth, also known as Eshbaal, must not have been present in the battle (cf. 2
Samuel 2:8; 2 Samuel 2:10; 2 Samuel 2:12; 2 Samuel 3:8; 2 Samuel 3:14-15; 2
Samuel 4:5; 2 Samuel 4:8; 2 Samuel 4:12; 1 Chronicles 8:33).
David had been Saul's armor-bearer before he had to flee from Saul's presence (1
Samuel 16:21). Saul, probably fearing that the Philistines would torture and abuse
him, [Note: McCarter, p. 443.] asked his armor-bearer to kill him, but the young
man refused to do so, as David had when he had opportunity. Why this armor-
bearer feared to kill Saul is unclear. Perhaps he feared the disgrace that would have
hounded him, or even death, for slaying the king. Or perhaps, like David, he feared
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6. God and so would not kill the Lord's anointed. This insubordination, which had
characterized Saul's conduct before Yahweh, led Saul to take his own life. The Bible
records three other suicides: Ahithophel's (2 Samuel 17:23), Zimri's (1 Kings 16:18),
and Judas' (Matthew 27:5).
"Isn't it interesting, he's very concerned about his image with the enemy but shows
little concern for his relationship with God whom he is about to meet?" [Note:
Swindoll, p. 122.]
Eli, too, died as a result of a battle with the Philistines. Some of his sons also died (1
Samuel 4:17). Eli had served as Israel's high priest unfaithfully for 40 years when he
died (1 Samuel 4:18), and Saul had served as her king for about 40 years when he
died (1 Samuel 13:1). Eli fell off his seat and died (1 Samuel 4:18), but Saul fell on
his sword and died. [Note: Youngblood, "1, 2 Samuel," pp. 798-99.] Both men were
disappointments to God and His people.
Saul's armor-bearer also committed suicide in battle, probably because if he had
outlived the one whom he should have protected with his life, he could have been
executed for dereliction of duty. The soldiers who went into battle with Saul also
perished. The king not only died, but he took many of his own men down with him.
Verses 1-13
The death of Saul ch. 31
The scene shifts back to Mt. Gilboa in the North and Saul. Saul's battle with the
Philistines in this chapter may have been simultaneous with David's battle against
the Amalekites in the previous one.
"Chapters 30 and 31 gain in poignancy and power if we regard their events as
simultaneous. In the far south, David is anxious about his own and about spoil,
while in the far north Saul and the Israelite army perish.... While David smites
(hikkah) ['fought,' 1 Samuel 30:17] the Amalekites, and they flee (nus) [1 Samuel
30:17], the Philistines smite (hikkah) ['killed,' 1 Samuel 31:2] Saul and his sons, and
Israel flees (nus) [1 Samuel 31:1; 1 Samuel 31:7]." [Note: Miscall, pp. 181-82.]
The account of Saul's death here differs from the one that the Amalekite messenger
gave David later, which the writer recorded in 2 Samuel 1. This one is quite clearly
the factual one (cf. 1 Chronicles 10). [Note: See Gordon, I & II Samuel . . ., p. 202.]
HAWKER, "This is a melancholy Chapter, which relates to us the sequel of Saul's
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7. history; the sad termination of a sinful life. The battle between the Philistines, and
Israel, in mount Gilboa, in which the Philistines are conquerors, and Saul,
Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, his sons, are slain. - Israel possessed by the
Philistines; the camp of Saul plundered, his dead body, and those of his sons,
carried away to Beth-shan: but afterwards rescued by the men of Jabesh-gilead.
These are the principal contents rehearsed in this Chapter, which ends the Book.
Verse 1-2
(1) ¶ Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from
before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. (2) And the Philistines
followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and
Abinadab, and Malchishua, Saul's sons.
David had prophesied, (1 Samuel 26:10) that either the Lord should smite Saul; or,
his day should come to die; or, he should descend into battle, and perish; and now
the day was arrived. The preludes to his death were most distressing. He beholds his
army routed, his faithful soldiers slain, and his three sons killed by his side. - Even
Jonathan, the lovely, and beloved Jonathan, is slain also. Perhaps the Reader may
be inclined to wish that this affectionate friend of David, had been spared. But not
so. God's thoughts are not our thoughts; nor our ways the Lord's ways. Yet Reader!
do not forget, that though in this solemn visitation, that is common to all men, there
is one event in this scene, to the righteous, and to the wicked; yet the righteous hath
hope in his death: merciful men are taken away from the evil to come, and enter into
peace. See Proverbs 14:32; Isaiah 57:1-2.
PETT, "Verses 1-7
The Death Of Saul And Jonathan On Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:1-7).
It is noteworthy that in the description of the battle the emphasis is not on the defeat
of Israel, even though that is briefly described, but on the death of Saul and its
consequences. Nevertheless even in its brevity we do get a vivid picture of the last
stages of the battle as it brings about the deaths of Saul and his heirs.
Analysis.
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8. a Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before
the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:1).
b And the Philistines followed hard on Saul and on his sons, and the Philistines slew
Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchi-shua, the sons of Saul (1 Samuel 31:2).
c And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers overtook him, and he was
greatly distressed by reason of the archers. And Saul said to his armourbearer,
“Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come
and thrust me through, and abuse me” (1 Samuel 31:3-4 a).
d But his armourbearer would not, for he was very much afraid. Therefore Saul
took his sword, and fell on it (1 Samuel 31:4 b).
c And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell on his sword in
similar fashion, and died with him (1 Samuel 31:5).
b So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same
day together (1 Samuel 31:6).
a And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and those
who were beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his
sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled, and the Philistines came and dwelt
in them (1 Samuel 31:7).
Note than in ‘a’ the Israelites fled before the Philistines, and in the parallel the
remainder of Israel did the same. In ‘b’ the Philistines pressed hard on Saul and
slew his three sons, and in the parallel Saul and his three sons are described as dead.
In ‘c’ Saul calls on his armourbearer to thrust him through, and in the parallel the
armourbearer thrusts himself through. Centrally in ‘d’ we have described the death
of Saul.
1 Samuel 31:1
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9. ‘Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the
Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa.’
What must have been a fiercely fought battle between two totally unmatched armies
is told briefly. We are not told where it actually took place, although the assumption
must be that it was in the Valley of Jezreel. All that we are told is that the Philistines
fought against Israel (for the description compare 1 Samuel 28:1. This description is
picking up the story from there), and that the men of Israel fled over Mount Gilboa
where they were systematically slaughtered. The writer is not interested in the
details of the battle, only in the consequences of it for Israel.
We are even left in some doubt as to whom ‘the men of Israel’ were. They would
undoubtedly include Saul’s standing army, and it may well be that it was mainly
these who suffered as they bravely bore the main brunt of the rearguard action,
while what was left of the ‘volunteer’ army escaped over the Jordan under the
leadership of Abner, the overall general of the army (1 Samuel 31:7; 2 Samuel
2:8-9). Saul’s supreme bravery comes out, both in his being an important part of the
rearguard action, and in the fact that he fought at all, given the fact of what he had
learned from Samuel through the medium of Endor.
2 The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his
sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab
and Malki-Shua.
PEASE, "This is a sad situation for many, but more so for David, for Jonathan was
his best friend, and he was innocent of all the evils of his father. The death of these
sons was tragic, yet important in God’s plan. In taking the logical heirs to Saul’s
throne, God cleared the way for David to become the next king of Israel. We know
that if Jonathan had survived, he would have gladly yielded the throne to David.
But the same could not be said of Saul’s other sons, so God was merciful to the
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10. nation and to David in taking Saul’s sons in battle. God was also merciful to
Jonathan, sparing him the ordeal of having to side with David against his own
brothers. This was an honorable way to die, and it prevented some terrible scenes of
battle within the family of God’s people.
Saul’s sins cost him his life-but not his only. How many innocent people, including
godly Jonathan, suffered and died that day because of the consequences of Saul’s
sin? We must never think that we live or die only to ourselves. The drunken driver
kills not only himself, but all in his car, and innocent people who have no connection
with his sinful drinking. Sinful and irresponsible behavior can kill many innocent
people because the consequences of their behavior have an impact on all who are
near them. Good people always die in warfare, for it is unavoidable when there is a
powerful enemy trying to kill people. God’s people lost many men in battle with evil
people even when they won the war. No one is safe in war unless God has a special
purpose to preserve them, but this is a rare part of God’s plan. We see this in
Christian history many times, and true believers in Christ are killed by the
thousands by wicked people. There is no promise from God to protects his people in
warfare, even though God did do this for some special people in his plan, such as
David. Jonathan was a good guy, but he dies right along with the bad guys, and this
is just one of the facts of life that has to be accepted in times of war.
Saul had one other son who was not in this battle, and he survived to become the
king of Israel for a short time. This will be seen in II Sam. 2
BENSON, "1 Samuel 31:2. The Philistines slew Jonathan — David’s dear friend;
God so ordering it for the further exercise of David’s faith and patience; and that
David might depend upon God alone for his crown, and receive it solely from him,
and not from Jonathan; who, doubtless, had he lived, would have speedily settled
the crown upon David’s head. There was also a special providence of God in taking
away Jonathan, (who, of all Saul’s sons, seems to have been the fairest for the
crown,) for preventing divisions, which might have happened among the people
concerning the successor: David’s way to the crown being by this means made the
more clear. Abinadab — Called also Ishui, 1 Samuel 14:49. Ish-bosheth was not
here, being possibly at home for the management of affairs there. Thus the
prediction of Samuel was fulfilled: but who can forbear dropping a tear over the
faithful, the amiable, the excellent Jonathan? “There are few characters among men
more lovely or more extraordinary than his: fortitude, fidelity, magnanimity! a soul
susceptible of the most refined friendship, and superior to all the temptations of
ambition and vanity! and all these crowned with the most resigned submission to the
will of God.” — Delaney.
CLARKE, "Followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons - They, seeing the
discomfiture of their troops, were determined to sell their lives as dear as possible, and
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11. therefore maintained the battle till the three brothers were slain.
GILL, "And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul,.... Stuck to him, pushed
him close, bore hard upon him in that part of the army where he was having a design
upon his person:
and upon his sons; who were with him:
and the Philistines slew Jonathan; who is mentioned first, being the eldest son,
and perhaps first slain; and this was so ordered by the providence of God, that David's
way to the throne might be more clear and easy; for though Jonathan would not have
opposed him himself, yet the people, fond of him, would, at least many of them, been for
setting him on the throne; and though he would have refused it, knowing David was the
Lord's anointed, and have made interest for him, this would have looked as if he had
made him king, and not the Lord:
and Abinadab and Malchishua, Saul's sons; these also were slain; former of these
is called Ishui, 1Sa_14:49; Ishbosheth either was not in the battle, being left at home, as
unfit for war, or to take care of the kingdom; or else he fled with Abner, and others, and
escaped, and who was to be a trial to David.
HENRY, "II. He sees his sons fall before him. The victorious Philistines pressed most
forcibly upon the king of Israel and those about him. His three sons were next him, it is
probable, and they were all three slain before his face, to his great grief (for they were the
hopes of his family) and to his great terror, for they were now the guard of his person,
and he could conclude no other than that his own turn would come next. His sons are
named (1Sa_31:2), and it grieves us to find Jonathan among them: that wise, valiant,
good man, who was as much David's friend as Saul was his enemy, yet falls with the rest.
Duty to his father would not permit him to stay at home, or to retire when the armies
engaged; and Providence so orders it that he falls in the common fate of his family,
though he never involved himself in the guilt of it; so that the observation of Eliphaz
does not hold (Job_4:7), Who ever perished being innocent? For here was one. What
shall we say to it? 1. God would hereby complete the vexation of Saul in his dying
moments, and the judgment that was to be executed upon his house. If the family must
fall, Jonathan, that is one of it, must fall with it. 2. He would hereby make David's way to
the crown the more clear and open. For, though Jonathan himself would have cheerfully
resigned all his title and interest to him (we have no reason to suspect any other), yet it is
very probable that many of the people would have made use of his name for the support
of the house of Saul, or at least would have come in but slowly to David. If Ishbosheth
(who was now left at home as one unfit for action, and so escaped) had so many friends,
what would Jonathan have had, who had been the darling of the people and had never
forfeited their favour? Those that were so anxious to have a king like the nations would
be zealous for the right line, especially if that threw the crown upon such a head as
Jonathan's. This would have embarrassed David; and, if Jonathan could have prevailed
to bring in all his interest to David, then it would have been said that Jonathan had
made him king, whereas God was to have all the glory. This is the Lord's doing. So that
though the death of Jonathan would be a great affliction to David, yet, by making him
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12. mindful of his own frailty, as well as by facilitating his accession to the throne, it would
be an advantage to him. 3. God would hereby show us that the difference between good
and bad is to be made in the other world, not in this. All things come alike to all. We
cannot judge of the spiritual or eternal state of any by the manner of their death; for in
that there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked.
K&D, "1Sa_31:2-6
The Philistines followed Saul, smote (i.e., put to death) his three sons (see at 1Sa_
14:49), and fought fiercely against Saul himself. When the archers (‫ת‬ ֶ‫שׁ‬ ֶ‫קּ‬ ַ‫בּ‬ ‫ים‬ ִ‫ָשׁ‬‫נ‬ֲ‫א‬ is an
explanatory apposition to ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ ‫מּ‬ ַ‫)ה‬ hit him, i.e., overtook him, he was greatly alarmed
at them (‫ל‬ ֶ‫ָח‬‫י‬, from ‫יל‬ ִ‫ח‬ or ‫,)חוּל‬
(Note: The lxx have adopted the rendering καὶ ἐτραυμάτισαν εἰς τὰ ὑποχόνδρια,
they wounded him in the abdomen, whilst the Vulgate rendering is vulneratus est
vehementer a sagittariis. In 1Ch_10:3 the Sept. rendering is καὶ ἐπόνεσεν ἀπὸ τῶν
τόξων, and that of the Vulgate et vulneraverunt jaculis. The translators have
therefore derived ‫ל‬ ֶ‫ָח‬‫י‬ from ‫ל‬ַ‫ל‬ ָ‫ח‬ = ‫ה‬ָ‫ל‬ ָ‫,ח‬ and then given a free rendering to the other
words. But this rendering is overthrown by the word ‫ֹד‬‫א‬ ְ‫,מ‬ very, vehemently, to say
nothing of the fact that the verb ‫ל‬ַ‫ל‬ ָ‫ח‬ or ‫ה‬ָ‫ל‬ ָ‫ח‬ cannot be proved to be ever used in the
sense of wounding. If Saul had been so severely wounded that he could not kill
himself, and therefore asked his armour-bearer to slay him, as Thenius supposes, he
would not have had the strength to pierce himself with his sword when the armour-
bearer refused. The further conjecture of Thenius, that the Hebrew text should be
read thus, in accordance with the lxx, ‫ים‬ ִ‫ֹר‬‫ר‬ ְ‫מּ‬ ַ‫ה‬ ‫ל‬ ֶ‫א‬ ‫ל‬ ֶ‫ָח‬‫יּ‬ַ‫ו‬, “he was wounded in the
region of the gall,” is opposed by the circumstance that ὑποχόνδρια is not the gall or
region of the gall, but what is under the χόνδρος, or breast cartilage, viz., the
abdomen and bowels.)
and called upon his armour-bearer to pierce him with the sword, “lest these
uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and play with me,” i.e., cool their courage
upon me by maltreating me. But as the armour-bearer would not do this, because he was
very much afraid, since he was supposed to be answerable for the king's life, Saul
inflicted death upon himself with his sword; whereupon the armour-bearer also fell
upon his sword and died with his king, so that on that day Saul and this three sons and
his armour-bearer all died; also “all his men” (for which we have “all his house” in the
Chronicles), i.e., not all the warriors who went out with him to battle, but all the king's
servants, or all the members of his house, sc., who had taken part in the battle. Neither
Abner nor his son Ishbosheth was included, for the latter was not in the battle; and
although the former was Saul's cousin and commander-in-chief (see 1Sa_14:50-51), he
did not belong to his house or servants.
COKE, "1 Samuel 31:2. And the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, &c.—
Ish-bosheth probably either was not in the battle, or escaped by flight. Thus the
prediction of Samuel was fulfilled. But who can forbear to drop a tear over the
faithful, the amiable, the excellent Jonathan. There are few characters among men
12

13. more lovely, or more extraordinary: fortitude, fidelity, magnanimity; a soul
susceptible of the most refined friendship, and superior to all the temptations of
ambition and vanity; and all these accomplishments crowned with the most resigned
submission to the will of God.
LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:2. Sept. renders: “the Philistines press closely on, come up
with (συνάπτουσι);” it does not, however, thence follow that they read Impf. Qal (of
‫)דבק‬ with ְ‫,ל‬ for the Hiph. with Acc. (so 1 Chronicles 10:2 it is used with the Prep.
“after,” comp. 1 Samuel 14:22; Judges 20:45), also means “to hang closely at one’s
feet, overtake him” (comp. Judges 18:22).—On the three sons of Saul see on 1
Samuel 14:49.
ELLICOTT, "(2) And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons.—
“The details of the battle are but seen in broken snatches, as in the short scene of a
battle acted upon the stage, or beheld at remote glimpses by an accidental spectator.
But amidst the showers of arrows from the Philistine archers, or pressed hard even
on the mountain side by their charioteers, the figure of the king emerges from the
darkness. His three sons have fallen before him; his armourbearer lies dead beside
him.”—Stanley: Jewish Church, Lect. 21
And the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchi-shua, Saul’s sons.—
But while, in his own record of the national disaster, the compiler or historian, in his
stern sorrow, expunges every detail, and represses every expression of feeling, he
gives us in the next chapter (2 Samuel 1:1-27) the stately elegy, in the beautiful
moving words which the successor to the throne wrote on the death of the first king
and his heroic son. Without comment he copies into his record the hymn of David on
Saul and Jonathan, just as he found it in the Book of Jashar (the collection of
national odes celebrating the heroes of the Theocracy). “There David speaks of the
Saul of earlier times—the mighty conqueror, the delight of his people, the father of
his beloved and faithful friend—like him in life, united with him in death.”
(Stanley).
“Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives
And in their death they were not divided.
Than eagles they were swifter, than lions more strong.”
13

14. (2 Samuel 1:23.) From the lost Book of Jashar.
Nothing is known of the two younger princes who fell fighting here by their father’s
side, sword in hand against the enemies of their country.
The hero Jonathan and his two brave brothers, as far as we can gather from the
scanty details of the battle after the army was routed in the valley of Jezreel,
retreated (fighting all the while) to the hill of Gilboa. There, it seems, they made the
last stand with the fideles of the royal house of Saul (1 Samuel 31:6), and there, no
doubt defending the king to the last, they fell.
3 The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when
the archers overtook him, they wounded him
critically.
BARNES, "He was sore wounded - Better, “he was sore afraid” (compare Deu_
2:25). Saul’s fear is explained in 1Sa_31:4.
CLARKE, "He was sore wounded of the archers - It is likely that Saul’s sons
were slain by the archers, and that Saul was now mortally wounded by the same.
Houbigant translates, The archers rushed upon him, from whom he received a grievous
wound. He farther remarks that had not Saul been grievously wounded, and beyond
hope of recovery, he would not have wished his armor-bearer to despatch him; as he
might have continued still to fight, or have made his escape from this most disastrous
battle. Some of the versions render it, He Feared the archers greatly; but this is by no
means likely.
GILL, "And the battle went sore against Saul,.... Pressed heavy upon him; he was
the butt of the Philistines, they aimed at his person and life:
and the archers hit him; or "found him" (a); the place where was, and directed their
14

15. arrows at him:
and he was sore wounded of the archers; or rather "he was afraid" of them, as the
Targum, for as yet he was not wounded; and so the Syriac and Arabic versions render it,
and is the sense Kimchi and Ben Melech give of the word: he was not afraid of death, as
Abarbinel observes, he chose to die; but he was afraid he should be hit by the archers in
such a way that he should not die immediately, and should be taken alive and ill used;
the Philistines, especially the Cherethites, were famous for archery; See Gill on Zep_2:5.
HENRY, "III. He himself is sorely wounded by the Philistines and then slain by his
own hand. The archers hit him (1Sa_31:3), so that he could neither fight nor fly, and
therefore must inevitably fall into their hands. Thus, to make him the more miserable,
destruction comes gradually upon him, and he dies so as to feel himself die. To such an
extremity was he now reduced that, 1. He was desirous to die by the hand of his own
servant rather than by the hand of the Philistines, lest they should abuse him as they had
abused Samson. Miserable man! He finds himself dying, and all his care is to keep his
body out of the hands of the Philistines, instead of being solicitous to resign his soul into
the hands of God who gave it, Ecc_12:7. As he lived, so he died, proud and jealous, and a
terror to himself and all about him. Those who rightly understand the matter think it of
small account, in comparison, how it is with them in death, so it may but be well with
them after death. Those are in a deplorable condition indeed who, being bitter in soul,
long for death, but it cometh not (Job_3:20, Job_3:21), especially those who, despairing
of the mercy of god, like Judas, leap into a hell before them, to escape a hell within them.
2. When he could not obtain that favour he became his own executioner, thinking hereby
to avoid shame, but running upon a heinous sin, and with it entailing upon his own
name a mark of perpetual infamy, as felo de se - a self-murderer. Jonathan, who
received his death-wound from the hand of the Philistines and bravely yielded to the fate
of war, died on the bed of honour; but Saul died as a fool dieth, as a coward dieth - a
proud fool, a sneaking coward; he died as a man that had neither the fear of God nor
hope in God, neither the reason of a man nor the religion of an Israelite, much less the
dignity of a prince or the resolution of a soldier. Let us all pray, Lord, lead us not into
temptation, this temptation. His armour-bearer would not run him through, and he did
well to refuse it; for no man's servant ought to be a slave to his master's lusts or passions
of any kind. The reason given is that he was sorely afraid, not of death, for he himself
ran wilfully upon that immediately; but, having a profound reverence for the king his
master, he could not conquer that so far as to do him any hurt; or perhaps he feared lest
his trembling hand should give him but half a blow, and so put him to the greater
misery.
JAMISON 3-5, "the battle went sore against Saul, etc. — He seems to have
bravely maintained his ground for some time longer; but exhausted with fatigue and loss
of blood, and dreading that if he fell alive into the enemy’s hands, they would insolently
maltreat him (Jos_8:29; Jos_10:24; Jdg_8:21), he requested his armor bearer to
dispatch him. However, that officer refused to do so. Saul then falling on the point of his
sword killed himself; and the armor bearer, who, according to Jewish writers, was Doeg,
following the example of his master, put an end to his life also. They died by one and the
same sword - the very weapon with which they had massacred the Lord’s servants at
15

16. Nob.
PULPIT, "1Sa_31:3, 1Sa_31:4
The archers. Literally, as in the margin, "shooters, men with bows." As the first word
would equally apply to men who threw javelins, the explanation is added to make the
meaning clear. Hit him. Literally, "found him, i.e. found out his position, and came up
to where he was. He was sore wounded. Rather, "he was sore distressed." In Deu_
2:25 the verb is rendered "be in anguish." The meaning is that Saul, finding himself
surrounded by these archers, and that he could neither escape nor come to close
quarters with them, and die fighting, ordered his armour bearer to kill him, that he
might be spared the degradation of being slain by "uncircumcised" heathen. Abuse me.
This verb is translated mock in Jer_38:19. "Maltreat" would be a better rendering in
both places, and also in Jdg_19:25, where, too, the word occurs. Its exact meaning is to
practise upon another all that passion, lust, anger, or malice dictate. Probably Saul
thought that they would treat him as they had previously treated Samson (Jdg_
16:21-25).
BENSON, "1 Samuel 31:3. The archers hit him — Hebrews ‫ימצאהו‬ jim-stauhu,
found him. Houbigant renders it, rushed upon him. It seems by this that the
Philistines gained the battle, chiefly by the advantage of their archers. Probably
these were some hired troops, for we meet with no mention before this of any
archers in any of the Philistines’ armies or battles; and it seems to have been a way
of fighting that Saul and the Israelites were not prepared for, and therefore they
were soon thrown into confusion by it. “The use of the bow, however,” says Dr.
Dodd, “was not unknown. Jonathan is celebrated for his skill and dexterity in it;
and so were some of the worthies who resorted to David; but it seems not yet to have
been brought into common practice, if, as has been collected from 2 Samuel 1:18,
David, after this battle, had the Israelites taught the use of it.”
WHEDON, "3. Battle went sore — This verse is rendered better thus: Then the
battle was heavy against Saul, and the archers, men with the bow, discovered him,
and he became greatly terrified because of the archers — After his sons had fallen,
Saul was in worse straits than ever, for now the brunt of the battle came on him.
Archers — ‫,מורים‬ shooters; explained further by the phrase men with the bow; that
is, men who shot arrows with the bow. ‫,ימצאהו‬ found him; discovered him; singled
him out; not hit him, as our version. After the fall of his sons, the archers discovered
Saul, and began to aim their missiles at him. ‫,ויחל‬ imperfect, shortened from ‫,חול‬ to
writhe, to quake with pain. The word nowhere means to be wounded, as our version
has it here. It is, indeed, probable that some of their arrows struck him, and this
caused his alarm. He saw that he was the mark of the Philistine sharp-shooters, and
he therefore writhed and quaked with terror at the thought of falling by such hands.
16

17. LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:3. “The battle went sore to (‫ל‬ ֶ‫)א‬ Saul.” It is unnecessary to
read “against” )‫ל‬ַ‫ﬠ‬ ) instead of “to,” since the phrase describes the movement of the
battle “towards” Saul; the battle was sore “towards” Saul, after his three sons had
fallen. [Vulg.: “the whole weight of the battle turned against [or towards] Saul.”—
Tr.] The archers especially harassed him. Men with the bow is in apposition with
“shooters” (‫ים‬ ִ‫.)מוֹר‬ Render: They hit him (taken absolutely), not “hit him with the
bow,” the verb not being elsewhere so used.[FN13] And he was sore afraid (from ‫חיל‬
or ‫,)חול‬ not, as Sept. and Vulg, “was sore wounded,” this signification for the verb
‫חלל‬=)‫חלה‬ ) “being not proved” (Keil). [The signification “wounded” would be
permissible but for the masoretic pointing and the following Prep.—Tr.] He
“trembled, was frightened” at the archers, because, the battle going hard against
him, he saw no way of escaping them, or of resisting the enemy’s superior force,
especially as, since the death of his sons, he was alone with his armor-bearer. And
even if we suppose that it was not despairing fear that he felt (which, however, after
the scene at Endor, might well get control of him, notwithstanding his old heroism
of character), but only failure of resources (Thenius), yet his fear and trembling at
the shame that threatened him ( 1 Samuel 31:4) may be easily explained. Thenius
thinks that his request to his armor-bearer to kill him is intelligible only on the
supposition that he was badly wounded, and so unfit for resistance, and properly
also for self-destruction. But, as he finally killed himself, he could not have been too
badly wounded for this. It is quite in keeping with Saul’s condition of soul
(abandoned to despair) that, at the mere possibility of being slain by the Philistines
he sought death at the hands of his attendant. Clearly in favor of this view, and
against the other, is Saul’s address to his armor-bearer: Draw thy sword and pierce
me therewith, lest these un-circumcised come and pierce me and abuse me. Saul had
a strong consciousness of the sacredness of his person as the Anointed of the Lord,
and must therefore have held it a great shame to be slain by the idolatrous, unclean
heathen. The armor-bearer would not, for he was sore afraid; he had, indeed, to
defend the king’s life, and was responsible for its preservation. And Saul took the
sword and fell on it; that Isaiah, having set the hilt on the ground, he threw the
weight of his body on the point, and thus killed himself. The scene is clearly and
vividly portrayed with a few admirable strokes. [For the meaning of the contrary
account 2 Samuel 1:10 see notes on that passage.—Tr.]
Robert Roe, "Also apparently there was a special unit of archers out looking for
Saul. This was one of the tactics of those days. Kings led their armies into battle. So,
if you assigned a special force to wipe out the king or leading general, whoever was
in charge, you could destroy the morale of the army. When we get to David's life as
king, we will see that eventually his men prevented him from going to battle because
the enemy always sought to hone in on him. David WAS Israel. He was the unifying
force of Israel. So, he was eventually prevented from going to battle lest he be
killed."
COKE, "1 Samuel 31:3. And the archers hit him— Houbigant renders this verse
17

18. thus, Then the battle going hard against Saul, the archers rushed upon him, from
whom he received a great wound. Saul, says he, would hardly have commanded his
armour-bearer to kill him, if he had not been in a desperate state. The words, lest
they thrust me through and abuse me, are not to be separated. Saul was not so much
afraid of being killed, as of being abused, by these insulting enemies. Commentators
observe, that there is no mention of any archers in any of the Philistine armies or
battles before this. The use of the bow, however, was not unknown: Jonathan is
celebrated for his skill and dexterity in it, and so were some of the worthies who
resorted to David; but it seems not to have been yet brought into common practice,
if, as it has been collected from 2 Samuel 1:18., David after this battle had the
Israelites taught the use of it. If this was so, it seems to prove that they gained in this
battle great advantage by means of their archers: for, doubtless, he would have
taught it them much sooner, when he commanded the armies of Saul against the
Philistines, had they then gained any advantage over the Israelites by means of these
weapons. Sir Isaac Newton tells us, that those mighty numbers of men who aided the
Philistines against Saul in the beginning of his reign, were the shepherds expelled
from Egypt by Amasis; some of whom fled into Phoenicia, and others into Arabia
Petraea. Now his son Ammon conquered Arabia. Why then may we not fairly
presume, that these archers, who now aided the Philistines, were either Arabs who
fled thither from Ammon, or those Egyptians who fled before to Arabia, and
learned archery there from the natives, who were allowed to be the best bowmen in
the world: since the time and circumstances suit, the conjecture will not, I believe,
be thought ill-grounded. The Cherethites, so often mentioned in the following books,
were of these archers whom David employed in his armies.
PETT 3-4, "1 Samuel 31:3-4 a
‘And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers overtook him, and he was
greatly distressed by reason of the archers. And Saul said to his armourbearer,
“Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come
and thrust me through, and abuse me.”
Saul was apparently behind the units commanded by his three sons, as a second line
of defence, and he and his men now found themselves under heavy bombardment by
the missiles of the archers who had been able to come up on them as a result of the
destruction of the first line of defence. It was clear to Saul that the situation was lost
and that he would be unable to evade capture. It must also be seen as almost certain
that he had been wounded by arrows that had found their target. Thus the thought
of being overtaken and abused by the uncircumcised Philistines, who would
undoubtedly satisfy their blood lusts on him, and would at the same time humiliate
him as the king of Israel, was too much for him, and he cried to his armourbearer to
thrust him through, rather than allowing the Philistines to do it. He knew that death
or worse was inevitable. He preferred therefore to die on a good Israelite blade
18

19. rather than on a Philistine one. At least he would prevent their enjoying that
triumph. YHWH’s anointed would thus not be sullied in his death.
Saul (and the writer) may well have had in mind at this point the example of
Abimelech who asked the same of his armourbearer when a woman split his head
open with a millstone flung from the walls of Thebez, because he did not want to be
thought of as the king who had been slain by a woman (Judges 9:53-56). That story
appears to have been a well known one to Israel’s warriors, and had also been the
result of YHWH’s judgment on his previous behaviour (see 2 Samuel 11:21).
1 Samuel 31:4 b
‘But his armourbearer would not, for he was very much afraid. Therefore Saul took
his sword, and fell on it.’
His armourbearer, however, refused to do it through fear. The fear was probably
because he considered that to slay YHWH’s anointed would be a grievous sin.
Alternately he may have been afraid of what might happen to him afterwards, for it
was his duty to preserve YHWH’s anointed at all costs. Either way he would not do
it. Saul therefore took his own sword and fell on it. It is probable that he saw it as a
religious act, almost a kind of sacrifice, in defence of YHWH’s honour.
ELLICOTT, "(3) And the battle went sore against Saul.—That is, after the death of
Jonathan and his brothers. The great warrior king no doubt fought like a lion, but
one by one his brave defenders fell in harness by his side; and the enemy seems to
have directed their principal attention, at this period of the fight, to killing or
capturing the famous Saul.
And the archers hit him.—It would seem as though, in that deadly combat, none
could strike down that giant kingly form, so the archers—literally, as in the margin
of our Version, shooters, men with bows, skilful shots—were told off, and these,
aiming at the warrior towering above the other combatants, with the crown on his
head (2 Samuel 1:10), hit him.
And he was sore wounded by the archers.—This is the usual rendering of the word,
but the more accurate translation is, He was sore afraid (or was greatly alarmed at
them): so Gesenius, Keil, Lange, &c. All seemed against him. His army was routed,
19

20. his sons were dead, his faithful captains and companions were gone, and these bow-
men were shooting at him from a distance where his strong arm could not reach
them. Gradually weakened through loss of blood—perhaps with the words he had
heard only a few hours before at En-dor from the dead prophet ringing in his ears,
“To-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me”—the great undaunted courage at
last failed him, and he turned to his armourbearer, who was still by his side.
4 Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your
sword and run me through, or these
uncircumcised fellows will come and run me
through and abuse me."
But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not
do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it.
PEASE, " Saul had a good basis for knowing he would be abused and made to
suffer greatly if he was still alive. The Philistines were notorious for their torture of
captives. They put out the eyes of Samson and made him a slave so they could
humiliate him, and they would have done this and worse to a captive king like Saul.
He knew what faced him and he wanted escape. There is much criticism of him for
his choice to take the easy way out, but anybody in that situation would do the same.
It is pious hypocrisy to pretend that we would bravely wait in pain for greater pain
and torture to come from our enemies that would give them great pleasure. Any of
us would gladly die in peace, or relative peace in comparison to what was ahead,
rather than be so abused and humiliated. It is just common sense, and many have
chosen to die rather than suffer this way. Masses of Christian women under the
persecutions of Rome took poison and dies quickly rather than suffer the disgrace of
being raped by the Roman soldiers before they were killed. This was the choicd of
godly people, and those who pretend they are above this are hypocrites, for they
have never had to make this choice, and they have the gaul to condemn others who
have made what makes a common sense choice of avoiding evil. It was a matter of
prevention, and why criticize those who have a choice of preventing greater evil?
Saul was a fool and he was a stupid man in many ways, but this was not a stupid or
foolish plan in the circumstances he faced.
20

21. Others who were men of God wanted to die also, but they did not take their lives.
They just wished that God would do it for them. It is no sin to be in despair and
want to escape a life that is filled with sorrow, but it is a sin of self-murder to take
the way of suicide.
Elijah...1Kgs. 19:4 ...requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is
enough; now, O LORD, take my life...”
Jonah also...Jonah 4:8 ... begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to
me than life.”
Job wished he was dead, saying, Job 3:11 “Why did I not die at birth, Come forth
from the womb and expire?"
The NIV clearly chooses to make Saul use his own sword, but other translations can
be made to imply that he used the sword of the armor-bearer, and this has led Clark
and others to this interesting theory based on Jewish tradition. Clark wrote,
" Dr. Delaney has some good observations on this part of the subject: “Saul and his
armor-bearer died by the same sword. That his armor-bearer died by his own
sword is out of all doubt; the text expressly tells us so; and that Saul perished by the
same sword is sufficiently evident. Draw Thy sword, says he to him, and thrust me
through; which, when he refused, Saul, says the text, took The sword, (‫החרב‬ ‫את‬ eth
hachereb, the very sword), and fell upon it. What sword? Not his own, for then the
text would have said so; but, in the plain natural grammatical construction, the
sword before mentioned must be the sword now referred to, that is, his armor-
bearer’s, 1Ch_10:4, 1Ch_10:5. Now it is the established tradition of all the Jewish
nation that this armor-bearer was Doeg, and I see no reason why it should be
discredited; and if so, then Saul and his executioner both fell by that weapon with
which they had before massacred the priests of God. So Brutus and Cassius killed
themselves with the same swords with which they stabbed Caesar; and Calippus
was stabbed with the same sword with which he stabbed Dio.”
CLARKE, "Draw thy sword, and thrust me through - Dr. Delaney has some
good observations on this part of the subject: “Saul and his armor-bearer died by the
same sword. That his armor-bearer died by his own sword is out of all doubt; the text
expressly tells us so; and that Saul perished by the same sword is sufficiently evident.
Draw Thy sword, says he to him, and thrust me through; which, when he refused, Saul,
says the text, took The sword, (‫החרב‬ ‫את‬ eth hachereb, the very sword), and fell upon it.
What sword? Not his own, for then the text would have said so; but, in the plain natural
grammatical construction, the sword before mentioned must be the sword now referred
to, that is, his armor-bearer’s, 1Ch_10:4, 1Ch_10:5. Now it is the established tradition of
all the Jewish nation that this armor-bearer was Doeg, and I see no reason why it should
be discredited; and if so, then Saul and his executioner both fell by that weapon with
which they had before massacred the priests of God. So Brutus and Cassius killed
themselves with the same swords with which they stabbed Caesar; and Calippus was
stabbed with the same sword with which he stabbed Dio.”
21

22. GILL, "Then said Saul unto his armourbearer,.... Who, the Jews (b) say, was
Doeg the Edomite, promoted to this office for slaying the priests:
draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; for if he was wounded, yet
not mortally, and it is certain he did not so apprehend it. It is much the sword of the
armourbearer should be sheathed in a battle; but perhaps he was preparing for flight,
and so had put it up in its scabbard:
lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me; lest
they should not dispatch him at once, but put him to a lingering and torturing death,
and insult him, and mock at him, as they did Samson:
but his armourbearer would not, for he was sore afraid; to lay his hand on the
king the Lord's anointed, to take away his life, being more scrupulous of doing that, if
this was Doeg, than of slaying the priests of the Lord; or he might be afraid of doing this,
since should he survive this action, he would be called to an account by the Israelites,
and be put to death for killing the king:
therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it; or rather "the sword", the sword of
his armourbearer, and so was a suicide: the Jews endeavour to excuse this fact of Saul,
because he knew he should die in battle from the words of Samuel; and being pressed
sore by the archers, he saw it was impossible to escape out of their hands and therefore
judged it better to kill himself than to fall by the hands of the uncircumcised; but these
excuses will not do. Josephus (c) denies he killed himself; that though he attempted it,
his sword would not pierce through him, and that he was killed by the Amalekite, and
that that was a true account he gave to David in the following chapter; though it seems
rather to be a lie, to curry favour with David, and that Saul did destroy himself.
COFFMAN, ""The armor-bearer would not; for he feared greatly" (1 Samuel
31:4). The fear of the armor-bearer to thrust Saul through with his sword was most
likely due to the great respect and awe in which all Israelites viewed "The Lord's
Anointed." That was the reason that David himself refused to kill Saul on two
different occasions.
"Saul took his own sword, and fell upon it ... his armor-bearer ... also fell upon his
sword, and died with him" (1 Samuel 31:4-5). Here we have two of the total of only
five suicides recorded in the entire Bible. The other three are those of Ahithophel (2
Samuel 17:23), Zimri (1 Kings 16:18), and Judas Iscariot (Matthew 27:5).
COKE, "1 Samuel 31:4-5. Then said Saul unto his armour-bearer— Saul and his
armour-bearer died by the same sword; that his armour-bearer died by his own
sword, is out of all doubt: the text expressly tells us so; and that Saul perished by the
same sword is sufficiently evident. Draw thy sword, says he to him, and thrust me
through; which when he refused, Saul, says the text, took THE sword, ‫את‬ ‫החרב‬ eth
hachereb [the very sword], and fell upon it. What sword? not his own; for then the
22

23. text would have said so: but, in the plain, natural, grammatical construction, the
sword beforementioned must be the sword now referred to, that is, his armour-
bearer's; 1 Chronicles 5-10:4 . Now it is the established tradition of all the Jewish
nation, that this armour-bearer was Doeg: I see no reason why it should be
discredited; and if so, then Saul and his executioner both fell by that weapon with
which they had before massacred the priests of God. So Brutus and Cassius killed
themselves with the same swords with which they slew Caesar; and Calippus was
stabbed with the same sword wherewith he killed Dio.
ELLICOTT, "(4) His armourbearer.—Jewish tradition tells us that this faithful
armourbearer was Doeg, the Edomite, and that the sword which Saul took
apparently from the hand of the armourbearer was the sword with which Doeg had
massacred the priests at Gibeon and at Nob.
Lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me.—“Even in Saul’s dying speech there
is something of that religious formalism which marked his character after his fall
from God, and which is a striking sign of spiritual blindness. He censures the
Philistines as ‘uncircumcised.’”—Wordsworth.
Saul had a strong consciousness of the sacredness of his person as the Lord’s
anointed; as it has been well said of him, no descendant of a long line of so-styled
Christian or Catholic sovereigns has held a loftier claim of personal inviolability.
And abuse me.—He remembered how these same Philistines in former years had
treated the hero Samson when he fell into their hands.
His armourbearer would not.—Love and devotion to his master we can well imagine
stayed his hand from carrying out his fallen master’s last terrible command. If the
armourbearer—as the Jewish tradition above referred to asserts—was indeed Doeg
the Edomite, the two, the king and his confidential officer, had been fast friends for
years. Some dread of the after consequences, too, may have weighed with the royal
armour-bearer, as he was to a certain extent responsible for the king’s life. What
possibly he dreaded actually came to pass in the case of the Amalekite who told
David that he was the one who inflicted the fatal stroke when the king was dying; as
a guerdon for his act, David had him at once put to death for having put forth his
hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed.
HAWKER, "(4) Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust
23

24. me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and
abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul
took a sword, and fell upon it.
But though death would have soon come from the hands of the Philistines, yet
impatient of misery, like a man desperate to plunge into everlasting woe before the
time, he becomes his own executioner. Poor wretched, awful character! He is
anxious that his body should not be abused by the Philistines; but feels no anxiety
for his soul! But even that, after all his caution, as appears by the sequel of the
history, is denied him. Reader! think, if it be possible, what a state of mind must he
have been in , when, to avoid the racking torments in his own breast, he dares to
make experiment of the more immediate torments of the miserable in eternity!
A sword.—It was a heavy weapon, a war sword, answering to the great ep‫י‬e
d’armes of the Middle Ages. This he took from the reluctant hands of his faithful
follower, and placing the hilt firmly on the ground, he threw the weight of his body
on the point.
In 2 Samuel 1:6-10 we have another account of the death. There an Amalekite
bearing the royal insignia of the late king, the crown royal and the well-known
bracelet of Saul, comes to David at Ziklag after the fatal fight, and recounts how,
finding the king leaning on his spear—possibly, as Bunsen supposes, “lying on the
ground propping his weary head with the nervously-clutched spear,” exhausted and
seized with “cramp” (this is the Rabbinical translation of the word rendered
“anguish”), at his urgent request, slew him. Most commentators—for instance, Kiel,
Lange, Bishop Hervey, &c.—regard the Amalekite’s story as an invention framed to
extract a rich gift from David, who, the savage Arab thought, would be rejoiced to
hear of his great enemy’s fall. If this be so, then we must suppose that the Amalekite
wandering over the field of battle strewn with the slain on the night which
succeeded the battle, came upon the body of Saul, and, attracted by the glitter of the
golden ornaments, stripped off the precious insignia, and hastened with his lying
story to David. Ewald, however, sees no reason to doubt the trustworthiness of the
Amalekite’s story; in fact, the two accounts may well be harmonised. Stanley
graphically paints the scene after he had fallen on his sword, and his faithful
armourbearer had in despairing sorrow killed himself also. “His armourbearer lies
dead beside him; on his head the royal crown, on his arm the royal bracelet; . . . the
huge spear is still in his hand; he is leaning peacefully on it. He has received his
death-blow either from the enemy (1 Samuel 31:3), or from his own sword (1
Samuel 31:4). The dizziness and darkness of death is upon him. At that moment a
wild Amalekite, lured probably to the field by the hope of spoil, came up and
finished the work which the arrows of the Philistines and the sword of Saul himself
24

25. had all but accomplished.”—Jewish Church, Lect. 21. The words of the next verse
(5) do not contradict this possible explanation. The armourbearer, seeing the king
pierced with the arrows and then falling on his own sword, may well have imagined
his master dead, and so put an end to his own life. But Saul, though mortally
wounded, may have rallied again for a brief space; in that brief space the Amalekite
may have come up and finished the bloody work; then, after the king was dead, he
probably stripped the royal insignia from the lifeless corpse.
So Saul died.—This is one of the very rare instances of self-destruction among the
chosen people. It seems to have been almost unknown among the Israelites. Prior to
Saul the only recorded example is that of Samson, and his was a noble act of self-
devotion—the hero sacrificed his life in order to compass the destruction of a great
crowd of men, powerful and influential foes of his dear country. His death in the
great Dagon Temple at Gaza ranks, as it has been well said, with the heroism of one
dying in battle rather than with cases of despairing suicide. There is another
instance after the days of Saul—that of the wise privy councillor of King David,
Ahithophel, who, in a paroxysm of bitter mortification, we read, went and hanged
himself. There is another in the Gospel story familiar to us all. Theologians are
divided in their judgment on King Saul. S. Bernard, for instance, thinks that Saul
was lost for ever. Corn, ‫א‬ Lapide, followed by Bishop Wordsworth, has no kindly
thought for the great first king. The Jewish historian Josephus, on the contrary,
writes in warm and glowing terms of the patriotic devotion with which Saul went to
meet his end. Many of the Rabbis sympathise with Josephus in his estimate of the
unhappy monarch. Without in any way justifying the fatal act which closed the dark
tragedy of his reign, we may well plead in extenuation the awful position in which
the king found himself that evening after Gilboa had been fought and lost, and we
may well remember the similar conduct of Brutus, Cassius, and the younger Cato,
and call to our minds what posterity has said of these noble heathens, and how far
they have judged them guilty of causeless self-murder.
Well would it be for men when they sit in judgment on Saul, and on other great ones
who have failed, as they think, in the discharge of their duties to God as well as to
man—well would it be for once to imitate what has been rightly called “the fearless
human sympathy of the Biblical writers,” and to remember how the “man after
God’s own heart,” in strains never to be forgotten, wrote his touching lament over
King Saul, dwelling only on the Saul, the mighty conqueror, the delight of his
people, the father of his beloved and faithful friend, like him in life, united with him
in death; and how with these words—gentle as they are lovely, inspired by the Holy
Spirit—the Bible closes the record of the life, and leaves the first great king, the first
anointed of the Lord, in the hands of his God.
LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:5. The armor-bearer’s fear, here again brought forward,
was based, no doubt, on the above-named consideration; he was answerable for the
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26. king’s person, and might also be apprehensive that he would be regarded as his
murderer. He followed his lord’s example, and slew himself. At the same time also
all his men were slain. 1 Chronicles 10:6 has “all his house” instead of “all his men.”
Certainly Abner, who was no doubt in the battle, had not fallen, 2 Samuel 11:8
(Then.), but that is not inconsistent with the statement, since Hebrews, as Saul’s
General ( 1 Samuel 14:50 sq.) belonged, strictly speaking, neither to the “house” nor
to the “men,” by which term we must understand the soldiers who were near the
king’s person, his body-guard, as it were.
WHEDON, "4. His armourbearer would not — He dared not stretch forth his hand
against the Lord’s anointed; the very thought of such an act filled him with fear.
Saul took a sword — Rather, took the sword, that is, the sword of the armourbearer
just referred to.
Fell upon it — Thrust it through himself by falling over upon it.
This account of Saul’s death is every way consistent with itself and with Saul’s
character, and is to be regarded as the true and authentic record of the sacred
historian himself. The story of the Amalekite, who stole the king’s crown and
bracelet, and brought them to David, (2 Samuel 1:4-10,) is to be treated as a
fabrication, feigned with the hope of finding favour with the successor of Saul.
Ray Pritchard, “For Saul, his suicide was the logical end of a long process of self-
destruction. That, of course, is the saddest fact about Saul. You could hardly find in
all the Bible a man who started with as many natural advantages. Chosen by God to
be Israel's first king, he was a tremendous physical specimen, a great leader of men,
a mighty warrior, and enormously popular with the people. We know that in the
beginning God's spirit rested upon him. Saul is a case study of the principle that a
good beginning does not guarantee a good end. It isn't enough to have great
potential. It isn't enough to show great promise. It's what you do with your potential
and what happens after the good beginning that makes the difference. The story of
Saul is a tragedy precisely because he had so much going for him. As the poet said,
"Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, it might have been."
Indeed, Saul might have been a great king, he might have bent his ambition to do
the will of God.
But instead he was headstrong, impulsive, suspicious, and given to fits of
uncontrollable anger. Eventually his dark side grew until it shut out the light. Envy
rotted his bones. In the end, he is a pathetic, sad figure. In that sense, his suicide was
simply the final stop on a long journey to destruction. Ponder the corpse of Saul
lying on Gilboa's slopes. It is a silent warning to all of us.
Saul was an excellent example of what we should never be like. Dennis Deese makes
this clear by trying to guess what should be most appropriate on the tombsone of
26

27. Saul. He write, "What do think would have been the epitaph on the tombstone of
King Saul?
“Here lies a man who turned his back on God”
“Here lies a man who was controlled by jealousy and anger”
“Here lies a man who had much material wealth but lost his spiritual wealth”
“Here lies a man who wasted most of his life chasing flees and dead dogs (1 Samuel
24:14)”
Our part in life is a passing opportunity that will never come our way again. What
we do with the opportunities God gives us is up to us. We can make the most of
them or we can squander them away. What are you doing with the opportunities
that God has given to you in your strategic position as a leader? A solemn summary
of this, from the divine side, is found in Hosea 13:11, when at a later date, God
reminded rebellious Israel, "I gave them a king in Mine anger, and took him away in
My wrath": the reference being to Saul."
This armor-bearer was frightened to the point that his fear made him rather kill
himself than kill his king. It would be a great disgrace for a man sworn to protect
his king to have been the one to kill him. He chose to die rather than have that label
attached to him forever.l
Here we have two men who take their own lives on the battle field. One because he
was dying anyway and wanted to prevent a worst fate of dying at the hands of the
Philistines. The other was in fine shape apparently, but he chose to die rather than
face his family and friends having let his king take his own life. We have never had
to fact such fear, and so it seems such a meaningless death, but some would say he
was heroic in his loyalty to his king. It is hard for us to see anything noble about
this.
Suicide is not a common action in the Bible. These are two of only seven suicides
discussed in Scripture. Unfortunately, suicide is becoming increasingly more
common today. In America, about 765,000 people attempt suicide each year. About
30,000 of them are successful. To put that in perspective, every year the population
of a city larger than Laramie kills themselves. It is the 8th leading cause of death in
America. This is an epidemic.
Samuel was a dead man, but he knew what was going to happen, and here we see it
was just as he said in I Sam. 28:19, "“Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel
along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your
sons will be with me. Indeed the LORD will give over the army of Israel into the
hands of the Philistines!”
DR. JAMES L. WILSON, "Saul ascended to greatness, but was never a great man.
Instead of living with humility and gratitude for his opportunities, he lived the
tragic life of presumption. He presumed to decide which of God's commands he
would follow and which he wouldn't. God told him to utterly destroy the
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28. Amalekites-he chose to spare some of them and keep the spoils of battle. On another
occasion, he presumed to offer sacrifices unto the Lord, a task that was reserved for
the priests. The psalmist wrote, "Also keep back Thy servant from presumptuous
sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I shall be blameless, And I shall be acquitted
of great transgression." (Psalm 19:13 NASB) A prayer Saul would have done well to
pray. Instead, he gave into his base desires. Deut. 17:12 gives the penalty for
presumptuous sin, it says, "And the man who acts presumptuously by not listening
to the priest who stands there to serve the Lord your God, nor to the judge, that
man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel." (NASB) In falling on his
own weapon, Saul was executing the judgement of Deuteronomy 17. Saul's tragic
life proves the old adage, "evil carries within itself the seed of its own destruction."
A STUDY OF SUICIDE
This text is a good place to give some thought to this issue which has become a major
issue in the world, and even in the church. It is too vast to cover under this verse,
however, and so the fuller study will be found in APPENDIX A
The Sages offer a number of reasons why Saul's suicide was unique:
1. Saul feared that his enemies would use torture to try to force him to worship
other gods. (Ritva - 14th century)
2. Suicide is permitted in the face of an attempt at forced conversion.
(Rabbeinu Tam - 12th century)
3. Suicide is permitted only if the lives of others would be in danger as a result
of torture. (Rabbi Shlomo Luria - 16th century)
4. Saul acted out of respect for the Israelite kingship, as he feared the
Philistines would mockingly parade him through their cities. In other words,
he committed suicide to sanctify God's name. (Y'dai Moshe - 20th century)
In summary, suicide is absolutely prohibited, unless there are unusual and
extenuating circumstances - e.g. forced conversion, endangering the lives of others,
or sanctifying the Name of God.
There are many stories of individuals who either pleaded with God to end their life,
or who killed themselves, or who sought the assistance of another to kill them:
Numbers 11:12-15 Moses was in despair because of the complaints of
the Israelites whom he was leading. The burden of leadership was too
heavy for him to bear. He asked God "If You treat me like this, please
kill me here and now..."
28

29. Judges 16:29-30 Samson had been chained to the two middle pillars of
a temple. He pushed them apart. thereby knowingly causing the
collapse of the building, his own suicide and the death of a few
thousand people inside. The death toll exceeded the number of people
that he had killed during the rest of his life -which was considerable.
Samson had been blinded, and no longer wanted to live as a captive.
And by causing his own death, he had a chance to destroy many of the
enemy.
2 Samuel 1:2-17 An unidentified Amalekike man described to David a
very different account about Saul's death. The versions in 1 Samuel 31
and 1 Chronicles 10, describe how Saul committed suicide by himself,
after his armor bearer refused to perform the task. In this version, Saul
had the Amalekite, a stranger, kill him, in a form of assisted suicide.
After hearing the story of how the Amalekike had carried out the
wishes of Saul, David had him executed on the spot, because he had
"slain the LORD's anointed." The implication is that one can assist in
the suicide of a commoner, but not in the case of a king. There is no
criticism of Saul asking for help in committing suicide.
1 King 16:15-20 Zimri, king of Tirzah, saw his city besieged and taken.
He was distressed at the sins that he had committed. He "went into the
citadel of the king's house and burned the king's house down upon
himself with fire, and died..."
Jonah 4:1-11 God had threatened the destruction of the Nineveh, a
city of 120,000 people. But the king and people of the city listened to
Jonah, repented of their sins, and fasted. God changed his mind and
did not destroy the city. Jonah was so angry at God's display of mercy
that he asked God to kill him, "for it is better for me to die than to
live!" He repeated the same request to God on the next day.
By Louis Jacobs
Those who take their own lives are technically not entitled to Jewish burial and
mourning rites--but suicide as a freely chosen act (with the above consequences)
has been nearly defined out of existence by mental health considerations in the
development of Jewish law, and in most cases deaths by suicide are treated like all
other deaths. Excerpted with permission from The Jewish Religion: A Companion,
Oxford University Press.
29

30. In Jewish teaching, the prohibition of suicide is not contained in the sixth
commandment: "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20: 13 and Deuteronomy 5: 17).
Obviously it does not follow from the fact that a man may not take the life of
another that he may not take his own life.
There is, in fact, no direct prohibition of suicide in the Bible. In the Talmud (Bava
Kama 91b), however, the prohibition is arrived at by a process of exegesis on the
verse: "and surely your blood of your lives will I require" (Genesis 9: 5), interpreted
as: "I will require your blood if you yourselves shed it." It is possible that there is no
direct prohibition because very few people of sound mind would be inclined to
commit suicide in any event.
It follows from this that suicide and murder are two separate offenses in the Jewish
tradition, as they are in most cultures. Suicide is not homicide and is not covered in
the Decalogue [the Ten Commandments]. In the usual rabbinic classification of
duties, homicide would be considered an offense both "between man and God" and
"between man and man," whereas suicide would fall only under the former heading.
Maimonides' statement (Rotzeah, 2.2-3) that there is no "death at the hand of the
court" for the crime of suicide, only "death by the hands of Heaven," is puzzling,
since how could a suicide, no longer alive, be punished for the crime by the court?
In all probability, Maimonides formulates it in this way to distinguish between the
two crimes of murder and suicide. Maimonides' statement that a suicide is punished
by the "hands of Heaven" no doubt refers to punishment in the hereafter; but the
popular saying that a suicide has no share in the World to Come, which would cause
a far more severe punishment to be visited on the suicide than on one guilty of
murder, has no support in any of the classical sources. It has plausibly been
suggested that the saying, though bogus, tended to be quoted as a warning to
would-be suicides in stressful periods when there was a spate of suicides in the
Jewish community.
Attitudes to Suicide
Suicide is considered to be a grave sin both because it is a denial that human life is
a divine gift and because it constitutes a total defiance of God's will for the
individual to live the life-span allotted to him. The suicide, more than any other
offender, literally takes his life into his own hands. As it is put in Ethics of the
Fathers (4. 21):"Despite yourself you were fashioned, and despite yourself you were
born, and despite yourself you live, and despite yourself you die, and despite
yourself you will hereafter have account and reckoning before the King of Kings, the
30

31. Holy One, blessed be He."
Yet there are exceptional circumstances when a man is permitted to take his own
life or allow it to be taken, of which martyrdom is the supreme example. The general
tendency among the later authorities is to extend the idea of mitigating
circumstances so that the law, recorded in the [classical law code] Shulhan Arukh
(Yoreh Deah, 345), that there are to be no rites of mourning over a suicide, is
usually set aside wherever it can reasonably be assessed that the act was
committed while the suicide was "of unsound mind."
Saul's suicide (I Samuel 31: 4-5) is defended on the grounds that he feared torture
if he were captured by the Philistines and would have died in any event as a result
of the torture. Similarly, Samson's suicide (Judges 16: 30), in which he destroyed
himself together with his Philistine tormentors, is defended on the grounds that it
constituted an act of kiddush hashem, "sanctification of the divine name," in the
face of heathen mockery of the God of Israel.
The late Hasidic master, Mordecai Joseph of Izbica (d. 1854) in his commentary to
the Torah, has an unusual discussion relevant to the theme of suicide. This author
appears to have been the first to ask, from the theological point of view, whether a
man, struggling for the truth against seemingly overwhelming odds, may give in
mentally and entreat God to release him from the struggle by allowing him to die.
For such a man actually to commit suicide is unthinkable, but is it impious for him to
pray to God that he should die?
The two biblical examples of this kind of prayer are the plea of Jonah (Jonah 4: 4)
and the prayer of Elijah (1 Kings 19: 4). Both prophets uttered their plea for death
when their mission seemed to have failed. This Hasidic master reads the narratives
of Jonah and Elijah as expressing disapproval of this kind of prayer. The good man,
says Mordecai Joseph, should not take his distress at the wrongdoings of his
contemporaries so much to heart as to wish that he were no longer alive to witness
their sinful deeds.
Louis Jacobs, a British rabbi and theologian, is the former rabbi of the New London
Synagogue. He is the author of numerous books including Jewish Values, Beyond
Reasonable Doubt, and Hasidic Prayer.
Excerpted from The Jewish Religion: A Companion, Oxford University Press. ｩ Louis
Jacobs, 1995. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of
this material may be stored, transmitted, retransmitted, lent, or reproduced in any
form or medium without the permission of Oxford University Press.
31

32. PINK SAYS SUICIDE IS UNFORGIVABLE
"Though Saul had escaped torture at their hands, his body was signally abused—
adumbrating, we doubt not, the awful suffering which his soul was now enduring, and
would continue to endure forever. Saul’s self-inflicted death points a most solemn
warning for us to earnestly watch and pray that we may be preserved from both
presumption and despair, and divinely enabled to bear up under the trials of life, and
quietly to hope for the salvation of the Lord (Lam. 3:26), that Satan may not tempt
us to the horrible sin of self-murder for which the Scriptures hold out no hope of
forgiveness." Saul is lost he says.
Good Question: Is Suicide Unforgivable?
Question: What is the biblical hope and comfort we can offer a suicide victim's
family and friends? —name withheld
By Lewis B. Smedes | posted 7/10/2000 12:00AM
Related articles and links | 1 of 2
ADVERTISEMENT
People who ask this question seek biblical grounds for giving hope to the kin of
believers who take their own lives. The burden of proof, I should think, lies not with
those who offer the solace of grace but with those who deny it.
Will Jesus welcome home a believer who died at her own hands? I believe he will,
tenderly and lovingly.
My biblical basis? It is the hope-giving promise of Romans 8:32, that neither life nor
death can separate the believer from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
How can I trust in this promise and then deny its comfort to people who doubly
32

33. grieve for brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers who in horrible moments of despair
decided to end their lives? I believe that Jesus died not only for the sins of us all
but for all of our sins, including the forgotten ones, including suicide--if indeed he
reckons it always as sin.
The Bible does not seem to condemn suicide. There are, I think, six accounts of
suicide in the Bible, the most notorious being those of King Saul (1 Samuel 31:2-5)
and Judas (Matthew 27:3-5). Others are Abimelech (Judges 9:50-54), Samson
(Judges 16:23-31), Ahithophel (2 Samuel 17:23), and Zimri (1 Kings 16:15-20). As far
as I can tell, none of the six is explicitly condemned for taking his life.
Some say that suicide cannot be forgiven because the person who did it could not
have repented of doing it. But all of us commit sins that we are too spiritually
cloddish to recognize for the sins they are. And we all die with sins not named and
repented of.
When I was a child, I heard compassionate people comfort the loved ones of a
suicide victim with the assurance that anyone who commits suicide is insane at that
moment. So, being mad, a suicide victim would not be held accountable by God,
despite the sin. But they were wrong of course. People of sound mind make rational
decisions to end their lives. They choose to die rather than endure more pain than
they think they can bear, or to spare their loved ones the pain of watching them die
an ugly death. And rational people of good intentions sometimes help them do it.
But people who take their own lives are not usually cool and rational about it. Nor
do they mean to flout the will of God. Most of the 500,000 people who attempt
suicide every year in America do not so much choose death as stumble down into it
from a steep slope of despair.
We are told that every 17 minutes someone in America commits suicide. In North
America, suicide is the third-leading cause of death among people 15 to 25 years
old, college students for the great part. And note this tragic feature of American
life: among children between 5 and 14 years of age, suicide is the sixth most
33

34. common cause of death.
Suicide is also a significant threat to young people who have discovered that they
have homosexual feelings. While there are no conclusive statistics on the
phenomenon, some studies suggest a high rate of suicide attempts among young
people with same-sex attractions. These are not people sticking their fists in the
face of God. These are children who look in their own faces and hate what they see.
The heart asks, Why? But the answer is blowing in the wind. Young people kill
themselves mainly for one reason: they cannot believe their lives are precious
enough to make them worth living. Despair, depression, hopelessness, self-
loathing-- these are the killers.
I believe that, as Christians, we should worry less about whether Christians who
have killed themselves go to heaven, and worry more about how we can help people
like them find hope and joy in living. Our most urgent problem is not the morality of
suicide but the spiritual and mental despair that drags people down to it.
THE FALL OF SAUL
PINK, "From the human side of things, Saul was a man splendidly endowed, given a
wonderful opportunity, and had a most promising prospect. Concerning his physique
we are told, "Saul was a choice young man, and a goodly: and there was not among
the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he
was higher than any of the people" (9:2). Regarding his acceptability unto his
subjects, we read that when Samuel set him before them, that "all the people
shouted, and said, God save the king" (10:24): more, "there went with him a band of
men, whose hearts God had touched" (10:26), giving the young king favor in their
eyes. Not only so, but "the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul" (11:6), equipping him
for his office, and giving proof that God was ready to act if he would submit to His
yoke.
5. Yet notwithstanding these high privileges, Saul, in his spiritual madness,
played fast and loose with them, mined his life, and by disobeying and
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35. defying God, lost his soul. In the thirteenth chapter of 1 Samuel we find Saul
tried and found wanting. The prophet left him for a little while, bidding him
go to Gilgal and wait for him there, till he should come and offer the
sacrifices. Accordingly we are told "he tarried seven days, according to the
set time that Samuel had appointed." And then we read, "but Samuel came
not to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him"—having lost their
confidence in the king to lead them against the Philistines to victory. Petulant
at the delay, Saul presumptuously invaded the prophet’s prerogative and
said, "Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings, And he
offered the burnt offering" (13:9). Thus did he forsake the word of the Lord
and break the first command he received from Him.
In the 15th chapter we see him tested again by a command from the Lord: "Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid
wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek
and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not: but slay both man and
woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (vv. 2, 3). But again he
disobeyed: "But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of
the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not
utterly destroy them" (v. 9). Then it was that the prophet announced, "Behold, to
obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as
the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast
rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king" (vv.
22,23). From that point Saul rapidly went from bad to worse: turning against David
and relentlessly seeking his life, shedding the blood of God’s priests (22:18, 19), till
at last he scrupled not to seek the aid of the devil himself (28:7,8).
And now the day of recompense had come, when he who had advanced steadily
from one degree of impiety to another, should miserably perish by his own hand.
The divine account of this is given in 1 Samuel 31. The Philistines had joined
themselves against Israel in battle. First, Saul’s own army was defeated (v. 1); next,
his sons, the hopes of his family, were slain before his eyes (v. 2); and then the king
himself was sorely wounded by the archers (v. 3). Fearful indeed is what follows: no
longer able to resist his enemies, nor yet flee from them, the God-abandoned Saul
expressed no concern for his soul, but desired only that his life might be dispatched
speedily, so that the Philistines might not gloat over him and torture his body.
First, he called upon his armor-bearer to put an end to his wretched life, but though
his servant neither feared God nor death, he had too much respect for the person of
his sovereign to lift up his hand against him (v. 4). Whereupon Saul became his own
murderer: Saul took a sword and fell upon it"; and his armor-bearer, in a mad
expression of fealty to his royal master, imitated his fearful example. Saul was
therefore the occasion of his servant being guilty of fearful wickedness, and
"perished not alone in his iniquity." As he had lived, so he died: proud and jealous,
a terror to himself and all about him, having neither the fear of God nor hope in
God. What a solemn warning for each of us! What need is there for both writer and
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36. reader to heed that exhortation, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living of God" (Heb. 3:13).
BI, "Saul took a sword and fell upon it.
The death of Saul
Saul’s life is a tragedy, and his death is the closing scene. Circumstances close round
him, and press him to his doom. These circumstances know no remorse. They never
pause for pity. The last foe that Saul meets is himself. His death was neither more nor
less than suicide; the death of all deaths the most loathsome and despised of men; of all
deaths the only one that men call cowardly. Yet to this Saul came, as if he had not been
the anointed of the Lord, as if he never had been the glory of God’s people Israel. The
whole of the preceding history had a sound in it portentous of change and death. And
Saul himself, better than any other man, was aware that his end was near; and he went
on to that end in a most pitiable plight; a hero without a hero’s hope. There is a singular
fitness in the chapter which closes this life of Saul. There is no sentimental dallying with
the tragic facts. The battle was set, and from the first, the Philistines did the fighting. We
need not dwell on the features of this tragedy. It was a great historical event, meaning
much to the nation which saw its first king thus sadly fall. It was the end of Saul’s
kingdom: his sons and all his family, and, with them, all his hopes, died with him that
night on Mount Gilboa. And it is still a conspicuous moral, as well as historical, event, on
which we may well pause to look across the ages. Saul brought down thousands with him
when he fell, but he had been lowering the tone of the spiritual nation almost from the
time when he began his reign. The people had, indeed, got in him what they asked for—a
king like unto their neighbours. And as he had been in his life in the land, so was he
when he died at Gilboa. For “there was the shield of the mighty vilely cast away—the
shield of Saul—as of one not anointed of the Lord.” When we look at this life in its most
general, human aspects, it is hard to escape the question: “Why did God bring Saul into
all these circumstances of trial where he so ignobly failed and fell? Would it not have
been better for Saul never to have been called from his father’s plough?” There is
something more serious by far than to be a king; it, is more serious to be a man. If mere
safety and immunity from trial and danger are all that are to be desired by us, we must
needs rank ourselves with the irrational creation. But when we are made men we are
called with a high calling. We have set before us an immortal destiny, either to work that
out or wreck it away. We are all on our trial. The highest issues of human life are brought
out by the greatness and the strength of our trials. So was it with Saul. His trial began
with his great opportunity. The highness of his calling measures the deepness of his
falling. There are three points which indicate the departure of Saul from the path of
peace and duty.
1. He had not long reigned until he began to separate himself from good men in the
land. He was soon separated from Samuel, the best, the noblest, the representative
good man of the time he was soon separate from David, the man of the future, the
man after God’s own heart, and who desired to do only God’s will. He was soon cruel
and fierce in his wrath, slaying one by one the priests of the Lord.
2. Then we find that he was separate from God. He prayed to God, and God gave him
no answer. He asked in vain for God’s guidance, and then called in vain for the dead
36

37. Samuel.
3. Last of all, Saul got separated from himself; from his own best nature. There was a
great chasm in his nature, between his evil and his controlling, better self; and thus
he was left to the wreck and ruin which his own worst nature prompted. Such is the
spiritual history of him whose tragic life we have now read to its close. (Armstrong
Black.)
Suicide
Our Creator, it is said, has given us a general desire to obtain good, and avoid evil; why
may we not obey this impulse? We leave a kingdom, or a society, of which we do not
approve; we avoid bodily pain by all the means which we can invent; why may we not
cease to live, when life becomes a greater evil, than a good? Because, in avoiding pain, or
in procuring pleasure, we are always to consider the good of others, as well as our own.
Poverty is an evil, but we may not rob to avoid it; power is a good, but it is not justifiable
to obtain it by violence or deceit; we have only a right to consult our own good within
certain boundaries, and after such a manner that we do not diminish the good of others:
Every evil incapable of such limited remedy, it is our duty to bear; and if the general idea
that we have a right to procure voluntary death to ourselves, be pregnant with infinite
mischief to the interests of religion, and morality, it is our duty to live, as much as it is
our duty to do anything else for the same reason; a single instance of suicide may be of
little consequence; nor is a single instance of robbery of much; but we judge of single
actions, by the probability there is of their becoming frequent, and by the effects they
produce, when they are frequent.
1. Suicide, is as unfavourable to human talents, and resources, as it is to human
virtues; we should never have dreamt of the latent power, and energy of our nature,
but for the struggle of great minds with great afflictions, nor known the limits of
ourselves, nor man’s dominion over fortune: What would the world now have been,
if it had always been said, because the archers smite me sore, and the battle goeth
against me, I will die? Alas! man has gained all his joy by his pains; misery, hunger,
and nakedness, have been his teachers, and goaded him on to the glories of civilised
life; take from him his unyielding spirit, and if he had lived at all, he would have lived
the most suffering creature of the forest.
2. Suicide has been called magnanimity; but what is magnanimity? A patient
endurance of evil, to effect a proposed good; and when considering the strange
mutability of human affairs, are we to consider this endurance as useless, or when
should hope terminate but with life? To linger out year after year, unbroken in spirit,
unchanged in purpose, is doubtless, a less imposing destiny than public, and
pompous suicide; but if to be, is more commendable, than to seem to be; if we love
the virtue, better than the name, then is it true magnanimity to extract wisdom from
misery, and doctrine from shame; to call day, and night upon God; to keep the
mind’s eye sternly riveted on its object through failure, and through suffering;
through evil report, and through good report; and to make the bed of death the only
grave of human hope; but at the moment when Christianity warns you that your
present adversity may be a trial from God; when experience teaches that great
qualities come in arduous situations; when piety stimulates you to show the hidden
vigour, the inexhaustible resources, the beautiful capacities of that soul, which God
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38. has exempted from the destruction which surrounds it; at that moment, the law of
self-murder gives you, for your resource, ignominious death, frightful disobedience,
and never-ending torments.
3. It may be imagined that suicide is a crime of rare occurrence, but we must not so
much overrate our love of life, when there is hardly a passion so weak, which cannot
at times, overcome it; many fling away life from ambition, many from vanity, many
from restlessness, many from fear, many from almost every motive; nature has made
death terrible, but nature has made those evils terrible, from the dread of which we
seek death; nature has made resentment terrible, infamy terrible, want terrible,
hunger terrible; every first principle of our nature alternately conquers and is
conquered; the passion that is a despot in one mind, is a slave in the other; we know
nothing of their relative force.
4. It is hardly possible be conceive this crime, committed by anyone who has not
confounded his common notions of right and wrong by some previous sophistry, and
cheated himself into a temporary scepticism; but who would trust to the reasoning of
such a moment in such a state of the passions, when the probability of error is so
great, and the punishment so immeasurable? Men should determine, even upon
important human actions, with coolness, and unimpeded thought; much less, then,
is a rash and disturbed hour enough for eternity.
5. It has often been asked, if self-murder is forbidden by the Christian religion; but
those who ask this question forget, that Christianity is not a code of laws, but a set of
principles from which particular laws must frequently be inferred; it is not sufficient
to say, there is no precise, and positive law, naming, and forbidding self-murder;
there is no law of the gospel, which forbids the subject to destroy his ruler; but there
is a law, which says, fear, and obey him; there is no law which prevents me from
slaying my parent; but there is a law which says, love, and honour them; “be meek,
says our Saviour;” “be long suffering; abide patiently to the last; submit to the
chastening hand of God,” and let us never forget, that the fifth, and greatest gospel is
the life of Christ; that he acted for us, as well as taught, that in the deserts of Judea,
in the hall of Pilate, on the supreme cross, his patience shows us, that evil is to be
endured, and his prayers point out to us, how alone it can be mitigated. (Sidney
Smith, M. A.)
Lessons from a suicide
There is always something solemn in doing things which, when done, cannot be
undone—in taking steps which, when taken once, can never be recalled. We sign our
contracts with a trembling hand; and enter into those bonds which least of all we desire
to break, with a solemnity which arises from the thought that, once entered upon, we
cannot recede. The act of suicide affords the most decisive evidence of the extensive
delusion which men can practise on themselves, and of the blinding power which they
permit the tempter to exercise over them, when, under the idea of relief and escape, they
involve themselves in a deeper calamity, and in order to effect an oblivion of present
suffering, they grasp the cup of eternal woe, and put it to their lips. “From what shall I
escape?” is but one-half of the question—“Into what shall I bring myself?” is the still
more momentous portion of the inquiry.
1. Looking at the circumstances of Saul’s death in their connection with the history
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39. of the people over whom he reigned, it is impossible not to perceive that they were
fraught with instruction to the nation, with lessons valuable though humiliating.
They reiterate with deeper emphasis the truth—that when men are determined to
have their own way—when they will not listen to heavenly suggestions, to Divine
remonstrances—and when they think that they can manage better for themselves
than God can manage for them, there is but one way of convincing them of their
error. They must be allowed to take the problem of their peace and happiness into
their own hands, to attempt to work it out in their own fashion, and then to reap the
bitter results of failure, which in such a case are inevitable. Israel worked out their
own problem, and they brought it to this issue—“And the men of Israel flee from
before the Philistines, and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa,” etc. And thus will it ever
be, where men expect to reap more from their own theories than from God’s fixed
laws and plans.
2. We may take, as a second suggestion from the spectacle before us, the thought—
How dreadful it is for a man to be in trouble without God to sustain and support
him. The waves and billows were indeed going over Saul. We see here the acting out
of one of those principles which regulate the Divine dealings with men If they seek
Him, He will be found of them; if they forsake Him, He will cast them off foreverse
Fearful as is the lesson taught us by the self-murder of Saul, it is consolatory to know
that no one need be in trouble without God. Precious promises point out the way in
which we may be delivered from any such fear.
3. We see, in Saul’s case, that there is no surer sign that a man is on the high road to
ruin than that his heart is hardened against Divine warnings. Quickly, one after
another, came solemn calls to the king of Israel to humble himself at last before God.
We wait; and the thought rushes into our heart, “He will break down at last; he will
stand out no longer. But it did not. And then it was seen that the heart which can
stand out against solemn calls, ruin will be the result.” “He that being often
reproved,” etc. It is a grievous miscalculation, moreover, which men make, when,
conscious that life is passing on in the neglect of God and of duty, they reckon within
themselves upon a certain power which they imagine the approach of death will have
to awaken their attention to religious duties, and to bring with it the disposition to
return to God in repentance and prayer.
4. As we compare the conclusion of this history with its commencement, we cannot
but discover an impressive lesson as to the influence of external circumstances upon
personal character. As Saul rose in his social position, he sunk in his moral
condition. It is dangerous to keep an idol for ourselves; it is not less perilous to
become the idol of others. Never was there a man more frequently instructed in the
lesson of entire dependence upon God. (J. A. Miller.)
5 When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was
dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him.
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40. GILL, "And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead,.... By his own
hands, and not by the hands of the Amalekite, which the armour bearer would scarcely
have suffered:
he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him; some think that Saul, and his
armourbearer, died by the same sword, which was the armourbearer's; and if he was
Doeg, they fell probably by the same sword with which the priests of the Lord were
murdered at Nob, 1Sa_22:18; and it is observed by an historian (d), that the murderers
of Julius Caesar slew themselves with the same dagger they destroyed him.
HENRY, "IV. His armour-bearer who refused to kill him refused not to die with him,
but fell likewise upon his sword, 1Sa_31:5. This was an aggravating circumstance of the
death of Saul, that, by the example of his wickedness in murdering himself, he drew in
his servant to be guilty of the same wickedness, and perished not alone in his iniquity.
The Jews say that Saul's armour-bearer was Doeg, whom he preferred to that dignity for
killing the priests, and, if so, justly does his violent dealing return on his own head.
David had foretold concerning him that God would destroy him for ever, Psa_52:5.
PULPIT, "1Sa_31:5, 1Sa_31:6
His armour bearer. The Jewish tradition says that he was Doeg the Edomite, and that
the sword on which Saul fell was that with which he had massacred the priests. This is
not very probable; but whoever he was, his horror on being asked to slay his master, and
his devotion to him, are deserving of admiration. All his men. In 1Ch_10:6" all his
house." But Ishbosheth and Abner survived, and the meaning probably is not that his
whole army, but that his personal attendants, all those posted round him, fell to a man,
fighting bravely for their king, as the Scots fought round King James V. at Flodden Field.
As suicide was very rare among the Israelites, the death of Saul is made more intensely
tragic by the anguish which drove him thus to die by his own hand.
WHEDON, "5. His armourbearer saw that Saul was dead — He probably drew the
sword from the body of the king and hoped to save him, but all too late.
He fell likewise upon his sword — The same sword by which the Lord’s anointed
had been slain. Touching and beautiful was this devotion of the faithful
armourbearer to his king. It not only evidences the deep attachment of a true and
tender heart, but also shows that Saul was not without a strong personal magnetism,
which drew others to him, and kept them firmly there. At his public election at
Mizpeh there clave to Saul a number of men whose hearts were touched by God, (1
40

41. Samuel 10:26,) and at no time during his reign did he want for attendants who were
thus tenderly attached to his person and interests
PETT, "1 Samuel 31:5
‘And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell on his sword in similar
fashion, and died with him.’
Once the armourbearer saw that Saul was dead by his own hand he followed his
example, and thus died with him. This may have simply been out of a kind of loyalty
to his master, although it could have included remorse because, as his personal
bodyguard, he had failed, through no fault of his own, to preserve his master’s life.
The shame may have been too much for him. He may even have feared the later
consequences if he survived. The Philistines might have seen Saul’s armourbearer as
a good substitute for Saul himself, thus bringing shame on Saul by proxy, while he
may have felt that if he survived intact he might equally suffer shame at the hands
of the Israelites for failing to keep Saul alive. People had strange ideas about
honour.
6 So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer
and all his men died together that same day.
BARNES, "All his men - This and similar expressions must not be taken too
literally (compare 1Ch_10:6). We know that Abner, and Ish-bosheth, and manymore
survived the day of Gilboa.
CLARKE, "And all his men - Probably meaning those of his troops which were his
life or body guards: as to the bulk of the army, it fled at the commencement of the battle,
1Sa_31:1.
GILL, "So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer,.... Only with
this difference, his three sons died honourably in the field of battle, but he and his
armourbearer destroyed themselves. Josephus says (e) he reigned eighteen years in the
41

42. life of Samuel, and after his death twenty two years, which make the forty years the
apostle ascribes to him, Act_13:21; Eupolemus (f), an Heathen writer, makes him to
reign twenty one years; but of the years of his reign, both before and after the death of
Samuel, chronologers are not agreed, see 1Sa_25:1; and See Gill on Act_13:21,
and all his men that same day together; not all the soldiers in his army; for many
of them fled and escaped, and even Abner the general of the army, but his household
servants, or those that were near his person, his bodyguards.
COFFMAN, ""Thus Saul died, and his three sons" (1 Samuel 31:6). Jonathan
exhibited a true loyalty to his father, despite the fact of Saul's condemning him to
death on one occasion (1 Samuel 14:36-43), casting his spear at him on another (1
Samuel 20:33), and his refusing utterly to listen to Jonathan with regard to the
innocence of David. Willis referred to this as, "a moving example of loyalty."[3]
Jonathan died fighting by his father's side, perhaps even trying to save his life as the
enemy closed in upon them.
COKE, "1 Samuel 31:6. So Saul died— Josephus runs out into high encomiums
upon Saul, who, knowing that he was to die, thus gallantly exposed himself for his
country. But, in truth, there is not the least room for panegyrick. He died, not
gallantly fighting, but by his own hand. He died, not as a hero, but as a deserter.
Self-murder is demonstrably the effect of cowardice, and it is as irrational and
iniquitous as it is base. God, whose creatures we are, is the sole arbiter, as he is the
sole author of life: our lives are his property; and he has given the world, his
church, our country, our family, and our friends, a share in them: and therefore, as
Plato finely observes in his Phaedo, "God is as much injured by self-murder, as I
should be by having one of my slaves killed without my consent;" not to insist upon
the injury done to others in a variety of relations by the same act. Much nobler than
Saul's was the resolution of Darius; who, finding himself betrayed, and that he was
to be either murdered by his own subjects, or delivered into the hands of Alexander,
would not, however, be his own executioner: "I would rather," says he, "die by
another's guilt, than by my own." Quint. Curt. lib. 5: cap. 12.
ELLICOTT, "(6) And all his men.—We must not interpret this statement quite
literally; 1 Chronicles 10:6 explains it by “all his house.” Ishbosheth, his son, for
instance, and Abner, the captain of the host, we know were not among the slain on
that fatal day. The meaning is that all his “fideles,” his personal staff, as we should
say, with his three sons fell fighting round him. The lines of the chivalrous Scottish
ballad writer who with rare skill describes the devoted followers of King James V.
falling round him at Flodden, well paints what took place on the stricken field of
Gilboa round the hero king Saul:—
“No one failed him! He is keeping
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43. Royal state and semblance still,
Knight and noble lie around him,
Cold, on Flodden’s fatal hill.
“Of the brave and gallant-hearted
Whom you sent with prayers away,
Not a single man departed
From his monarch yesterday.” AYTOUN.
WHEDON. "6. All his men — All his household, (compare 1 Chronicles 10:6,) who
went with him to the war, and on whom his hopes for the future hung.
“The end of the unhappy king corresponded to his life ever since the day of his
rejection as king. When he had lost the battle, and saw his three sons fall at his side,
and the archers of the enemy pressing hard upon him, without either repentance or
remorse he put an end to his life by suicide, to escape the disgrace of being wounded
and abused by the foe.” — Keil.
PETT, "1 Samuel 31:6
‘So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same
day together.’
The slaughter on the Mount was so complete that Saul, his three sons, his
armourbearer and all ‘his men’ (his standing army) died there with him on that
same day, thereby avenging all the misery that they had brought on David, and
destroying any hopes of Israel’s survival as an independent nation. Without this
central force Israel could put up little resistance against an enemy like the warlike
Philistines. They had been Israel’s mainstay in all the wars with the Philistines
through the years.
43

44. 7 When the Israelites along the valley and those
across the Jordan saw that the Israelite army had
fled and that Saul and his sons had die, they
abandoned their towns and fled. And the
Philistines came and occupied them.
BARNES, "The men on the other side of the valley - This must mean to the
north of the plain of Jezreel, and would comprise the tribe of Naphtali, and Zabulon, and
probably Issachar. But the text of 1Ch_10:7 has “that were in the valley,” limiting the
statement to the inhabitants of the plain of Jezreel.
On the other side Jordan - This phrase most commonly means on the east of
Jordan, the speaker being supposed to be on the west side. But it is also used of the west
of Jordan, as here, if the text be sound.
The Philistines ... dwelt in them - One of the principal cities, Beth-shan, fell into
their power at once 1Sa_31:10.
CLARKE, "The men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley - They
appear to have been panic-struck, and therefore fled as far as they could out of the reach
of the Philistines. As the Philistines possessed Beth-shan, situated near to Jordan, the
people on the other side of that river, fearing for their safety, fled also.
GILL, "And which the men of Israel that were on the other side of the
valley,.... The valley of Jezreel; of which See Gill on Hos_1:5,
and they that were on the other side Jordan; or rather "on that side"; for the
phrase will bear to be rendered either way, and so may mean that side of Jordan on
which the battle was fought; for as for the other side, or that beyond it, the Israelites
there could not be in such fear of the Philistines, nor do we ever read of their inhabiting
any cities there; though as the phrase is used of the valley, as well as of the river, it may
be rendered "about the valley, and about Jordan" (g), and so describes such that dwelt
near to each of them:
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45. saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead; that is,
had information and intelligence of those facts, for it is not to be supposed they saw
them with their eyes:
they forsook, the cities, and fled; fearing they should be put to the sword, or carried
captive:
and the Philistines came and dwelt them; having nothing more to do than to come
and take possession.
HENRY, "V. The country was put into such confusion by the rout of Saul's army that
the inhabitants of the neighbouring cities (on that side Jordan, as it might be read)
quitted them, and the Philistines, for a time, had possession of them, till things were
settled in Israel (1Sa_31:7), to such a sad pass had Saul by his wickedness brought his
country, which might have remained in the hands of the uncircumcised if David had not
been raised up to repair the breaches of it. See what a king he proved for whom they
rejected God and Samuel. They had still done wickedly (it is to be feared) as well as he,
and therefore were consumed both they and their king, as the prophet had foretold
concerning them, 1Sa_12:25. And to this reference is had long after. Hos_13:10, Hos_
13:11, “Where are thy saviours in all thy cities, of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and
princes? I gave thee a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath; that is, he
was a plague to thee living and dying; thou couldst expect no other.”
JAMISON, "the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley —
probably the valley of Jezreel - the largest and southernmost of the valleys that run
between Little Hermon and the ridges of the Gilboa range direct into the Jordan valley.
It was very natural for the people in the towns and villages there to take fright and flee,
for had they waited the arrival of the victors, they must, according to the war usages of
the time, have been deprived either of their liberty or their lives.
K&D, "1Sa_31:7
When the men of Israel upon the sides that were opposite to the valley (Jezreel) and
the Jordan saw that the Israelites (the Israelitish troop) fled, and Saul and his sons were
dead, they took to flight out of the cities, whereupon the Philistines took possession of
them. ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ב‬ֵ‫ע‬ is used here to signify the side opposite to the place of conflict in the valley of
Jezreel, which the writer assumed as his standpoint (cf. 1Sa_14:40); so that ‫ק‬ ֶ‫מ‬ֵ‫ע‬ ָ‫ה‬ ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ב‬ֵ‫ע‬ is
the country to the west of the valley of Jezreel, and ‫ן‬ ֵ‫דּ‬ ְ‫ַר‬‫יּ‬ ַ‫ה‬ ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ב‬ֵ‫ע‬ the country to the west of
the Jordan, i.e., between Gilboa and the Jordan. These districts, i.e., the whole of the
country round about the valley of Jezreel, the Philistines took possession of, so that the
whole of the northern part of the land of Israel, in other words the whole land with the
exception of Peraea and the tribe-land of Judah, came into their hands when Saul was
slain.
PULPIT, "POLITICAL RESULT OF THE BATTLE (verse 7).
45

46. 1Sa_31:7
The men of Israel. The term is here applied to non-combatants, while in 1Sa_31:1 it
meant those following Saul in arms. On the other side of the valley. I.e. of Jezreel,
and so all the Israelites inhabiting the tribes of Issachar, Zabulon, and Naphthali, and
the region generally to the north. In 1Ch_10:7 this flight is confined to the inhabitants of
the valley, one of the most fertile districts of Palestine; but probably the statement made
here, that a very large extent of country was the prize of victory, is the more correct. On
the other side Jordan. This phrase constantly means the eastern side of the Jordan,
nor need we doubt but that the people living near it abandoned their homes and fled; for
the river would form but a slight protection for them in this northerly part of its course.
Still the conquests on the eastern bank of the Jordan must have been confined to a small
district near the lake of Tiberias, as Abner was able to place Ishbosheth as king at
Mahanaim, a town about twenty miles to the east of the river, and not far from Jabez-
Gilead. South of Jezreel the Philistines made no conquests, and thus Ephraim,
Benjamin, and Judah remained free, and of course Gilead, and the most part of the
region beyond Jordan (see 2Sa_2:8-11).
BENSON, "1 Samuel 31:7-10. They on the other side Jordan — Or, rather, on this
side Jordan; for the Hebrew word signifies either side. And there was no occasion
for those beyond Jordan to flee. Saul and his three sons — “The Scripture,” as Mr.
Henry well observes, “makes no mention of the souls of Saul and his sons, what
became of them after they were dead; secret things belong not to us.” They cut off
his head — As the Israelites did by Goliath, and fastened it in the temple of Dagon, 1
Chronicles 10:10. In the house of their idols — To give them the glory of this
victory. And by this respect shown to their pretended deities, how do they shame
those who give not the honour of their achievements to the living God! They
fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan — To expose it, as we do the bodies of
great malefactors, to public shame and reproach. And thus, as appears by 1 Samuel
31:12, they did with the bodies of his sons
PETT, "1 Samuel 31:7 would also suggest, either that the full muster of the tribes
had not yet arrived. An alternative possibility is that they had been kept in reserve
at the other side of the valley in order to intervene when called on. Either way the
defeat of Israel’s main army was clearly so conclusive that they played no part in
the battle, and then recognised that their only course, with Saul and his sons dead,
was to disappear as quickly as possible, leaving the cities of Israel wide open to the
Philistine invaders. They knew that further resistance would be useless and would
only bring reprisals on those cities.
COFFMAN, ""And those beyond the Jordan" (1 Samuel 31:7). Cook pointed out
that these words usually mean "east of the Jordan," but not in this particular
passage,[4] at the same time questioning the integrity of the text. Willis also
questioned the accuracy of the rendition here, even though it is followed by the
46

47. KJV, ASV, RSV, NIV and GNB. The NEB renders the passage, "in the district of
the Jordan," which Willis cited as preferable, because, "Clearly the Philistines did
not cross the Jordan to the east and occupy territory there,"[5] since (as the text
indicates) Jabesh-gilead, on the east of Jordan, some ten miles east of Bethshan (on
the west side and which was occupied by the Philistines), remained under Israelite
control as proved by the citizens of that place rescuing the bodies of Saul and his
sons from the Philistines at Bethshan.
ELLICOTT, "(7) On the other side of the valley.—The words “on the other side of
the valley” denote the country opposite to the battle-field in the valley of Jezreel, on
which the writer supposes himself to be standing, the land occupied especially by the
tribes of Issachar, Zabulon, and Napthali. The expression “on the other side of
Jordan,” is the usual phrase for the country east of the River Jordan. It is highly
probable that the alarm caused by the great defeat of their king caused many of the
dwellers in the smaller cities and villages to the east of Jordan hastily to abandon
their houses rather than be exposed to the insolence and demands of the invading
army. Still the Philistine army in this direction could not have penetrated very far,
as shortly after Gilboa we hear of Abner rallying the friends of the house of Saul
round the Prince Ishbosheth, whom he proclaimed king at Mahanaim, a town some
twenty miles east of the river. The country to the south of the plain of Jezreel does
not appear to have been overrun by the victorious army. The presence of David in
that part no doubt insured its immunity from invasion.
LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:7. A distinction is here made between the “men of Israel”
who were non-combatants and dwelt east of the field of battle, and the “men of
Israel” who formed the army. The former are described as those who dwelt “on the
side of the plain and on the side of the Jordan.”[FN14] The “plain” is the lowland
between mount Gilboa on the south and little Hermon on the north, the continuation
of the plain of Jezreel, into which the battle passed, so that the Israelites fled to
mount Gilboa and were there slain. The Jordan with its western bank-terrain
formed the border. Those who, from the station of the narrator (which we must take
with Keil to be the battle-field in the plain of Jezreel) dwelt beyond, that Isaiah,
opposite him on the mountain-terrain beside the plain and in the Jordan-flats, fled
from their abodes when they saw the total defeat of the Israelitish army in the plain.
They left the cities; Sept, Vulg, Syr, Chron. read “their cities,” a correct
interpretation, but not proof of a different original text here (Then.). And the
Philistines came and dwelt in them, not immediately, before the occurrence of what
is next related (Then. against Bertheau), but from now on they took possession of
the district with all its cities, settled themselves on the whole north and thence seized
the rest of the country, so that they held the whole land except Perea on the east
[beyond Jordan] and Judah in the south.
CONSTABLE, "The aftermath of the battle 31:7-13
The other Israelite soldiers retreated when they heard that Saul and his sons had
47

48. died. This left towns in the region open for Philistine seizure. Instead of driving the
native inhabitants out of the land, Saul had made it possible for them to drive the
Israelites out and to reestablish themselves in Galilee (cf. Joshua 1:2-9).
The Philistines cut off Saul's head, as David had earlier cut off the head of Goliath,
the Philistine champion (1 Samuel 17:51). They hung it as a trophy in the temple of
Dagon (1 Chronicles 10:10). They also circulated Saul's weapons and sent them on a
tour of Philistine pagan temples before finally depositing them in the temple of
Ashtaroth, their chief female deity. David had taken Goliath's head to Jerusalem,
and had put his weapons in his own tent, at least temporarily (1 Samuel 17:54). The
giant's sword was in the tabernacle at Nob when David went there (1 Samuel 21:9).
This book began with scenes from God's temple, but it ends with scenes in the
temples of Israel's pagan enemies. David's faith had brought Israel success, but
Saul's disobedience had lost it.
The Philistines fastened Saul's decapitated corpse on the wall of their nearby town
of Beth-shan. In the ancient Near East the treatment of a corpse was very
significant. If people, even enemies, honored a person, they treated his corpse with
care and gave it an honorable burial, but if they did not respect him, they treated his
dead body with contempt. The Philistines showed great disrespect for Saul by
hanging his dead body on the wall of Beth-shan. This town stood at the east end of
the Jezreel Valley, near where the battle had taken place. Contrast their respect for
David in chapter 29.
However, the men of Jabesh-gilead rescued Saul's corpse from further humiliation,
burned it, probably because the Philistines had abused it, and perhaps to prevent
disease, [Note: Baldwin, p. 171.] and buried the remaining bones. Jabesh-gilead lay
about 13 miles east-southeast of Beth-shan. Saul had earlier rescued Jabesh-gilead
from the Ammonites (ch. 11). Some of its inhabitants may have been Saul's blood
relatives. [Note: See my comments on 11:6-11.] The tamarisk tree under which the
people buried Saul was very different from a royal tomb, but that kind of tree was a
symbol of life since it was an evergreen. The writer may have wanted us to
remember that earlier Saul had played the fool under another tamarisk in Gibeah
(cf. 1 Samuel 22:6). Later, David honored Saul and Jonathan by digging up their
bones and burying them more appropriately in their family tomb (2 Samuel
21:12-14). The seven-day fast also honored Saul but was much less than the honors
granted other great leaders of Israel (cf. Numbers 20:29; Deuteronomy 34:8). The
writer evidently recorded all these details to show the ignominy in which Saul died
because he departed from the Lord.
This is how the life of Israel's first king, the man after the Israelites' own heart,
48

49. ended (cf. 1 Chronicles 10:13-14; Hosea 13:11). He was full of promise at his
anointing, having many natural qualities that could have contributed to a successful
reign. He also possessed the Holy Spirit's enablement after his anointing.
Unfortunately he did not become a source of blessing to Israel and the world, nor
did God bless him personally. Instead he became a curse to Israel, the world, and
himself. He did so because he failed to acknowledge Yahweh as the true king of
Israel and because he failed to view himself as Yahweh's servant. His life teaches us
that the key to blessing or cursing is one's trust in, and obedience to, God.
"At the end ... much remains to praise, much to blame, and much to wonder at."
[Note: R. B. Sewall, The Vision of Tragedy, p. 32.]
Note the differences between Saul's death and Jesus Christ's. Jesus was consistently
trusting and obedient to His Father's will. He laid down His life as a sacrifice for
others rather than taking it Himself. He spent the night before His death in prayer
to His Father, whereas Saul spent his last night with a medium. Jesus Christ blessed
many through His death, even the whole human race, but Saul brought blessing to
others through his death only because it cleared the way for someone better.
Chapters 21-31 contrast the rise of David and the fall of Saul. The reason for both
was clearly the extent of their commitment to Yahweh. We can see their
commitment in their responses to His revealed will.
The writer also developed the motif of the proper response to the Lord's anointed in
this part of the book. David's respect for the priests and His seeking of God's will
through them shows the proper attitude. Saul on the other hand slaughtered them,
showing that he no longer cared about the worship of Yahweh, and sought guidance
from the spiritual underworld. God spared people who acknowledged David as His
anointed, and they became sources of fertility. Those who opposed David suffered
God's curse and died.
PETT, "1 Samuel 31:7
‘And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and those who
were beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons
were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled, and the Philistines came and dwelt in
them.’
That this means that the forces of Israel, who had been mustered from the most
northerly tribes and from Transjordan, in order to assist in the fight against the
Philistines, but had not taken part in the battle, fled, must be seen as probable. It is
not likely that all the inhabitants of the cities fled. They would simply have
49

50. submitted to the approaching Philistines, thus hopefully avoiding reprisals by
becoming voluntary vassals. (It was the normal for invaders only to take reprisals
when cities resisted. Otherwise they simply demanded tribute. It was to their
advantage. See Deuteronomy 20:10-14). The Philistines would then occupy them and
take authority over them, as they had previously done with the Canaanites over
whom they ruled. They would become a part of the Philistine empire. (This had
apparently not just been a raid with the aim of obtaining tribute, as previously. It
was seemingly an attempt to build an empire and occupy the cities permanently).
In view of the brevity of the statement, however, the position is not totally clear,
something reinforced by the fact that we are not totally sure what Philistine
attitudes were in such a situation. They may have had a policy of slaughtering a
good number of men of fighting age when they took over a city. The writer’s main
aim, in fact, was simply to explain that the main cities of central Israel were now to
be under the rule of the Philistines.
8 The next day, when the Philistines came to strip
the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen
on Mount Gilboa.
CLARKE, "On the morrow - It is very likely that the battle and pursuit continued
till the night, so that there was no time till the next day to strip and plunder the slain.
GILL, "And it came to pass on the morrow,.... The day after the battle, which
perhaps was fought till night came on:
when the Philistines came to strip the slain; of their clothes, and take from them
whatever was valuable, as their booty:
that they found Saul and his sons fallen in Mount Gilboa; to which they had
betaken themselves, when the battle went against them in the valley; of which see 1Sa_
28:4.
HENRY, "The scripture makes no mention of the souls of Saul and his sons, what
50

51. became of them after they were dead (secret things belong not to us), but of their bodies
only.
I. How they were basely abused by the Philistines. The day after the battle, when they
had recovered their fatigue, they came to strip the slain, and, among the rest, found the
bodies of Saul and his three sons, 1Sa_31:8. Saul's armour-bearer perhaps intended to
honour his master by following the example of his self-murder, and to show thereby how
well he loved him; but, if he had consulted his reason more than his passions, he would
have spared that foolish compliment, not only in justice to his own life, but in kindness
to his master, to whom, by the opportunity of survivorship, he might have done all the
service that could be done him by any man after he was dead; for he might, in the night,
have conveyed away his body, and those of his sons, and buried them decently. But such
false and foolish notions these vain men have (though they would be wise) of giving and
receiving honour. Nay, it should seem, Saul might have saved himself the fatal thrust
and have made his escape: for the pursuers (in fear of whom he slew himself) came not
to the place where he was till the next day. But whom God will destroy he infatuates and
utterly consumes with his terrors. See Job_18:5, etc. Finding Saul's body (which now
that it lay extended on the bloody turf was distinguishable from the rest by its length, as
it was, while erect, by its height, when he proudly overlooked the surrounding crowd),
they will, in that, triumph over Israel's crown, and meanly gratify a barbarous and
brutish revenge by insulting the deserted corpse, which, when alive, they had stood in
awe of. 1. They cut off his head. Had they designed in this to revenge the cutting off of
Goliath's head they would rather have cut off the head of David, who did that execution,
when he was in their country. They intended it, in general, for a reproach to Israel, who
promised themselves that a crowned and an anointed head would save them from the
Philistines, and a particular reproach to Saul, who was taller by the head than other men
(which perhaps he was wont to boast of), but was now shorter by the head.
JAMISON, "1Sa_31:8-10. The Philistines triumph over their dead bodies.
on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they
found Saul and his three sons fallen — On discovering the corpses of the
slaughtered princes on the battlefield, the enemy reserved them for special indignities.
They consecrated the armor of the king and his sons to the temple of Ashtaroth fastened
their bodies on the temple of Shen, while they fixed the royal heads ignominiously in the
temple of Dagon (1Ch_10:10); thus dividing the glory among their several deities.
K&D, "On the day following the battle, when the Philistines tripped the slain, they
found Saul and his three sons lying upon Gilboa; and having cut off their heads and
plundered their weapons, they went them (the heads and weapons) as trophies into the
land of the Philistines, i.e., round about to the different towns and hamlets of their land,
to announce the joyful news in their idol-temples (the writer of the Chronicles mentions
the idols themselves) and to the people, and then deposited their weapons (the weapons
of Saul and his sons) in the Astarte-houses. But the corpses they fastened to the town-
wall of Beth-shean, i.e., Beisan, in the valley of the Jordan (see at Jos_17:11). Beth-
azabbim and Beth-ashtaroth are composite words; the first part is indeclinable, and the
plural form is expressed by the second word: idol-houses and Astarte-houses, like beth-
aboth (father's-houses: see at Exo_6:14). On the Astartes, see at Jdg_2:13. It is not
expressly stated indeed in 1Sa_31:9, 1Sa_31:10, that the Philistines plundered the bodies
of Saul's sons as well, and mutilated them by cutting off their heads; but ‫ֹאשׁ‬ ‫ר‬ and ‫יו‬ָ‫ל‬ֵ‫,כּ‬
51

52. his (i.e., Saul's) head and his weapons, alone are mentioned. At the same time, it is every
evident from 1Sa_31:12, where the Jabeshites are said to have taken down from the wall
of Beth-shean not Saul's body only, but the bodies of his sons also, that the Philistines
had treated the corpses of Saul's sons in just the same manner as that of Saul himself.
The writer speaks distinctly of the abuse of Saul's body only, because it was his death
that he had chiefly in mind at the time. To the word ‫חוּ‬ ְ‫לּ‬ַ‫שׁ‬ְ‫ַי‬‫ו‬ we must supply in thought
the object ‫ֹאשׁ‬ ‫ר‬ and ‫יו‬ָ‫ל‬ֵ‫כּ‬ from the preceding clause. ‫ַת‬‫יּ‬ ִ‫ו‬ְ‫גּ‬ and ‫ת‬ֹ‫יּ‬ ִ‫ו‬ְ‫גּ‬ (1Sa_31:10 and 1Sa_
31:12) are the corpses without the heads. The fact that the Philistines nailed them to the
town-wall of Beth-shean presupposes the capture of that city, from which it is evident
that they had occupied the land as far as the Jordan. The definite word Beth-ashtaroth is
changed by the writer of the Chronicles into Beth-elohim, temples of the gods; or rather
he has interpreted it in this manner without altering the sense, as the Astartes are merely
mentioned as the principal deities for the idols generally. The writer of the Chronicles
has also omitted to mention the nailing of the corpses to the wall of Beth-shean, but he
states instead that “they fastened his skull in the temple of Dagon,” a fact which is
passed over in the account before us. From this we may see how both writers have
restricted themselves to the principal points, or those which appeared to them of the
greatest importance (vid., Bertheau on 1Ch_10:10).
PULPIT. "MALTREATMENT OF THE BODIES OF SAUL AND HIS SONS
(1Ch_10:8-10).
1Sa_31:8
It came to pass on the morrow. The previous verse gave us the results of the
victory as they were in course of time developed. We now return to the
narrative of the battle and its immediate consequences. As the spoiling was
deferred till the morrow, the struggle must have been obstinately contested,
and decided only just before nightfall.
LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:8. After the anticipatory ethnographic statement in 1 Samuel
31:7 the narrative returns to the field of battle. And it came to pass on the
morrow.—On the day after the battle, which had therefore probably lasted till
evening, the darkness preventing plundering. On mount Gilboa they found Saul and
his sons fallen (comp. 1 Samuel 31:1), the Israelitish army, and with it Saul and his
sons, having fallen back thither from the plain before the victorious Philistines.
COFFMAN, "THE GRUESOME AFTERMATH OF ISRAEL'S DEFEAT
"On the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and
his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. And they cut off his head, and stripped off
his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines, to carry the
good news to their idols and to the people. They put his armor in the temple of
Ashteroth; and they fastened his body to the wall of Bethshan. But when the
52

53. inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the
valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and his sons from
the wall of Bethshan; and they came to Jabesh and burnt them there. And they took
their bones and buried them, under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven
days."
This brave and dangerous action of the men of Jabesh-gilead is another of those
inspiring examples of "gratitude and fidelity" mentioned by Willis. It will be
remembered that at the beginning of Saul's reign (1 Samuel 11:1-11), he had
delivered the Jabesh-gileadites from the insulting intention of the Ammonites to
make slaves of all of them and also to put out their right eyes.
"On the morrow, when they came to strip the slain" (1 Samuel 31:8). Some of the
gruesome practices of ancient warfare appear in this paragraph. Such things as
stripping the clothes and the armor from the dead, cutting off the heads of
prominent enemies, or their leaders, making public displays of such trophies,
depositing such things as armor in the temples of their idols, etc. - all such things
were customary in ancient times. Even David did a number of these things with the
body and the armor of Goliath.
"1 Chronicles 10:10 says that the Philistines fastened Saul's head to the temple of
Dagon; but this was probably the one in Ashdod (1 Samuel 5:1-5), because Samson
wrecked the one at Gaza (Judges 16:27,30)."[6]
ELLICOTT, "(8) They found Saul and his three sons fallen in Mount Gilboa.—It is
expressly stated that the Philistines only found the royal corpses on the morrow of
the great fight. So desperate had been the valour with which the King and his
gallant sons had defended their last positions on the hill, that night had fallen ere
the din of battle ceased. Nor were the enemy aware of the completeness of their
success until the morning dawn revealed to the soldiers as they went over the scene,
the great ones who were numbered among the slain. In the mean time the Amalekite
had found and carried off the crown and royal bracelet. Only the bodies of Saul and
the princes, and the armourbearer, are spoken of here. The crown royal, which
would have formed so splendid a trophy, was already taken.
“O Saul,
How ghastly didst thou look, on thine own sword
53

54. Expiring: in Gilboa, from that hour
Ne’er visited with rain from heaven, nor dew.”
DANTE: Pura. 12
The curse of barrenness alluded to by the great Italian poet was called down on the
hill where the first anointed of the Lord fell, and where the body was stripped and
dismembered by the triumphant foe (2 Samuel 1:21). Quickly the tidings were told,
we learn, in the capital of Gath, and proclaimed through the streets of Askelon.
The historian with extreme brevity records the savage treatment of the royal
remains, which, after all, was but a reprisal. The same generation had witnessed
similar barbarous procedure in the case of Goliath, the great Philistine champion!
ROE, "And it came about on the next day when the Philistines came to strip the
slain, [They now possess the whole valley for this] that they found Saul and his
three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. [And the very thing Saul does not want to
happen happens.] And they cut off his head, [Just like David did to Goliath to
disgrace his body] and stripped off his weapons [and his armor per I Chronicles 10]
and sent them throughout the land of the Philistines, to carry the good news to the
house of their idols and to the people. And they put his weapons in the temple of
Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. [I Chronicles 10
says they put his head in the house of Dagon, their chief god]
ROE, "What is the Philistines' "good news" instead of Yahweh's "good news"? Who
has won in the eyes of the witnesses? Dagon! Dagon just beat Yahweh. Here is the
gospel the Philistines preached, "Hey! our god IS God. He just creamed Yahweh. He
clobbered Yahweh's people. We wiped out Yahweh's king, and here is the evidence."
They proclaimed this news all over, to all their temples. The attendance in the
temples doubled after that, I might add. The giving probably went up twice as much
too. After sending the word to the people, they left the evidence strung up all over.
In the temple of Ashtaroth, the goddess of fertility, the filthiest culture you can
imagine, they hung Saul's armor. His head they fastened in the house of Dagon, their
54

55. chief god. That was the house Samson destroyed one time a little earlier. Then they
hung the bodies up on the greatest central Palestine fortress the Israelites used to
possess, Beth-shan. They just strung up all four bodies, Saul and his three sons.
Who won? Dagon. Who lost? Yahweh.
These people believed in local gods, ergo their god was far bigger than Yahweh. Who
wants to turn to Yahweh when he doesn't win? We all like to be on the winning side.
The tragedy was that the "good news" to the Philistines was that a false god was
THE god. Unfortunately they are led into this by the rebellion of the people of God,
the Israelites, because God allowed it to happen.
Let me say again, we do not sin as an island. One of the spiritual principles in
Scripture is that when we fall we drag down with us not only believers but also
unbelievers. It hardens their position of unbelief. Why should they accept our Lord
as their Lord and their God if we demonstrate his total inadequacy for our problems,
his total insufficiency to keep us out of sin, his total worthlessness to give us peace
amid circumstances. Why should they change? They can go to pills, or the bottle or
a psychiatrist's couch, and they can get peace there. Oh, there is a hangover, and it
costs a lot of money on a psychiatrist's couch, but they find peace. Why should
they go to Jesus when we are acting so up tight under the circumstances. That is
the sadness of Christians falling. It would be better if we didn't name the name of
Jesus Christ at all. At least people wouldn't know who we were supposed to be
walking with and having faith in and gaining our strength and our life from.
Unfortunately in this particular episode they know it is Yahweh. So the name of
Yahweh is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of the Jews, as it is a thousand
years later."
BI, "The Philistines came to strip the slain.
After the battle
Is there any sadder sight than a battlefield after the guns have stopped firing? A similar
scene is described in our text. Before I get through today, I will show you that the same
process is going on all the world over, and every day, and that when men have fallen,
Satan and the world, so far from pitying them or helping them, go to work remorselessly
to take what little there is left, thus stripping the slain. There are tens of thousands of
young men every year coming from the country to our great cities. They come with brave
hearts and grand expectations. But our young man has a fine position in a dry-goods
store. The month is overse He gets his wages. He is not accustomed to have so much
money belonging to himself. He is a little excited, and does not know exactly what to do
with it, and he spends it in some places where he ought not. Soon there come up new
companions and acquaintances from the barrooms and the saloons of the city. Soon that
young man begins to waver in the battle of temptation, and soon his soul goes down. In a
few months, or few years, he has fallen. He is morally dead. Why do the low fellows of
the city now stick to him so closely? Is it to help him back to a moral and spiritual life?
Oh, no! I will tell you why they stay; they are Philistines stripping the slain. The point I
55

56. want to make is this: Sin is hard, cruel, and merciless. Instead of helping a man up, it
helps him down; it will come and steal your sword and helmet and shield, leaving you to
the jackal and the crow. But the world and Satan do not do all their work with the
outcast and abandoned. A respectable impenitent man comes to die. He could not get up
if the house was on fire. What does Satan do for such a man? Wily, he fetches up all the
inapt, disagreeable and harrowing things in his life. He says: “Do you remember those
chances you had for heaven, and missed them? Do you remember all those lapses in
conduct?” And then he takes all the past and empties it on that death bed, as the mail
bags are emptied on the post office floor. The man is sick. He cannot get away from
them. Come, now, I will tear off from you the last rag of expectation. I will rend away
from your soul the last hope. I will leave you bare for the beating of the storm. It is my
business to strip the slain. Sin is a luxury now; it is exhilaration now; it is victory now.
But after a while it is collision; it is defeat; it is extermination; it is jackalism; it is
robbing the dead; it is stripping the slain. Give it up today—give it up! (T. De Witt
Talmage, D. D.)
PETT, "The Death Of Saul And Jonathan
This subsection concentrates on the overwhelming victory of the Philistines over a
depleted Saul, and his subsequent death, along with his three fighting sons, on Mount
Gilboa, with the concentration undoubtedly on the latter fact. It commences with a very
brief description of the battle, and a more detailed description of the deaths of Saul and
his sons, and ends with a dirge written by David as he mourns their deaths. Yet even in
the midst of the tragedy the writer focuses on two acts of nobility, the first the bravery
and loyalty of the men of Jabesh Gilead in daringly rescuing the body of Saul from its
ignominious situation of being displayed on the walls of Bethshan (1 Samuel 31:11-13).
Even in defeat the Israelites are seen as gaining a kind of victory over the Philistines,
who would have no idea where the body had gone. And the second the genuine grief of
David concerning the whole event. There is no reason for doubting the genuineness of
this latter. He loved Jonathan like his own soul, and his love for Israel could also have
resulted in nothing but grief in the light of all that had happened, while the fact that Saul
was YHWH’s anointed would in itself have been sufficient to explain his grief over Saul’s
death. Thus he would undoubtedly have shared in the grief of all Israel, even though he
did recognise what it meant for him. He also appears to reveal himself as having a
genuine appreciation of Saul, as in his dirge he calls to mind his nobler characteristics.
Because this subsection comes where it does we tend to see it as focusing on a tragic end
as a kind of summary of the book. But that is to misunderstand the situation. The writer
did not see it as coming at the end of anything. He saw this final disposal of Saul as
bringing about the upward move of David from being petty king of Ziklag and victor over
the Amalekites, to being king of Judah, and then of all Israel, and final victor over the
Philistines. It was thus a further stepping stone in the onward triumph of YHWH. And
even in this defeat YHWH would emphasise that He could not be overlooked (1 Samuel
31:11-13)
56

57. Analysis Of The Section.
a The Death Of Saul And Jonathan On Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:1-7).
b The Tidings Concerning Saul’s Death And Defeat Are Spread Among The Philistines (1
Samuel 31:8-10).
c The Men Of Jabesh Gilead Arrange For A Decent Burial For Saul’s Body (1 Samuel
31:11-13).
b The Tidings Concerning The Death Of Saul Are Brought To David (2 Samuel 1:1-16).
a David Commemorates The Death Of Saul And Jonathan On Mount Gilboa In A Dirge
(2 Samuel 1:17-27).
The centrality in the chiasmus of the deed of the men of Jabesh Gilead will be noted. It
was not just added in as an afterthought. It was an indication that while Israel might be
down, they were not out.
PETT, "Verses 8-10
Saul’s Body Is Humiliated And The Tidings Concerning Saul’s Death And Defeat Are
Spread Among The Philistines (1 Samuel 31:8-10).
As Saul had anticipated, the Philistines sought to humiliate what remained of him. They
cut off his head and sent it throughout the land of the Philistines in triumph, prior to
setting it up in the temple of their god Dagon (1 Chronicles 10:10). This was similar to
the treatment meted out to the head of Goliath by David (1 Samuel 17:54). (There was no
thought of honouring a fallen foe. It was intended as an indication of the respective
triumph of their deities). They stripped off his armour and set it up in the house of their
goddess Ashtaroth, probably in Bethshan. And they displayed his body on the walls of
Bethshan. This was the only way of ensuring that all knew that he really was dead. Verse
12 informs us that they did the same with the bodies of his sons for a similar reason. But
there was no doubt that there was also in it an intention to gloat over their dead
enemies. It was a display of their triumph, and a warning to all who opposed them.
We should note how the writer actually refrains from mentioning what happened to
Saul’s head, except indirectly. This suggests that he was writing within a time span when
reverence for YHWH’s anointed as king of Israel prevented him from wishing to do so.
The thought of it being hung in a Philistine temple filled him with repugnance (just as he
57

58. also shortly gleefully describes how Saul’s body was saved from humiliation in 1 Samuel
31:11-13). The chronicler, who considered that Saul had shamed himself (1 Chronicles
10:13), had no such inhibition hundreds of years later.
Analysis.
a And it came about on the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that
they found Saul and his three sons fallen on mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:8).
b And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour (1 Samuel 31:9 a).
c And they sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to carry the news to the
house of their idols, and to the people (1 Samuel 31:9 b).
b And they put his armour in the house of the Ashtaroth (1 Samuel 31:10 a).
a And they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan (1 Samuel 31:10 b).
Note that in ‘a’ they discovered his body, and in the parallel they fastened it to the wall of
Bethshan. In ‘b’ they stripped off his armour, and in the parallel they put it in the house
of Ashtaroth. Centrally in ‘c’ they sent the tidings of the victory into all the land of the
Philistines, informing both their idols and their people of it. This included sending Saul’s
head with the messengers, (which was the purpose of cutting it off - compare 1 Samuel
17:54 where David took Goliath’s head to Judah’s sanctuary). 1 Chronicles 10:10 tells us
that it was placed in the temple of Dagon, which was where they had previously first
placed the captured Ark in the time of Eli (1 Samuel 5:2). It was an act of worship to
their god.
1 Samuel 31:8
‘And it came about on the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they
found Saul and his three sons fallen on mount Gilboa.’
The day after the battle the Philistines returned to the battlefield to survey the dead and
strip from them anything that might have value. This was the normal practise after a
victorious encounter. And there, on Mount Gilboa, above the plain of Jezreel, they found
the bodies of Saul and his three sons.
58

59. 9 They cut off his head and stripped off his
armor, and they sent messengers throughout
the land of the Philistines to proclaim the
news in the temple of their idols and among
their people.
PEASE, "The cutting off of his head, possibly, is in revenge for David
cutting off the head of Goliath, and taking it back to show. This would
indicate the total destruction of Saul. His armour, displayed in the
house of their false gods, would be a constant reminder, that they
had defeated Saul with the help of their false gods. They are not
aware, that it was with God's help, they defeated Saul. This was
God's way of punishing Saul.
CLARKE, "And they cut off his head - It is possible that they cut off the heads of
his three sons likewise; for although only his head is said to be cut off, and his body only
to be fastened to the walls of Beth-shan, yet we find that the men of Jabesh-gilead found
both his body and the bodies of his three sons, fastened to the walls, 1Sa_31:12.
Perhaps they only took off Saul’s head, which they sent about to their temples as a
trophy of their victory, when they sent the news of the defeat of the Israelites through all
their coasts, and at last placed it in the temple of Dagon, 1Ch_10:10.
GILL, "And they cut off his head,.... And fastened it in the temple of Dagon, 1Ch_
10:10; perhaps that which was at Ashdod, one of the principalities of the Philistines,
1Sa_5:1,
and stripped off his armour; or vessels (h), his clothes as well as his armour, and
what he had about him; as for his crown on his head, and the bracelet on his arm, the
Amalekite took them before the Philistines came, 2Sa_1:10,
and sent into the land of the Philistines round about: not his head and his
armour, for they were placed in the temple of their idols; unless we can suppose these
were first carried about for show, and as proofs of the victory: but rather messengers,
who were sent express with the news:
59

60. to publish it in the house of their idols, and among the people; that so they
might be glad and rejoice, and give praise to their idols, to whom they ascribed the
success they had.
ELLICOTT, "(9) And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour.—Only
Saul’s head and armour is mentioned here, but on comparing 1 Samuel 31:12,
where the bodies of his sons are especially mentioned, it is clear that this act was not
confined to the person of the king. The sense of the passage there is, the heads of the
king and his three sons were cut off, and their armour stripped from their bodies.
The heads and armour were sent as trophies round about the different towns and
villages of Philistia, and the headless corpses were fastened to the wall of the city of
Beth-shan.
LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:9. Comp. 1 Chronicles 10:9 : “And they stripped him and
took his head and his armor and sent …. ” Here it reads: And they cut off his head
and stripped off his armor.—The And they sent is not to be connected with the “to
publish it” (Then.), as if the Philistines had “beforehand” published the victory
around, meantime retaining Saul’s head and armor, in order to carry them in
triumph on their return, but according to the contrast we must supply “head and
armor,” which they sent around to announce the good news to their idol-temples—
that Isaiah, to the priests serving in the temples—and to the people.—Saul’s head
and armor were the signs of victory for priests and people. Instead of “idol-temples”
[FN15] Chron. and Sept. have “idols” in accordance with the idea that the power of
their idols was manifested in this victory.
PETT, "1 Samuel 31:9
‘And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the
Philistines round about, to carry the news to the house of their idols, and to the
people.’
Their main activity was aimed at Saul. For many years he had proved a thorn in
their sides, and had prevented them from encroaching far into Israelite territory.
Saul ‘had slain his thousands’, and many of them had been Philistines. But now at
last they had thoroughly routed his forces and had killed him. So they cut off his
head and bore it into their land to hang it in the Temple of Dagon (1 Chronicles
10:10), probably in Ashdod (1 Samuel 5:1-2), but some consider it to have been one
of the two temples revealed archaeologically in Bethshan. There would be a number
of temples of Dagon. They also stripped him of his armour and put it in the house of
Ashtaroth (a Canaanite goddess represented by many images). And they sent the
news of his death and of their victory over the Israelites to the house of their idols
and to their people.
60

61. For the cutting off of the head compare 1 Samuel 17:51; 1 Samuel 17:54, and see
also 1 Samuel 5:4. For the stripping of the armour compare 1 Samuel 17:54. These
were clearly seen as the normal things to do to a prominent foe who had been
defeated and slain. Many would have been appalled that this could happen to the
‘Anointed of YHWH’. But we are already in on the secret that he was no longer the
Anointed of YHWH in God’s eyes, for he had been rejected and replaced by David.
This was but the final proof of that fact.
10 They put his armor in the temple of the
Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall
of Beth Shan.
PEASE, " Ashtaroth was the false goddess of these people, along with Baal, the male
false god. This is saying, they nailed his body to the wall in the temple of this false
goddess. This was another form of humiliation of these Israelites. It appears, from the
following verses, that they nailed the bodies of Saul's sons here, too.
BARNES, "In the house of Ashtaroth - This was doubtless the famous temple of
Venus in Askelon mentioned by Herodotus as the most ancient of all her temples. Hence,
the special mention of Askelon 2Sa_1:20. The placing Saul’s armour as a trophy in the
temple of Ashtaroth was a counterpart to the placing Goliath’s sword in the tabernacle
1Sa_21:9. In 1Ch_10:10 it is added that they “fastened Saul’s head in the temple of
Dagon,” probably either in Gaza Jdg_16:21, or in Ashdod 1Sa_5:1-3. This was, perhaps,
in retaliation for the similar treatment of Goliath’s head 1Sa_17:54. The variations seem
to imply that both this narrative and that in 1Ch_10:1-14 are compiled from a common
and a fuller document.
CLARKE, "They put his armor in the house of Ashtaroth - As David had done
in placing the sword of Goliath in the tabernacle. We have already seen that it was
common for the conquerors to consecrate armor and spoils taken in war, to those who
were the objects of religious worship.
They fastened his body to the wall - Probably by means of iron hooks; but it is
said, 2Sa_21:12, that these bodies were fastened in the Street of Beth-shan. This may
mean that the place where they were fastened to the wall was the main street or entrance
61

62. into the city.
GILL, "And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth,.... A temple
dedicated to their deities, called by this name; of which See Gill on Jdg_2:13; Nothing
was more common with the Gentiles than to place in their temples the arms they took
from their enemies, as is strongly expressed by Homer (i) and Virgil (k); and indeed the
Jews did the same, as appears by the sword of Goliath being laid up in the tabernacle,
1Sa_21:9. Here also the Heathens (l) hung up their own arms when the war was ended:
and they fastened his body to the wall of Bethshan; which Josephus (m) says is
the same which in his time was called Scythopolis, from the Scythians that possessed it,
before called Nysa, according to Pliny (n): it was given to the tribe of Manasseh, but they
could not drive out the inhabitants of it, so that it was always in the possession of others,
Jos_17:11; where it is called Bethshean; to the wall of the city they fastened the body of
Saul with nails, as it is commonly understood; but it is more likely they hung it on a
gibbet without, and near the walls of the city; so the Targum, they hung his body; or, as
Josephus (o), they crucified it there; and so they did also the bodies of his sons, as
appears from 1Sa_31:12.
HENRY 10-12, "They stripped him of his armour (1Sa_31:9), and sent that to be set
up as a trophy of their victory, in the house of Ashtaroth their goddess (1Sa_31:10); and
we are told, 1Ch_10:10 (though it is omitted here), that they fastened his head in the
temple of Dagon. Thus did they ascribe the honour of their victory, not as they ought to
have done to the real justice of the true God, but to the imaginary power of their false
gods, and by this respect paid to pretended deities shame those who give not the praise
of their achievements to the living God. Ashtaroth, the idol that Israel had many a time
gone a whoring after, now triumphs over them. 3. They sent expresses throughout their
country, and ordered public notice to be given in the houses of their gods of the victory
they had obtained (1Sa_31:9), that public rejoicings might be made and thanks given to
their gods. This David regretted sorely, 2Sa_1:20. Tell it not in Gath. 4. They fastened
his body and the bodies of his sons (as appears, 1Sa_31:12) to the wall of Bethshan, a city
that lay not far from Gilboa and very near to the river Jordan. Hither the dead bodies
were dragged and here hung up in chains, to be devoured by the birds of prey. Saul slew
himself to avoid being abused by the Philistines, and never was royal corpse so abused as
his was, perhaps the more if they understood that he slew himself for that reason. He
that thinks to save his honour by sin will certainly lose it. See to what a height of
insolence the Philistines had arrived just before David was raised up, who perfectly
subdued them. Now that they had slain Saul and his sons they thought the land of Israel
was their own for ever, but they soon found themselves deceived. When God has
accomplished his whole work by them he will accomplish it upon them. See Isa_10:6,
Isa_10:7.
JAMISON, "to the wall — (2Sa_21:12) - “the street” of Beth-shan. The street was
called from the temple which stood in it. And they had to go along it to the wall of the
city (see Jos_17:11).
62

63. COFFMAN, ""They put his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth" (1 Samuel 31:10).
"This was doubtless the famous temple of Venus in Askelon mentioned by
Herodotus as the most ancient of all her temples, hence, the special mention of
Askelon (2 Samuel 1:20)."[7] We should not be surprised if other Scriptures
mention other places where some of these trophies might have been on public
display, just as was the case with the head of Goliath. The truth is that the same
grisly trophy might have been displayed in a number of different places. See 2
Samuel 31:12-14.
ELLICOTT, "(10) The house of Ashtaroth.—Literally, of “the Ashtaroth.” The
expression may signify that the pieces of armour belonging to the four men were
divided between the different shrines of Astarte in the land, or placed together in
the famous Astarte Temple, at Askelon, which Herodotus (i. 105) describes as the
most ancient of the temples dedicated to the worship of the Syrian Venus. The latter
supposition seems the more probable, as Askelon is specially mentioned by David in
the funeral hymn of Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:20).
The wall of Beth-shan.—Beth-shan was in the tribe of Manasseh, some four miles
west of the Jordan, and twelve miles south of the sea of Galilee. We are told in
Judges 1:27, that the Canaanites, the original inhabitants of the city, were permitted
by the conqueror to dwell still in the city. This Canaanitish element in the
population was perhaps the reason why Beth-shan was chosen for the barbarous
exhibition. The Canaanites would probably have welcomed the miserable spectacle
which seemed to degrade their ancient enemies. The writer of the chronicle adds one
more ghastly detail to this account: “They fastened the head (skull) of Saul in the
Temple of Dagon.”
Battlefield looting was the rule in ancient times of war. The victors gathered clothes,
weapons and armor from the slain.
The armor of Saul was displayed in the temple dedicated to the worship of Ashtorethe,
the Canaanite goddess of sex and war. It is their trophy against the Israelites and their
God.
This is a typical phase of a man who committed sin against God without repentance.
Once a man falls for sin all the way down, the devil (1) mercilessly comes after him, (2)
strips off his integrity and hope for anything in the future, (3) lets the whole world know
how that person fell and (4) displays the person’s disgrace in his place as a trophy.
63

64. Saul’s tragic death gave opportunity for the enemies of the Lord to disgrace His name.
LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:10. The Ashtaroth-houses[FN16] are identical with these idol-
temples. Instead of “Ashtaroth” Chron. has “their gods” [the general for the particular—
Tr.]. And they fastened his body to the wall of Bethshan.—The Chronicler has: “And they
fastened his head on the temple of Dagon;” that Isaiah, he omits the statement about the
corpse and adds this about the head. According to 1 Samuel 31:12 the Philistines act in
the same way with the corpses of Saul’s sons. Our narrator, being occupied from this
point of view chiefly with Saul’s fate, was concerned to relate first what was done with
Saul’s body. As Bethshan (the present Beisan, Rob. III, I, 408 [Am. ed. II:320, 328, 354;
III:326–332]), according to this, was in the hands] of the Philistines (so 1 Samuel 31:7),
they held the country as far as the Jordan [Bethshan is four miles west of the Jordan and
twelve miles south of the sea of Galilee—Tr.]. The corpses were fastened on without the
heads, the latter, with the armor, being fixed on the temples as trophies of victory.
PETT, "1 Samuel 31:10
‘And they put his armour in the house of the Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the
wall of Beth-shan.’
1 Chronicles 10:10 says that ‘they put his armour in the house of their gods’. This may
have been in Bethshan which was a Canaanite city with Philistine connections by the
Valley of Jezreel, but others see it as having in mind the great house of Ashtaroth in
Ashkelon. The former view is seen as supported by the fact that the site of the temple is
unnamed and by the parallelism:
“They put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth,
And they fastened his body to the walls of Bethshan.”
That Ashkelon is in mind might be seen as supported by the reference to Ashkelon in
David’s lament (2 Samuel 1:20), and the fact that Ashkelon was in Philistia proper. That
was not important to the writer, however. What he was concerned about was that Saul
was being shamed and humiliated. Thus came to the end a reign which had begun
gloriously and had descended into tragedy.
Ashtaroth is a plural word and may simply indicate the fact that the goddess
Ashtoreth/Astarte had many images. Alternately it may be that we are to translate as ‘the
houses of the Ashtaroth’ indicating that Saul’s weapons were widely distributed around
different Philistine temples as tokens of victory, or borne triumphantly from one to the
64

65. other.
11 When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard of
what the Philistines had done to Saul,
BARNES, "When the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard ... - See 1Sa_11:1-15.
This is a touching and rare example of national gratitude.
CLARKE, "When the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard - This act of the men
of Jabesh-gilead was an act of gratitude due to Saul, who, at the very commencement of
his reign, rescued them from Nahash, king of the Ammonites, (see 1Sa_11:1, etc.), and by
his timely succours saved them from the deepest degradation and the most oppressive
tyranny. This heroic act, with the seven days’ fast, showed that they retained a due sense
of their obligation to this unfortunate monarch.
GILL, "And the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead,.... Who lived on the other side
Jordan, about eight miles from Bethshan, according to Fuller (p):
heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul; not only that they had got
the victory over him, and routed his army, but had abused his body, and hung it up by
way of reproach and ignominy; which they could not bear to hear of, remembering with
gratitude the kindness he had shown to them, in delivering them out of the hands of
Nahash the Ammonite, 1Sa_11:1.
HENRY, "II. How they were bravely rescued by the men of Jabesh-Gilead. Little
more than the river Jordan lay between Beth-shan and Jabesh-Gilead, and Jordan was
in that place passable by its fords; a bold adventure was therefore made by the valiant
men of that city, who in the night passed the river, took down the dead bodies, and gave
them decent burial, 1Sa_31:11, 1Sa_31:13. This they did, 1. Out of a common concern for
the honour of Israel, or the land of Israel, which ought not to be defiled by the exposing
of any dead bodies, and especially of the crown of Israel, which was thus profaned by the
uncircumcised. 2. Out of a particular sense of gratitude to Saul, for his zeal and
forwardness to rescue them from the Ammonites when he first came to the throne, 1Sa_
11:1-15. It is an evidence of a generous spirit and an encouragement to beneficence when
65

66. the remembrance of kindnesses is thus retained, and they are thus returned in an
extremity. The men of Jabesh-Gilead would have done Saul better service if they had
sent their valiant men to him sooner, to strengthen him against the Philistines. But his
day had come to fall, and now this is all the service they can do him, in honour to his
memory. We find not that any general mourning was made for the death of Saul, as was
for the death of Samuel (1Sa_25:1), only those Gileadites of Jabesh did him honour at
his death; for, (1.) They made a burning for the bodies, to perfume them. So some
understand the burning of them. They burnt spices over them, 1Sa_11:12. And that it
was usual thus to do honour to their deceased friends, at least their princes, appears by
the account of Asa's funeral (2Ch_16:14), that they made a very great burning for him.
Or (as some think) they burnt the flesh, because it began to putrefy. (2.) They buried the
bodies, when, by burning over them, they had sweetened them (or, if they burnt them,
they buried the bones and ashes), under a tree, which served for a grave-stone and
monument. And, (3.) They fasted seven days, that is, each day of the seven they fasted
till the evening; thus they lamented the death of Saul and the present distracted state of
Israel, and perhaps joined prayers with their fasting for the re-establishment of their
shattered state. Though, when the wicked perish there is shouting (that is, it is to be
hoped a better state of things will ensue, which will be matter of joy), yet humanity
obliges us to show a decent respect to dead bodies, especially those of princes.
JAMISON, "1Sa_31:11-13. The men of Jabesh-gilead recover the bodies and bury
them at Jabesh.
the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines had
done — Mindful of the important and timely services Saul had rendered them, they
gratefully and heroically resolved not to suffer such indignities to be inflicted on the
remains of the royal family.
This is across the Jordan about 20 miles from Beth-shan
BENSON, "1 Samuel 31:11-12. The inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead — They lived on the
other side of Jordan; for the people on this side were fled. All the valiant men arose, and
went all night — To avoid discovery. And took the body of Saul, &c. — They had been
delivered by Saul in the beginning of his reign from the Ammonites, when they were in
danger of losing their lives, chap. 11.; and therefore they now showed their gratitude
toward him by not suffering his corpse to want the honour of burial. And came to Jabesh
and burnt them there — It was not the custom of the Hebrews to burn their dead, but to
bury them; but perhaps they burned these bodies for fear, if they buried them, the
Philistines might take them up again to fasten them in the same ignominious manner to
their walls.
ELLICOTT, "(11) The inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead.—The memory of the splendid feat
of arms of their young king Saul, when he gallantly rescued their city (1 Samuel 11:1-11)
years before, when they were threatened with deadly peril by the Ammonites, was still
fresh in the city of Jabesh-Gilead, and they burned to rescue the body of their hero from
shame. It was singular how that first deed of splendid patriotism, done in the early fervour
of his consecration, bore fruit after so many long years.
66

67. “Good deeds immortal are—they cannot die;
Unscathed by envious blight, or withering frost,
They live, and bud and bloom, and men partake
Still of their freshness, and are strong thereby.”
AYTOUN.
Jabesh-Gilead, a city of Manasseh, on the further side of Jordan, on the road from Pella to
Gerasa. perhaps about fourteen miles from Beth-shan (see Judges 21:8, and following).
Its name still survives in the Wady Yabez, running down to the east bank of Jordan, near
the head of which are still visible some ruins named El Deir, which Robinson has
identified with Jabesh-Gilead.
HAWKER, "(11) And when the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead heard of that which the
Philistines had done to Saul; (12) All the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took
the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bethshan, and came to
Jabesh, and burnt them there. (13) And they took their bones, and buried them under a
tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days.
The Holy Ghost hath been pleased to record the bravery of the men of Jabesh-gilead, not,
perhaps, out of regard to Saul's memory, but to testify the proper conduct of those men.
Saul had been blessed of God, as an instrument in rescuing Jabesh-gilead from Nahash,
the king of the Ammorites, and therefore, gratitude made them alive to rescue their
deliverer's body, and those of his sons, from such an ignominious exposure. And this the
men of Jabesh could very easily accomplish, because Beth-shan was only separated by a
branch of Jordan from Jabesh-gilead. And thus the history of Saul terminates in the
finishing of the first Book, as it is called, of Samuel, containing a period of about eighty
years. Alas! what is the sum and substance of everything short of Jesus, but vanity and
vexation of spirit. At the dose of every relation, and of every man's history, we may write
this down, and exclaim with the prophet: Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets,
do they live forever? But, blessed Jesus, amidst all the scenes of departing men; amidst
the dying, and the dead, Oh! what a relief is that sweet thought to the soul of thy people;
Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. Zechariah 1:5; Hebrews 1:12.
K&D 11-13, "When the inhabitants of Jabesh in Gilead heard this, all the brave men
of the town set out to Beth-shean, took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the
wall, brought them to Jabesh, and burned them there. “But their bones they buried
under the tamarisk at Jabesh, and fasted seven days,” to mourn for the king their
former deliverer (see 1Sa_11:1-15). These statements are given in a very condensed form
in the Chronicles (1Sa_31:11, 1Sa_31:12). Not only is the fact that “they went the whole
night” omitted, as being of no essential importance to the general history; but the
removal of the bodies from the town-wall is also passed over, because their being
fastened there had not been mentioned, and also the burning of the bodies. The reason
for the last omission is not to be sought for in the fact that the author of the Chronicles
regarded burning as ignominious, according to Lev_20:14; Lev_21:9, but because he did
67

68. not see how to reconcile the burning of the bodies with the burial of the bones. It was not
the custom in Israel to burn the corpse, but to bury it in the ground. The former was
restricted to the worst criminals (see at Lev_20:14). Consequently the Chaldee
interpreted the word “burnt” as relating to the burning of spices, a custom which we
meet with afterwards as a special honour shown to certain of the kings of Judah on the
occasion of their burial (2Ch_16:14; 2Ch_21:19; Jer_34:5). But this is expressed by
‫ה‬ָ‫פ‬ ֵ‫ר‬ ְ‫שׂ‬ ‫ל‬ ‫ף‬ ַ‫ר‬ָ‫,שׂ‬ “to make a burning for him,” whereas here it is stated distinctly that “they
burnt them.” The reason for the burning of the bodies in the case of Saul and his sons is
to be sought for in the peculiarity of the circumstances; viz., partly in the fact that the
bodies were mutilated by the removal of the heads, and therefore a regular burial of the
dead was impossible, and partly in their anxiety lest, if the Philistines followed up their
victory and came to Jabesh, they should desecrate the bodies still further. But even this
was not a complete burning to ashes, but merely a burning of the skin and flesh; so that
the bones still remained, and they were buried in the ground under a shady tree. Instead
of “under the (well-known) tamarisk” (eshel), we have ‫ה‬ָ‫ל‬ ֵ‫א‬ ָ‫ה‬ ‫ת‬ ַ‫ח‬ ַ‫תּ‬ (under the strong tree)
in 1Ch_10:11. David afterwards had them fetched away and buried in Saul's family grave
at Zela, in the land of Benjamin (2Sa_21:11.). The seven days' fast kept by the Jabeshites
was a sign of public and general mourning on the part of the inhabitants of that town at
the death of the king, who had once rescued them from the most abominable slavery.
In this ignominious fate of Saul there was manifested the righteous judgment of God
in consequence of the hardening of his heart. But the love which the citizens of Jabesh
displayed in their treatment of the corpses of Saul and his sons, had reference not to the
king as rejected by God, but to the king as anointed with the Spirit of Jehovah, and was a
practical condemnation, not of the divine judgment which had fallen upon Saul, but of
the cruelty of the enemies of Israel and its anointed. For although Saul had waged war
almost incessantly against the Philistines, it is not known that in any one of his victories
he had ever been guilty of such cruelties towards the conquered and slaughtered foe as
could justify this barbarous revenge on the part of the uncircumcised upon his lifeless
corpse.
PULPIT, "1Sa_31:11
Jabesh-Gilead. Eusebius describes this place as situated on the road from Pella to
Gerasa, and therefore it would be much nearer the Jordan than Mahanaim, and
probably was not more than twelve or fourteen miles distant from Beth-shan. The people
there had not forgotten how bravely Saul had saved them, and now showed their
gratitude by rescuing his remains from disgrace.
PETT, "Verses 11-13
One Small Victory For Israel (1 Samuel 31:11-13).
It is a mistake to see this as a kind of appended note. In fact the subsection
chiasmus demonstrates the centrality of what is being described here (a fact
hidden by the division of the book into two parts simply on the basis of
convenience). Saul may have reached rock bottom, even as David was triumphing
68

69. in YHWH’s Name, but it is demonstrated here that YHWH did not forget Saul
and his sons, and arranged for them to be rescued them from further ignominy
and from being cursed. It was to be seen that YHWH Himself was not defeated.
This was in itself a minor victory, but it was a reminder that the Philistine
triumph was not complete and that they were not in control of affairs. It would
certainly leave the Philistines infuriated and embarrassed. But its similarity to the
deliverance of the Ark which the Philistines had also tried to use to honour their
gods should not be overlooked. There the Philistines had been unable to retain
the Ark, which they had considered their trophy. Here they were unable to retain
the bodies of Saul and his sons, including that of the godly Jonathan, which they
had also seen as their trophies. YHWH was not going to allow them to think that
He had been defeated.
We should also note that at the commencement of his reign Saul had travelled
through the night (1 Samuel 11:11) and through the Spirit of YHWH had saved the
people of Jabesh-gilead from being dishonoured (1 Samuel 11:2), now the men of
Jabesh-gilead had travelled through the night and had similarly rescued Saul
from being dishonoured. The Spirit of YHWH was still at work.
It is difficult to overemphasise the bravery of these truly valiant men of Jabesh-
gilead. They made their way by night to a Philistine stronghold, no doubt well
guarded and well watched (even though the city gates would have been barred
and bolted for the night), and they stole the trophies of the Philistines from under
their very noses. Had they been caught they would undoubtedly have been shown
no mercy, for the very absence from the walls of these bodies would have been a
body blow to the Philistines. It declared to all that they were unable to guard their
own city, and would make them a laughingstock for miles around. It would mar
the completeness of their victory. Indeed every Israelite around about who
learned what had happened would have rejoiced at what some unknown Israelites
had done, and would have smirked behind his hand, and would have squared his
shoulders, and have felt that much better for what had occurred, while the
Philistines would have been seething in uncontrolled anger.
Furthermore it is clear that these brave men were expecting the very real
possibility of repercussions, for their unusual act of burning the bodies (but not
the bones) suggests that they were protecting the corpses of Saul and his sons
against the possibility of recapture and further mutilation. It is also clear that all
who knew who was responsible for the action maintained their silence, possibly
even in the face of some brutality, so that the Philistines had no idea who had
69

70. done this dreadful thing. It was not to be until much later that the details came
out, and by then it would be too late for the Philistines to do anything about it.
Analysis.
a And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard in respect of him what the
Philistines had done to Saul (1 Samuel 31:11).
b All the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the
bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan (1 Samuel 31:12 a).
a And they came to Jabesh, and burnt them there, and they took their bones, and
buried them under the tamarisk-tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days (1 Samuel
31:12-13).
Note that in ‘a’ we have described the rumours about what the Philistines had
done to Saul, and in the parallel we have described what the inhabitants of
Jabesh-gilead did for Saul. Centrally in ‘b’ is emphasised this minor, but
significant, victory against the Philistines.
1 Samuel 31:11
‘And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard in respect of him what the
Philistines had done to Saul,’
The news of what had happened to the bodies of Saul and his sons reached
Jabesh-gilead in Transjordan. It would reach them very quickly for they were not
more than twenty miles from Bethshan, which was four miles west of the Jordan.
And they would learn the whole gory details about their fate. Nevertheless it must
have been three days at least after the deaths of the four Israelite heroes before
their bodies were rescued. (The Philistines stripped the bodies the day after the
battle. The bodies would then have to be taken to Bethshan in no particular hurry
and would need to be displayed. After that the news had to reach the men of
Jabesh-gilead, who would have required time to make their decision and plan
their operation. All this would have taken time). Thus the bodies would have been
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71. corrupting and would have had time to be picked at by scavengers. They would be
smelling and disintegrating. (People of those days were, however, not as
squeamish as we are).
12 all their valiant men journeyed through the
night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of
Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and
went to Jabesh, where they burned them.
BARNES, "burnt them - Burning was not the usual mode of sepulture among the
Hebrews. But in this case from a pious desire to disguise the mutilation of the headless
corpses, and exempt them from any possible future insult, the men of Jabesh burned the
bodies, yet so as to preserve the bones 1Sa_31:13; 2Sa_21:12.
CLARKE, "And burnt them there - It has been denied that the Hebrews burnt the
bodies of the dead, but that they buried them in the earth, or embalmed them, and often
burnt spices around them, etc. These no doubt were the common forms of sepulture, but
neither of these could be conveniently practiced in the present case. They could not have
buried them about Beth-shan without being discovered; and as to embalming, that was
most likely out of all question, as doubtless the bodies were now too putrid to bear it.
They therefore burnt them, because there was no other way of disposing of them at that
time so as to do them honor; and the bones and ashes they collected, and buried under a
tree or in a grove at Jabesh.
GILL, "All the valiant men arose,.... Of the city of Jabeshgilead, fired with
indignation at the Philistines' ill usage of Saul and the bodies of his sons:
and went all night; not only for secrecy, but for haste:
and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of
Bethshan, and came to Jabesh; brought them with them thither, the Philistines
either having no knowledge of it, or not daring to oppose them:
71

72. and burnt them there: that is, the flesh of them, for the bones they buried, as in 1Sa_
31:13; and this they did, contrary to the common usage of the country, which was not to
burn; but this they did, that if the Philistines should come to recover them, they would
not be able to do it: though the Targum is,
"they burnt over them, as they burn over their kings there;''they made a burning for
them of spices over them; or of their beds, and other household goods, as Kimchi and
Ben Melech observe, though they prefer the other sense; see 2Ch_16:14 perhaps the true
reason might be, because they were putrid and infectious.
HENRY, "They fastened his body and the bodies of his sons (as appears, 1Sa_31:12)
to the wall of Bethshan, a city that lay not far from Gilboa and very near to the river
Jordan. Hither the dead bodies were dragged and here hung up in chains, to be
devoured by the birds of prey. Saul slew himself to avoid being abused by the Philistines,
and never was royal corpse so abused as his was, perhaps the more if they understood
that he slew himself for that reason. He that thinks to save his honour by sin will
certainly lose it. See to what a height of insolence the Philistines had arrived just before
David was raised up, who perfectly subdued them. Now that they had slain Saul and his
sons they thought the land of Israel was their own for ever, but they soon found
themselves deceived. When God has accomplished his whole work by them he will
accomplish it upon them. See Isa_10:6, Isa_10:7.
JAMISON, "valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of
Saul and the bodies of his sons — Considering that Beth-shan is an hour and a half’s
distance, and by a narrow upland passage, to the west of the Jordan (the whole being a
journey from Jabesh-gilead of about ten miles), they must have made all haste to travel
thither to carry off the headless bodies and return to their own side of the Jordan in the
course of a single night.
burnt them — This was not a Hebrew custom. It was probably resorted to on this
occasion to prevent all risk of the Beth-shanites coming to disinter the royal remains for
further insult.
COFFMAN, ""They came to Jabesh and burnt them (the bodies of Saul and his
sons) there" (1 Samuel 31:12). Cremation was very unusual, if not actually
forbidden, among the Jews. God pronounced a severe judgment against Moab,
because he burned to lime the bones of the king of Edom (Amos 2:1). The difference
here is that the bones of Saul and his sons were not burned. Perhaps they burned
the bodies to prevent any further display of them by the Philistines, or perhaps
because the natural decomposition of them had reached a state that made it
necessary so to do.
Here was cremation of the good and the bad. Jonathan was a godly man who lived
in obedience to the plan of God, but he was also cremated and it was considered an
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73. act of love. It was to honor the king also, for these people were loyal to their king
even though he was not loyal to God.
One pastor expresses himself on the issue of cremation-Calvary Chapel of Sahuarita
ELLICOTT, "(12) And burnt them there.—This “burning the corpse” was never the
custom in Israel, and was restricted to criminals convicted of a crime of the deepest dye
(Leviticus 20:14). The Jews in all cases buried their dead. The Chaldee therefore interpret
the words relating this act of the men of Jabesh-Gilead, in the case of Saul and the
princes, as referring to the solemn burning of spices, a ceremony which was afterwards
performed at the burial of some of the kings of Judah. (See 2 Chronicles 16:14; 2
Chronicles 21:19; Jeremiah 34:5.) But the language used in these cases is different; here
it is expressly stated that “they burnt them.” The reason for their thus acting is clear. The
mutilated trunks had been exposed for some days to the air, and the flesh was no doubt in
a state of putrefaction. The flesh here only was burned. The bones (see next verse) were
reverently and lovingly preserved, and laid to rest beneath the friendly shade of the great
tamarisk tree of Jabesh.
Out of gratitude to Saul for delivering their city (chapter 11), the men of Jabesh Gilead
risked their lives to recover the bodies of Saul and his sons and to give them a proper
burial.
This is the first record of cremation in the Bible. Some people are absolutely against
believers getting cremated after their death. They even claim that it is unbiblical.
However, they never show where they find the text that says it is against the Word of
God. Cremation is NOT against the Word of God. Cremation does in 37 minutes what the
normal body decomposing does in 30 years.
The main reason some oppose cremation is that they believe God may not be able to bring
those burned people back at the time of rapture. If God can create heaven and earth from
nothing, of course He can bring those people back for the rapture with no problem.
In my opinion, it is the difference between an $800 cremation vs. an $8000 burial that
gets the same result. The family member can pocket $7200. For me, I don’t care. Because
I ain’t gonna be in my dead body anyway, I’d rather my family to have $7200 extra and
go on to Disney Land than give money away to a funeral director.
LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:12. They went the whole night and took (under cover of darkness)
the corpses from the wall and brought them to Jabesh-Gilead and burnt them.—The
bodies were burned (a practice peculiar to heathendom, allowed in Israel only in the case
of the worst criminals, Leviticus 20)[FN17] instead of being buried, as was usual, not
because the Jabeshites feared further insult to the corpses if the Philistines should take
their city (Then. [Philipps.]), but probably because their mutilation rendered them unfit
for ordinary burial. The Chaldee, in contradiction with the text, understands the “burning”
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74. to refer to the solemn burning of spices, which was afterwards customary at the burial of
kings.
PULPIT, "1Sa_31:12, 1Sa_31:13
They burnt them. Cremation, though highly honourable among classical nations, is
here mentioned for the first time in Holy Scripture, and was probably resorted to on
this occasion to insure the bodies of Saul and his sons against further maltreatment,
as, if buried, the Philistines might have made the attempt to get them again into
their power. Some suppose that the burning of the dead was afterwards practised by
the Jews, and quote in its favour 2Ch_16:14; Isa_33:12; Jer_31:40; Jer_34:5; Amo_
6:10, but these passages bear a different interpretation. After the exile, interment
was the sole method of disposing of the dead among the Jews, and in the Talmud
cremation is condemned as a heathen practice. The burial of the bones of Saul and
his sons proves that their bodies here were really burnt. Under a tree. Hebrew,
"under the tamarisk," the famous tree of that species at Jabesh. It was under one
tamarisk that Saul commanded the massacre of the priests (1Sa_22:6), and now his
bones are placed in rest beneath another. Perhaps the people remembered the king’s
fondness for trees. For the final fate of these relics see 2Sa_21:12-14. They fasted
seven days (see Gen_1:10). The time of mourning was thirty days for Aaron (Num_
20:29) and for Moses (Deu_34:8). The Talmudic rule is strict mourning for seven
days, less strict for the next twenty-three, in all thirty; and for a father or mother
mourning was continued for a year. The fasting was mourning of the strictest kind,
and proves that the people of Jabesh-Gilead honored to the utmost their deliverer.
ROE, "Back when Saul first became king and he was God's man, Jabesh-gilead was
besieged by the Ammonites (sons of Lot). They came out of the hills on the eastern
side of the Jordan and surrounded the town. The town said, "We can't fight you
. You are too big. What can we do to make a deal?" Nahash, king of the Ammonites
said, "O.K., if you surrender we will let you live, but I'm going to gouge out
everyone's right eye as a reproach on all Israel." The right eye, of course, was the
key eye. You held your shield in the left hand and your sword in the right hand
. Without a right eye the shield would blank out the only eye you had, and there
would be a blind spot on the right. You would have to switch hands to fight, and you
would still have a blind spot. Your value as a warrior would be destroyed. Nabash's
intent was to deliberately disgrace Israel. So, what happened? The Spirit of the
Lord came mightily on Saul, and he called Israel together. He subsequently defeated
the Ammonites and rescued Jabesh-gilead. This was when he was God's man
. Jabesh-gilead remembered that. They didn't think about all the things that
happened after that. They only remembered that when they needed him most, Saul
was there, and he was God's man, and he did win for them. So they honored him
. They went on this 20 mile night walk to retrieve the four bodies. Apparently the
bodies had been badly abused so they burned off their flesh off so they could never
again be viewed in that state. Then they buried the bones under a tamarisk tree. The
Philistines continued their incursion all the way to the Jordan but were never again
74

75. able to get the bodies to disgrace them.
In I Chronicles 10:13 we have this sentence.
So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the Lord, because
of the word of the Lord which he did not keep
This speaks of when he was supposed to totally destroy the Amalekites, man, woman
, child, infant, sheep, oxen, camels, donkeys because they were a picture of the flesh
. However, he wouldn't do it. He kept the best of the flesh, remember, best of the
sheep, oxen, camel, donkeys, and he kept the king alive. He couldn't bring himself to
destroy the "best," and it cost him his kingdom at that time. That is when God told
him, "I am ripping the kingdom from you because of this. It is no longer yours. You
could have had it, but it is not yours any more." Also he died for that trespass.
I Chronicles 10:13b:
"And also because he asked counsel of a medium, making inquiry of it and did not
inquire of the Lord."
He did try to inquire of the Lord, remember, but the Lord would not answer him
. So he probably did not inquire with a pure heart. James says, "You ask and
receive not because you ask with the wrong motives." Saul apparently did just that
. God would not respond to the wrong motives, and since God did not respond, Saul
went to a medium which he knew to be wrong. He knew the penalty was death. For
inquiring of a medium, for going to a medium, or for being a medium you were to be
slain. So God killed him for #1 not wiping out the flesh, the Amalekites, and
#2 deliberately disobeying the law of God which he had himself enforced by
eliminating all the spiritists and mediums in Israel.
And it goes on to say, I Chronicles 10:14:
"Therefore he [God] killed him [Saul] and turned the kingdom over to David
the son of Jesse."
This is the tragic end of the people's desire. What was the desire of the people when
they got Saul? Remember what they were asking? "We want a king," and what
kind of a king? "One like all the other nations have." They wanted someone who
looked good, looked kingly, looked regal, who would lead them into battle. What did
Saul look like? Physically he was everything you would want a king to be. He was
head and shoulders above all of Israel. He came from a very godly line. He had
excellent parentage. He was a wonderful father. His three sons went to their deaths
with him. He was really quite a man humanistically and naturalistically speaking
. The tragedy was that spiritually he was nowhere. So the people got exactly what
they were asking for, a king like all the other nations had, and God had to remove
him from office the hard way.
75

76. PETT, "1 Samuel 31:12
‘All the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the
bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan; and they came to Jabesh, and burnt
them there.’
The brave men of Jabesh-gilead then travelled through the night in order to rescue
the bodies and take them down from the wall, no doubt arriving before dawn. Once
there they had to find a means of reaching the bodies and taking them down, before
once again disappearing into the night. It was a hazardous operation carried out in
the utmost secrecy. The fewer who knew about it the better.
It is clear from all this how important they saw the act to be. The hanging of the
bodies in the open would have made them accursed (Deuteronomy 21:22-23). And to
this was added the shame both to YHWH’s Anointed, and to the people of Israel
whom he represented of their being so openly displayed. Furthermore we know that
these men of Jabesh-gilead had good cause to be grateful to Saul, for it was he who
had rescued them and their fathers from a terrible fate at the hands of Nahash the
Ammonite (see 1 Samuel 11), and it is quite possible that they were also related to
Saul. All this had in their eyes rendered this action imperative. But when we
remember how the Spirit of YHWH had come on Saul when he had delivered
Jabesh-gilead, it is difficult not to see also that The Spirit of YHWH was active here.
History was turning full circle.
Then the men hurriedly bore the bodies back to Jabesh in order to do them honour
(this was clearly the reason for taking them back, otherwise they could easily have
buried them not long after leaving Bethshan). Once at Jabesh they burned the
bodies, although not the bones. This was unusual as Israelites preferred burial. But
they clearly wanted there to be no danger of the bodies being retrieved by the
Philistines. It was the bones, rather than the flesh, that were seen as the very centre
of men’s beings and as thus representing the whole man (compare how the skull and
crossbones symbol originally represented the whole man). This use is found
regularly (see 1 Kings 13:31; 2 Kings 13:21; Job 4:14; Job 20:11; Job 30:17; Psalms
6:2; Psalms 31:10; Psalms 32:3; Psalms 35:10; Psalms 51:8; Proverbs 14:30;
Proverbs 16:24; Proverbs 25:15; Isaiah 58:11; Isaiah 66:14; Habakkuk 3:16). Thus
the flesh was not looked on as being too important. For the importance and burial of
bones compare Genesis 50:25; Ezekiel 39:15; Hebrews 11:22. Indeed deliberately
burning the bones was seen as sinful (Amos 2:1).
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77. 13 Then they took their bones and buried them
under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted
seven days. Fasting in grief and not for appealing
to God for his grace in some matter they were
seeking from him in prayer.
BARNES, "Under a tree - Rather, “Under the tamarisk,” a well-known tree at
Jabesh which was standing when this narrative was written.
They fasted seven days - In imitation of the mourning for Jacob (marginal
reference). They would give full honor to Saul though he was fallen.
CLARKE, "And fasted seven days - To testify their sincere regret for his
unfortunate death, and the public calamity that had fallen upon the land.
Thus ends the troublesome, and I had almost said the useless, reign of Saul. A king
was chosen in opposition to the will of the Most High; and the government of God in
effect rejected, to make way for this king.
Saul was at first a very humble young man, and conducted himself with great
propriety; but his elevation made him proud, and he soon became tyrannical in his
private conduct and in his political measures. His natural temper was not good; he was
peevish, fretful, and often outrageous; and these bad dispositions, unchecked by proper
application to the grace of God, became every day more headstrong and dangerous.
Through their violence he seems at times to have been wholly carried away and
deranged; and this derangement appears to have been occasionally greatly exacerbated
by diabolical influences. This led him to take his friends for his foes; so that in his
paroxysms he strove to imbrue his hands in their blood, and more than once attempted
to assassinate his own son; and most causelessly and inhumanly ordered the innocent
priests of the Lord at Nob to be murdered. This was the worst act in his whole life.
Saul was but ill qualified for a proper discharge of the regal functions. The reader will
remember that he was chosen rather as a general of the armies than as civil governor.
The administration of the affairs of the state was left chiefly to Samuel, and Saul led
forth the armies to battle.
As a general he gave proof of considerable capacity; he was courageous, prompt,
decisive, and persevering; and, except in the last unfortunate battle in which he lost his
life, generally led his troops to victory.
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78. Saul was a weak man, and very capricious; this is amply proved by his unreasonable
jealousy against David, and his continual suspicion that all were leagued against him. It
is also evident, in his foolish adjuration relative to the matter of the honey (see 1Sa_
14:24-30, 1Sa_14:38-44) in which, to save his rash and nonsensical oath, he would have
sacrificed Jonathan his son!
The question, “Was Saul a good king?” has already in effect been answered. He was on
the whole a good man, as far as we know, in private life; but he was a bad king; for he
endeavored to reign independently of the Jewish constitution; he in effect assumed the
sacerdotal office and functions, and thus even changed what was essential to that
constitution. He not only offered sacrifices which belonged to the priests alone; but in
the most positive manner went opposite to the orders of that God whose vicegerent he
was.
Of his conduct in visiting the woman at En-dor I have already given my opinion, and
to this I must refer. His desperate circumstances imposed on the weakness of his mind;
and he did in that instance an act which, in his jurisprudential capacity, he had
disapproved by the edict which banished all witches, etc., from Israel. Yet in this act he
only wished to avail himself of the counsel and advice of his friend Samuel.
To the question, “Was not Saul a self-murderer?” I scruple not to answer, “No.” He
was to all appearance mortally wounded, when he begged his armor-bearer to extinguish
the remaining spark of life; and he was afraid that the Philistines might abuse his body,
if they found him alive; and we can scarcely say how much of indignity is implied in this
word; and his falling on his sword was a fit of desperation, which doubtless was the issue
of a mind greatly agitated, and full of distraction. A few minutes longer, and his life
would in all probability have ebbed out; but though this wound accelerated his death, yet
it could not be properly the cause of it, as he was mortally wounded before, and did it on
the conviction that he could not survive.
Taking Saul’s state and circumstances together, I believe there is not a coroner’s
inquest in this nation that would not have brought in a verdict of derangement; while the
pious and the humane would everywhere have consoled themselves with the hope that
God had extended mercy to his soul.
Millbrook, June 11, 1818.
Ended this examination August 13, 1827. - A.C.
GILL, "And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at
Jabesh,.... For though they burned the bodies, yet so as to preserve the bones; and
these, together with the ashes of the parts burnt, they gathered up, and buried under a
tree near this city; this tree is said to be an oak, 1Ch_10:12; so Deborah, the nurse of
Rebekah, was buried under an oak, Gen_35:8. The Jews generally interred their dead
under some oak, as aforementioned writer observes (q); pleased perchance with the
parallel, as he expresses it, that as these plants, seemingly dead in winter, have every
spring an annual resurrection, so men's dry bones shall have new sap put into them at
the day of judgment:
and fasted seven days; not that they ate and drank nothing all that time, but they
fasted every day till evening, as the Jews used to do; so long it seems a man may live
78

79. without eating, but not longer; See Gill on Exo_24:18 and see Gill on 1Ki_19:8; this they
did, as Kimchi thinks, in memory of the seven days Nahash the Ammonite gave them for
their relief, in which time Saul came and saved them, 1Sa_11:3.
BENSON, "1 Samuel 31:13. And fasted seven days — To testify their sorrow for the
loss of Saul, and of the people of God; and to entreat God’s favour to prevent the
utter extinction of his people. But we must not understand this word of fasting
strictly, as if they ate nothing for seven whole days; but in a more large sense, as it is
used both in sacred and profane writers; that they did eat but little, and that but
mean food, and drank only water for that time. This book began with the birth of
Samuel, and ends with the death of Saul. The comparing these together will teach us
to prefer the honour that comes from God before all the honours of the world. The
reader will do well to observe also that in this book we have two such examples of
piety and virtue in Samuel and David as we cannot too frequently make the subject
of our consideration. On the other hand, in the example of Saul we have a picture of
the miserable state of that man who forgetteth God, and turneth aside from his
commandments. May God, through Jesus Christ, send down his grace into our
hearts, that, through our whole lives, we may be inclined to imitate the first, and
may always dread to fall into the state of the latter, and, as the only way to escape it,
make it our chief study and delight to please God, and do his will; for this is the
whole of man: in which all his happiness, all his peace consists. For that there is no
peace to the wicked, hath been pronounced by Him who knoweth the nature and
frame of man; by the Lord himself, who cannot lie. “The wicked are like the
troubled sea when it cannot rest. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked,”
Isaiah 57:20-21.
LANGE, "1 Samuel 31:13. They took their bones and buried them; only the flesh,
therefore, was burned, perhaps because it had already putrefied. They buried the bones
under the tamarisk at Jabesh; the Chronicler: “under the oak at Jabesh.” The Art. indicates
a well-known tree. The Chronicler, omitting the “night-march,” does not mention the
taking of the bodies from the wall, as he had not mentioned their being fastened there,
and also omits the burning of the corpses “because it was contrary to the prevailing
custom” (Then.), not because he could not reconcile it with the burial of the bones (Keil).
With grateful remembrance of Saul’s rescue of Jabesh, a public mourning with a seven
days’ fast was made for him. David afterwards caused the bones to be interred in Saul’s
family burial place at Zelah in Benjamin ( 2 Samuel 21:11-14).
ELLICOTT, "(13) A tree in Jabesh.—A tree, that is “the well-known” tamarisk
(‫ך‬shel). For Saul’s love for trees see as an instance 1 Samuel 22:6. The men of
Jabesh-Gilead well remembered this peculiar fancy of their dead king, and under
the waving branches of their own beautiful and famous tamarisk they tenderly laid
the remains of their dead hero and his princely sons.
Evidently King David, at a subsequent period, fetched away these royal remains,
and had them reverently interred in the family sepulchre of Kish, the father of Saul,
79

80. in Zelah of Benjamin (2 Samuel 21:12; 2 Samuel 21:14).
And fasted seven days.—This was the period the sons of Israel mourned for Jacob at
the threshing floor of Atad beyond Jordan (Genesis 1:10). The grateful men of
Jabesh-Gilead thus paid the last honours to the fallen Saul.
It is probable that the Talmudic rule which enjoins strict mourning for seven days
(fasting was mourning of the strictest kind) was originally based on these two
historic periods of mourning recorded in the case of the great ancestor of the tribes,
Jacob, and of the first King Saul, although the curious tradition preserved in the
Babylonian Talmud gives a special reason for the period—seven days. Rav. Chisda
said: The soul of the deceased mourns over him the first seven days; for it is said,
Job 14:22, “and his soul shall mourn over him.” Rav. Jehudah said: If there are no
mourners to condole with, ten men sit down where the death took place. Such a case
happened in the neighbourhood of Rav. Jehudah. After the seven days of mourning,
the deceased appeared to Rav. Jehudah in a dream, and said “Mayest thou be
comforted as thou hast comforted me.”—Treatise Shabbath, fol. 152, Colossians 2.
To this day among the Jews ten men are hired to perform the usual daily prayers
during the seven days of mourning at the house of the deceased.
On the reason for the number seven being fixed for the period of mourning, we read
again in the Seder Moed of the Babylonian Talmud, “How is it proved that
mourning should be kept up seven days? “It is written, Amos 8:10 : “I will turn
your feasts into mourning,” and these (usually) lasted seven days.—Treatise Moed
Katon, fol. 20, Colossians 1.
“Again a long draught of my soul-wine! Look forth o’er the
years!
Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the
80

81. seer’s!
Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb, bid
arise
A grey mountain of marble heaped four-square, till built to the
skies.
Let it mark where the great First King slumbers; whose fame
would ye know?
Up above see the rock’s naked face, where the record shall go,
In great characters cut by the scribe. Such was Saul, so ne
did;
With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid—
For not half, they’ll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to
amend,
81

82. In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall
spend
(See, in tablets, it is level before them) their praise, and record,
With gold of the graver, Saul’s story—the statesman’s great
Word
Side by side with the poet’s sweet comment. The rivers
a-wave
With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet
winds rave:
So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part
In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou
art !”
BROWNING’S Saul.
82

83. HAWKER, "REFLECTIONS
PAUSE, Reader! once more over the sad view of Saul's history, and as thou hast
been called upon to mark his progress in sin, and the ripening of his mind in
iniquity; here behold, in self-murder, the awful close of a life so evil. Oh! how
dreadful to die out of Christ, uninterested in him; void of all covenant promises;
unregenerated in heart, unwashed in the blood of the Lamb, and without the
clothing of the Redeemer's righteousness. Better to die in a ditch, than to die out of
Christ. The manner of death is nothing: to die anyhow, anywhere, by any means;
only to die in Jesus. Lord! give to him that reads, and him that writes, the blessed
hope in our death, that living or dying, we are the Lord's. Oh! for a part in the first
resurrection, and then the second death hath no power.
Dearest Jesus! thou art the resurrection, and the life. Thou blessed Jesus, by thy
death, hast overcome death, so that death now, by thee, is among the inventory of
the believer's treasure. To die in time is gain. Lord, give grace, both to writer and
reader, that we may so live, as to add death to our sure account of profit; that
whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things
present, or things to come; all may be ours; for we are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
PETT, "1 Samuel 31:13
‘And they took their bones, and buried them under the tamarisk-tree in Jabesh, and
fasted seven days.’
And the bones they buried under the tamarisk-tree in Jabesh. This was probably a
local landmark and seen as a kind of local sacred spot from of old (1 Chronicles has
‘under the terebinth’ - compare Hosea 4:13). Perhaps the evergreen nature of the
tree was seen as symbolically life-imparting. It was an indication of the honour in
which they held Saul and his sons that they buried them in such a prominent place.
But no outsiders would have known where to look. And they then fasted for seven
days, a further honouring of Saul’s name and also a sign of mourning. Even this was
a very brave thing to do. They would have had to be careful, for too much
ostentation could well have drawn attention to them, and that was the last thing that
they wanted. No doubt rumours would gradually filter around as to what they had
done, for to the Israelites it would seem like a taste of victory in the face of defeat.
But by the time that they reached Philistine ears (if they ever did) it would be too
late for them to do anything about it, especially without any kind of evidence. One
bone looks little different from another. David would later arrange for the transfer
of the bones to the family sepulchre at Zelah (2 Samuel 21:12-14).
PULPIT, "The bitter end.
83

84. The tragic element, so conspicuous in this history, is intense in the last scene of all.
I. SAUL’S DEATH.
1. His despair. When the battle went against him, and the Philistines, keeping beyond
reach of his long arm and terrible sword, hit him from a distance with their arrows, the
king’s spirit suddenly failed and died within him. "He trembled sore because of the
archers." Always fitful in his moods, liable to sudden elation and sudden depression, he
gave up all for lost. He would not flee, but he would fight no more. Probably the horrible
recollection of the words spoken to him by the spectre at Endor increased his despair,
and he thought only how to die.
2. His pride. Saul had never shown much regard for the sacredness of human life, but he
cherished a most exalted sense of the sacredness of his own person as the Lord’s
anointed. No descendant of a long line of so styled Christian or Catholic sovereigns has
held a loftier claim of personal inviolability. So he resolved that no heathen should cut
him down in battle. Anything rather than this. If his armour bearer would not kill him,
he would kill himself.
3. His suicide. With all his horror of being slain by a heathen, Saul died like a heathen—
dismissed himself from life after the manner of the pagan heroes; not with any sanction
from the word of God or the history of his servants. (Illustrate from the stories of Brutus
and Cassius and the younger Cato.) The only instance of what can be called self-
destruction among the men of Israel prior to the days of Saul was that of Samson, and
his was a self-devotion for the destruction of his country’s enemies which ranks with the
heroism of one dying in battle rather than with cases of despairing suicide. There is a
case after the days of Saul, viz; that of Ahithophel, who, in a fit of deep chagrin,
deliberately hanged himself. To the servants of God suicide must always appear as a
form of murder, and one that implies more cowardice than courage. English law regards
it as a very grave crime, and to mark this our old statutes, unable to punish the self-
murderer, assigned to his body ignominious burial It is, however, the charitable custom
of our times to assume that one who kills himself must be bereft of reason, and so to
hold him morally irresponsible. Apology of this kind may be pleaded for King Saul, and
pity for his disordered brain takes away the sharpness from our censure. Still we must
not overlook—
4. The admonition which his death conveys. Saul had really prepared for himself this
wretched death. He had disregarded the prophet, and so was without consolation. He
had killed the priests, and so was without sacrifice or intercession. He had driven away
David, and so was without the help of the best soldier in the nation, a leader of 600 men
inured to service and familiar with danger. He had lived, in his later years at least, like a
madman; and, like a madman, he threw himself on his sword and died. Here lies
admonition for us. As a man sows he reaps. As a life is shaped, so is the death
determined. We speak of the penalty on evil doers, but it is no mere arbitrary infliction;
it is the natural fruit and necessary result of the misconduct. One leads a sensual life, and
the penalty on him is that of exhaustion, disease, and premature decay. One leads a
selfish life, hardening his heart against appeal or reproach, and his doom is to lose all
power and experience of sympathy, to pass through the world winning no love, and pass
out of the world drawing after him no regret.
84

85. II. JONATHAN’S DEATH.
1. Its innocence. Look at the pious, generous prince, as well as the proud and wilful king,
slain on that woeful day. A man who loves God and whom God loves may be innocently
involved in a cause which is bound to fail. It may be by ties of family, or by official
position which he cannot renounce; and, unable to check the fatal course of his
comrades, he is dragged down in the common catastrophe. Jonathan died in the same
battle with his father, but not as his father died. Let us remember that men are so
involved with one another in the world, in ways quite defensible, sometimes
unavoidable, that as one may share the success of another without deserving any part of
the praise, so also may one share the downfall of others without being at all to blame for
the courses or transactions which brought about the disastrous issue.
2. Its timeliness. The death of Jonathan: occurring when it did, brought more advantage
to the nation than his continued life could possibly have rendered. It opened the way for
David’s succession to the throne. Had Jonathan survived his father, be might have been
willing to cede the succession to David, but it is not at all probable that the people would
have allowed his obvious claim to be set aside, and any conflict between the partisans of
two such devoted friends would have been most painful to both. So it was well ordered
and well timed that Jonathan died as a brave soldier in the field. He missed an earthly
throne indeed, but he gained all the sooner a heavenly home. So is it with many a death
which seems to be sad and untimely. A man of God cannot lose by dying. To die is gain.
But he may by dying advance the cause of God more than he could by living. His
departure may clear the ground for other arrangements under Divine providence, for
which the time is ripe, or open the way for some one who is chosen and called to do a
work for God and man that must no longer be delayed.—F.
COFFMAN, ""They took them (the bones) and buried them under the tamarisk
tree in Jabesh" (1 Samuel 31:13). Canon Cook's statement that this tree "was
standing when this narrative was written,"[8] if true, evidently rests upon some
information which does not seem to appear in the text.
"Under the tamarisk tree" (1 Samuel 31:13). It was under another tamarisk tree
that Saul ordered the slaughter of the priests of Nob (1 Samuel 22:6); and in this
passage we read that his bones were buried under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh. What
a strange irony is this! Wickedness always finds its appropriate retribution.
But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword
and fell on it.
He chose the way he would die, and many want to have this choice and not go by
accident or illness. Such was the case in the story that follows.
85

86. A solemn summary of this, from the divine side, is found in Hosea 13:11, when at a
later date, God reminded rebellious Israel, "I gave them a king in Mine anger, and
took him away in My wrath": the reference being to Saul.
An old preacher was dying. He sent a message for his Income Tax Agent and his
Lawyer (both church members), to come to his home. When they arrived, they were
ushered up to his bedroom. As they entered the room, the preacher held out his
hands and motioned for them to sit on each side of the bed. The preacher grasped
their hands, sighed contentedly, smiled and stared at the ceiling.
For a time, no one said anything. Both the IRS Agent and Lawyer were touched and
flattered that the old preacher would ask them to be with him during his final
moment. They were also puzzled because the preacher had never given any
indication that he particularly liked either one of them.
Finally, the Lawyer asked, "Preacher, why did you ask the two of us to come?" The
old preacher mustered up some strength, then said weakly . . . .
"Jesus died between two thieves, and that’s how I want to go, too.
The essential sin that led to Saul’s foolishness is "self-will."
The Philistines were not Saul’s worst enemies. His worst foe was himself.
Saul’s downhill slide did not happen overnight, but over many years. And
ultimately, like a rotting tree collapsing on itself, his self-centeredness and self-will
ended in self-destruction.
Saul was a mistake from the start, for it was not God's will for Israel to have a king
Hosea 13:11, when at a later date, God reminded rebellious Israel, "I gave them a
king in Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath": the reference being to Saul.
What need is there for both writer and reader to heed that exhortation, "Take heed,
brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the
living of God" (Heb. 3:13).
King Saul himself is mortally wounded by arrows during the battle. When he
realizes that he is dying, he asks his armor bearer to kill him. You see, if the
Philistines found the king alive, they would "make sport of him." This verb is
translated in other places, "make a mockery of," "abuse," and "deal severely with."
The Philistines were known to be ruthless to notable enemies. Remember that when
they had captured Samson, they gouged out his eyes (Judges 16:21) and entertained
themselves by watching him stumble around. Saul was afraid that the Philistines
86

87. would capture him and treat him similarly.
But his armor bearer was afraid and refused. Seeing no other way out, Saul fell on
his own sword, committing suicide. The armor bearer followed suit and killed
himself as well.
Thus, the prophecy of Samuel the day before had come true.
1Sam. 28:19 “Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel along with you into the
hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.
Indeed the LORD will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines!”
Suicide is not a common action in the Bible. These are two of only seven suicides
discussed in Scripture. Unfortunately, suicide is becoming increasingly more
common today.
In America, about 765,000 people attempt suicide each year. About 30,000 of them
are successful. To put that in perspective, every year the population of a city larger
than Laramie kills themselves. It is the 8th leading cause of death in America. This
is an epidemic.
The Voices
Why are people killing themselves in such great numbers today? It is not that others
in the Bible did not want to die. Elijah...
1Kgs. 19:4 ...requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough; now, O
LORD, take my life...”
Jonah also...
Jonah 4:8 ... begged with all his soul to die, saying, “Death is better to me than life.”
Job wished he was dead, saying,
Job 3:11 “Why did I not die at birth, Come forth from the womb and expire?"
Even the apostle Paul wrote,
2Cor. 1:8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which
came {to us} in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so
that we despaired even of life;
So the desire for death is not uncommon. But we must learn where it comes from
and what the right response to it is.
First of all, the desire for suicide never comes from God. God has never told anyone
to kill themselves. The temptation to do it is from the world, the flesh, and the devil.
The world convinces us that when we are no longer a resource, we are a burden. It
is no wonder that the more wicked our society becomes, the more we embrace
euthanasia and assisted suicide. "Kill the old, the sick, the weak, and the deformed."
Just as we saw in chapter 30, the Amalekites left their Egyptian slave to die in the
wilderness when he became sick.
The flesh also speaks to us of suicide. Convinces us that it cannot take another day
of depression, another minute of pain, another second of despair. Meanwhile, our
spirit cries out for life, but many have lived so long in the flesh that they turn a deaf
ear to its pleas.
Rom. 8:5-6 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of
the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the
mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace
Rom. 8:13 ...if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit
87

88. you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
The most heinous of these voices though, is the devil. He encourages our destruction.
Even when tempting Jesus in the wilderness, he took Him to stand on the pinnacle
of the temple and said, "throw yourself down" (Matt. 4:6; Luke 4:9).
But Jesus told us,
John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they
might have life, and might have {it} abundantly.
Jesus wants us to have abundant life, not to let the devil steal, kill, and destroy our
lives.
The Responses
So how do we answer these voices calling for our suicide? When the world tells you
that you have no value, no future, no benefit, no hope, your response should be, "I
am made in the image of God (). God has plans for me, plans of a future and a hope
(Jer. 29:11). God values all life, and me especially, because Jesus said,
Matt. 10:29-31 'Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And {yet} not one of them will
fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. Therefore do not fear; you are of more value than many sparrows.'
Therefore, I will not listen to the world when it tells me to end my life.
When your flesh tells you that it cannot endure its discomfort any longer, you
respond,
Rom. 8:18 ...the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with
the glory that is to be revealed...
And when the devil's voice tells you to end it all, your response should be to,
James 4:7-8 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you...
Suicide is not the unforgivable sin, but it is a grievous sin nonetheless. It is selfish,
defiant, and murder. Let God finish His plan for you. Do what Paul did - he trusted
in God.
2Cor. 1:8-10 For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction
which came {to us} in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength,
so that we despaired even of life; indeed, we had the sentence of death within
ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the
dead; who delivered us from so great a {peril of} death, and will deliver {us,} He on
whom we have set our hope.
In other words,
Prov. 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own
understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths
straight.
Set your hope in God, and this season will come to pass on its own.
DR. JAMES L. WILSON, "Saul ascended to greatness, but was never a great man.
Instead of living with humility and gratitude for his opportunities, he lived the
88

89. tragic life of presumption. He presumed to decide which of God's commands he
would follow and which he wouldn't. God told him to utterly destroy the
Amalekites-he chose to spare some of them and keep the spoils of battle. On another
occasion, he presumed to offer sacrifices unto the Lord, a task that was reserved for
the priests. The psalmist wrote, "Also keep back Thy servant from presumptuous
sins; Let them not rule over me; Then I shall be blameless, And I shall be acquitted
of great transgression." (Psalm 19:13 NASB) A prayer Saul would have done well to
pray. Instead, he gave into his base desires. Deut. 17:12 gives the penalty for
presumptuous sin, it says, "And the man who acts presumptuously by not listening
to the priest who stands there to serve the Lord your God, nor to the judge, that
man shall die; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel." (NASB) In falling on his
own weapon, Saul was executing the judgement of Deuteronomy 17.
Saul's tragic life proves the old adage, "evil carries within itself the seed of its own
destruction."
The Sages offer a number of reasons why Saul's suicide was unique:
1. Saul feared that his enemies would use torture to try to force him to worship
other gods. (Ritva - 14th century)
2. Suicide is permitted in the face of an attempt at forced conversion.
(Rabbeinu Tam - 12th century)
3. Suicide is permitted only if the lives of others would be in danger as a result
of torture. (Rabbi Shlomo Luria - 16th century)
4. Saul acted out of respect for the Israelite kingship, as he feared the
Philistines would mockingly parade him through their cities. In other words,
he committed suicide to sanctify God's name. (Y'dai Moshe - 20th century)
In summary, suicide is absolutely prohibited, unless there are unusual and
extenuating circumstances - e.g. forced conversion, endangering the lives of others,
or sanctifying the Name of God.
There are many stories of individuals who either pleaded with God to end their life,
or who killed themselves, or who sought the assistance of another to kill them:
Numbers 11:12-15 Moses was in despair because of the complaints of the
Israelites whom he was leading. The burden of leadership was too heavy for
him to bear. He asked God "If You treat me like this, please kill me here and
now..."
89

90. Judges 16:29-30 Samson had been chained to the two middle pillars of a
temple. He pushed them apart. thereby knowingly causing the collapse of the
building, his own suicide and the death of a few thousand people inside. The
death toll exceeded the number of people that he had killed during the rest of
his life -which was considerable. Samson had been blinded, and no longer
wanted to live as a captive. And by causing his own death, he had a chance to
destroy many of the enemy.
2 Samuel 1:2-17 An unidentified Amalekike man described to David a very
different account about Saul's death. The versions in 1 Samuel 31 and 1
Chronicles 10, describe how Saul committed suicide by himself, after his armor
bearer refused to perform the task. In this version, Saul had the Amalekite, a
stranger, kill him, in a form of assisted suicide. After hearing the story of how
the Amalekike had carried out the wishes of Saul, David had him executed on
the spot, because he had "slain the LORD's anointed." The implication is that
one can assist in the suicide of a commoner, but not in the case of a king. There
is no criticism of Saul asking for help in committing suicide.
1 King 16:15-20 Zimri, king of Tirzah, saw his city besieged and taken. He was
distressed at the sins that he had committed. He "went into the citadel of the
king's house and burned the king's house down upon himself with fire, and
died..."
Jonah 4:1-11 God had threatened the destruction of the Nineveh, a city of
120,000 people. But the king and people of the city listened to Jonah, repented
of their sins, and fasted. God changed his mind and did not destroy the city.
Jonah was so angry at God's display of mercy that he asked God to kill him,
"for it is better for me to die than to live!" He repeated the same request to God
on the next day.
By Louis Jacobs
Those who take their own lives are technically not entitled to Jewish burial and
mourning rites--but suicide as a freely chosen act (with the above consequences) has
been nearly defined out of existence by mental health considerations in the
development of Jewish law, and in most cases deaths by suicide are treated like all
other deaths. Excerpted with permission from The Jewish Religion: A Companion,
Oxford University Press.
In Jewish teaching, the prohibition of suicide is not contained in the sixth
commandment: "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20: 13 and Deuteronomy 5: 17).
Obviously it does not follow from the fact that a man may not take the life of
another that he may not take his own life.
There is, in fact, no direct prohibition of suicide in the Bible. In the Talmud (Bava
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91. Kama 91b), however, the prohibition is arrived at by a process of exegesis on the
verse: "and surely your blood of your lives will I require" (Genesis 9: 5), interpreted
as: "I will require your blood if you yourselves shed it." It is possible that there is no
direct prohibition because very few people of sound mind would be inclined to
commit suicide in any event.
It follows from this that suicide and murder are two separate offenses in the Jewish
tradition, as they are in most cultures. Suicide is not homicide and is not covered in
the Decalogue [the Ten Commandments]. In the usual rabbinic classification of
duties, homicide would be considered an offense both "between man and God" and
"between man and man," whereas suicide would fall only under the former
heading.
Maimonides' statement (Rotzeah, 2.2-3) that there is no "death at the hand of the
court" for the crime of suicide, only "death by the hands of Heaven," is puzzling,
since how could a suicide, no longer alive, be punished for the crime by the court?
In all probability, Maimonides formulates it in this way to distinguish between the
two crimes of murder and suicide. Maimonides' statement that a suicide is punished
by the "hands of Heaven" no doubt refers to punishment in the hereafter; but the
popular saying that a suicide has no share in the World to Come, which would cause
a far more severe punishment to be visited on the suicide than on one guilty of
murder, has no support in any of the classical sources. It has plausibly been
suggested that the saying, though bogus, tended to be quoted as a warning to would-
be suicides in stressful periods when there was a spate of suicides in the Jewish
community.
Attitudes to Suicide
Suicide is considered to be a grave sin both because it is a denial that human life is a
divine gift and because it constitutes a total defiance of God's will for the individual
to live the life-span allotted to him. The suicide, more than any other offender,
literally takes his life into his own hands. As it is put in Ethics of the Fathers (4.
21):"Despite yourself you were fashioned, and despite yourself you were born, and
despite yourself you live, and despite yourself you die, and despite yourself you will
hereafter have account and reckoning before the King of Kings, the Holy One,
blessed be He."
Yet there are exceptional circumstances when a man is permitted to take his own life
or allow it to be taken, of which martyrdom is the supreme example. The general
tendency among the later authorities is to extend the idea of mitigating
circumstances so that the law, recorded in the [classical law code] Shulhan Arukh
(Yoreh Deah, 345), that there are to be no rites of mourning over a suicide, is usually
set aside wherever it can reasonably be assessed that the act was committed while
the suicide was "of unsound mind."
Saul's suicide (I Samuel 31: 4-5) is defended on the grounds that he feared torture if
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92. he were captured by the Philistines and would have died in any event as a result of
the torture. Similarly, Samson's suicide (Judges 16: 30), in which he destroyed
himself together with his Philistine tormentors, is defended on the grounds that it
constituted an act of kiddush hashem, "sanctification of the divine name," in the
face of heathen mockery of the God of Israel.
The late Hasidic master, Mordecai Joseph of Izbica (d. 1854) in his commentary to
the Torah, has an unusual discussion relevant to the theme of suicide. This author
appears to have been the first to ask, from the theological point of view, whether a
man, struggling for the truth against seemingly overwhelming odds, may give in
mentally and entreat God to release him from the struggle by allowing him to die.
For such a man actually to commit suicide is unthinkable, but is it impious for him
to pray to God that he should die?
The two biblical examples of this kind of prayer are the plea of Jonah (Jonah 4: 4)
and the prayer of Elijah (1 Kings 19: 4). Both prophets uttered their plea for death
when their mission seemed to have failed. This Hasidic master reads the narratives
of Jonah and Elijah as expressing disapproval of this kind of prayer. The good man,
says Mordecai Joseph, should not take his distress at the wrongdoings of his
contemporaries so much to heart as to wish that he were no longer alive to witness
their sinful deeds.
Louis Jacobs, a British rabbi and theologian, is the former rabbi of the New London
Synagogue. He is the author of numerous books including Jewish Values, Beyond
Reasonable Doubt, and Hasidic Prayer.
Excerpted from The Jewish Religion: A Companion, Oxford University Press. ©
Louis Jacobs, 1995. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part
of this material may be stored, transmitted, retransmitted, lent, or reproduced in any
form or medium without the permission of Oxford University Press.
PINK SAYS SUICIDE IS UNFORGIVABLE
"Though Saul had escaped torture at their hands, his body was signally abused—
adumbrating, we doubt not, the awful suffering which his soul was now enduring,
and would continue to endure forever. Saul’s self-inflicted death points a most
solemn warning for us to earnestly watch and pray that we may be preserved from
both presumption and despair, and divinely enabled to bear up under the trials of
life, and quietly to hope for the salvation of the Lord (Lam. 3:26), that Satan may
not tempt us to the horrible sin of self-murder for which the Scriptures hold out no
hope of forgiveness." Saul is lost he says.
THE FALL OF SAUL
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93. PINK
From the human side of things, Saul was a man splendidly endowed, given a
wonderful opportunity, and had a most promising prospect. Concerning his
physique we are told, "Saul was a choice young man, and a goodly: and there was
not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and
upward he was higher than any of the people" (9:2). Regarding his acceptability
unto his subjects, we read that when Samuel set him before them, that "all the
people shouted, and said, God save the king" (10:24): more, "there went with him a
band of men, whose hearts God had touched" (10:26), giving the young king favor
in their eyes. Not only so, but "the Spirit of the Lord came upon Saul" (11:6),
equipping him for his office, and giving proof that God was ready to act if he would
submit to His yoke.
5. Yet notwithstanding these high privileges, Saul, in his spiritual madness,
played fast and loose with them, mined his life, and by disobeying and
defying God, lost his soul. In the thirteenth chapter of 1 Samuel we find Saul
tried and found wanting. The prophet left him for a little while, bidding him
go to Gilgal and wait for him there, till he should come and offer the
sacrifices. Accordingly we are told "he tarried seven days, according to the
set time that Samuel had appointed." And then we read, "but Samuel came
not to Gilgal, and the people were scattered from him"—having lost their
confidence in the king to lead them against the Philistines to victory. Petulant
at the delay, Saul presumptuously invaded the prophet’s prerogative and
said, "Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings, And he
offered the burnt offering" (13:9). Thus did he forsake the word of the Lord
and break the first command he received from Him.
In the 15th chapter we see him tested again by a command from the Lord: "Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid
wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek
and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not: but slay both man and
woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (vv. 2, 3). But again he
disobeyed: "But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of
the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not
utterly destroy them" (v. 9). Then it was that the prophet announced, "Behold, to
obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as
the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast
rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king" (vv.
22,23). From that point Saul rapidly went from bad to worse: turning against David
and relentlessly seeking his life, shedding the blood of God’s priests (22:18, 19), till
at last he scrupled not to seek the aid of the devil himself (28:7,8).
And now the day of recompense had come, when he who had advanced steadily
from one degree of impiety to another, should miserably perish by his own hand.
The divine account of this is given in 1 Samuel 31. The Philistines had joined
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94. themselves against Israel in battle. First, Saul’s own army was defeated (v. 1); next,
his sons, the hopes of his family, were slain before his eyes (v. 2); and then the king
himself was sorely wounded by the archers (v. 3). Fearful indeed is what follows: no
longer able to resist his enemies, nor yet flee from them, the God-abandoned Saul
expressed no concern for his soul, but desired only that his life might be dispatched
speedily, so that the Philistines might not gloat over him and torture his body.
First, he called upon his armor-bearer to put an end to his wretched life, but though
his servant neither feared God nor death, he had too much respect for the person of
his sovereign to lift up his hand against him (v. 4). Whereupon Saul became his own
murderer: Saul took a sword and fell upon it"; and his armor-bearer, in a mad
expression of fealty to his royal master, imitated his fearful example. Saul was
therefore the occasion of his servant being guilty of fearful wickedness, and
"perished not alone in his iniquity." As he had lived, so he died: proud and jealous,
a terror to himself and all about him, having neither the fear of God nor hope in
God. What a solemn warning for each of us! What need is there for both writer and
reader to heed that exhortation, "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an
evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living of God" (Heb. 3:13).
QUOTES FOR REFLECTION:
Blaikie: “Saul seems never to have been deficient in personal courage, and in the course
of the battle he and his staff were evidently in the very thickest of the fight. …
The spirit of vaunting, which had so roused David against Goliath because he defied the
armies of the living God, appeared far more offensively than ever. Not only was Israel
defeated, but in the view of the Philistines Israel’s God as well.”
Davis: “The men of Jabesh- gilead had not forgotten Saul’s intervention on their behalf
at an earlier period of time (1 Sam. 11). In addition to that, it should be remembered
that some of the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead were Benjamites by marriage after the great
Benjaminite War as described in the later chapters of the book of Judges. . .
In the classical sense, Saul could not be called a great king, but that his achievements
were many is clear from David’s exquisite elegy recorded in II Samuel 1. Whatever
military and judicial victories may have been attributed to Saul, they are overshadowed
by his tragic spiritual failures.”
Gordon: “A different version is given by the Amalekite youth who reports Saul’s death
to David in 2 Samuel 1:6-10, but there is every reason to think that the Amalekite was
trying to do himself a favour by telling David what, as he thought, would earn his
commendation.”
Deffinbaugh: “Clearly the author of our text is choosing to focus on Saul more than on
his sons or the nation Israel. For example, we are not told how Jonathan dies, although
we would very much like to know and although we would expect him to die like the
champion he was, fighting to his last breath. Before we look at the way Saul dies, let us
pause to recall that when Saul is killed, many Israelites also die, and many other
Israelites turn and flee, as we are told in verse 7. Those on the other side of the valley
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95. and across the Jordan (who are not the focus of the Philistine attack) see the defeat of
Israel and the death of Saul and his sons, and know there is no hope of defeating the
Philistines. They flee for their lives, abandoning their cities, which the Philistines then
occupy. This great defeat not only reduces the size of Israel’s army, it reduces the size
of Israel. . . .
It is not a matter of coincidence that Saul is killed by the hands of the Philistines
(28:19) and by the hand of an Amalekite (28:18). A kind of poetic justice is described
here. Saul is reaping what he himself has sewn. He is killed by uncircumcised hands
because God said this was the way he would die. No matter how hard Saul tries to
change his destiny, he cannot succeed at thwarting God’s will or His word. Is his death
not one more attempt to disobey God, one final act of rebellion?
Like the first, Saul’s second request that his enemies not make sport of him is denied.
First, Saul is hit by a number of Philistine arrows, which literally drain the life out of
Saul. His slow, agonizing death is not a pretty sight. Saul does not go out looking good.
After Saul is dead, his armor is stripped from his body and his head cut off. The
Philistines must really enjoy this. And then they take Saul’s armor and his head and
parade them around their cities, taking them into the temple of their god. All of this
mocks not only Saul. but his God. The final indignity for Saul is that his body, along
with the bodies of his sons, is fastened to the wall of Bethshan. The indignities Saul
suffers in death could hardly be worse. . .
God’s word is absolutely reliable. God will do as He has promises. He will deal with sin
and rebellion in judgment; He will deal with trust and obedience in blessing. Saul is
removed from his throne and from life; David is preserved from Saul’s plots and soon
installed as king of Judah (and then of Israel). Before the first man ever sinned, God
declared that the penalty for sin was death (Genesis 2:16-17). From that point on, God
has spoken clearly to men with respect to sin. His word not only defines sin, it spells
out the consequences for sin – death (Romans 3:23; 6:23). God gave Saul time to
repent, but he did not. And so his death came to pass, even as God had said. If you have
never trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation, God is now giving you opportunity to repent.
You may, like Saul, choose to use this time for repentance as the opportunity to add to
your sins. But be assured, your sins will find you out. The wages of sin is death. If you
repent, by acknowledging your sin and trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation, you will
have eternal life. Be assured that God’s promises – both of judgment and of salvation –
are certain. Saul reminds us of this truth.”
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