CHAPTER 31

(1056 B.C.)

THE DEATH OF SAUL AND HIS SONS

¹Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in Mount Gilboa. (If Saul had yielded totally to the Lord, the Philistines would have long since been defeated, and this battle would have never taken place.)

²And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchi-shua, Sauls sons. (How much we lose when we go the wrong way! How many Philistines are left fighting us when, if our consecration had been complete, they would long since have ceased to be?)

³And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers. (There was no other way it could go. Samuel was dead and David had been spurned by Saul, who had attempted many times to kill him. As well, Saul had now resorted to demon spirits.)

⁴Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw your sword, and thrust 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. (The horror of total despair records every moment of this scene. How different it could have been! There was a time that the Spirit of God came upon Saul, but now the Philistines come upon him instead. Israels first king commits suicide.)

⁵And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.

⁶So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together. (Williams says, Self-will wrecked Sauls life [I Chron. 10:13-14]. Only a Spirit-born man can serve and please God. Saul was raised up, as a king after the peoples heart, to deliver them from the Philistines; and if it were possible for the natural man to do Gods Will, then Saul would have succeeded; but he perished at the hands of the very enemies whom he set out to conquer! Such must ever be the result when the flesh attempts to do battle for God.)

⁷And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and they who were on the other side 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. (As stated, the flesh can win no victories. The Spirit of the Lord Alone can do such! The way to walk after the Spirit, and the only way, is for the Believer to place his Faith exclusively in Christ and the Cross, which then gives the Holy Spirit latitude to work [Rom. 8:1-2, 11]. To walk after the flesh is simply to trust in anything except Christ and the Cross; such will always bring about defeat [Rom. 8:8].)

⁸And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen in Mount Gilboa. (As the spoiling was deferred to the next day, the struggle must have been obstinately contested, and decided only just before nightfall. But no matter how intense the struggle, the flesh simply cannot win. It is impossible!)

⁹And they cut off his head (this was probably done not simply in retaliation for what had happened to their champion, Goliath, but in accordance with the customs of ancient warfare), and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish it in the house of their idols, and among the people. (The fierce joy of the Philistines over the fallen Saul proves how great had been their fear of him, and how successful he had been in breaking their yoke off Israels neck, at least up to a point. They gave the credit to their god, Dagon [I Chron. 10:10].)

¹⁰And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth: and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan (as also the bodies of his sons).

¹¹And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul;

¹²All 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 came to Jabesh, and burnt them there.

¹³And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days. (Cremation, though highly practiced among certain nations, is mentioned here for the first time in Holy Scripture, and was probably resorted to on this occasion, rather than burying them, to ensure the bodies of Saul and his sons against further maltreatment.)