Saul and His Sons Die
v1 The Philistines fought against the Israelites on the mountain of Gilboa. The Israelites ran away and the Philistines killed many of them. v2 The Philistines pursued Saul and his sons. They killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua. v3 There was a fierce battle near Saul. The men with bows aimed their arrows at Saul and nearly killed him. v4 Saul spoke to the officer who carried his armor. Saul said, "Kill me with your sword. I do not want those heathen Philistines to insult me and kill me." The officer was afraid. He would not do it. So, Saul got his own sword and fell onto the sharp end. v5 The officer saw that Saul was dead. So, the officer fell onto the sharp end of his sword and died with Saul. v6 So Saul, three of his sons, and the officer who carried his armor all died together that day.
v7 Israelites lived in the Jezreel valley and across the river Jordan. They saw that the Israelite army had run away. Then they heard that Saul and his sons were dead. So these Israelites left their towns and ran away. Then the Philistines came and lived there.
v8 The next day the Philistines came to take all the valuable things off the dead soldiers. They found the dead bodies of Saul and his three sons on the mountain of Gilboa. v9 They cut off Saul’s head and took off his armor. Then they sent men through all the land of the Philistines with the news. These men took the message into the temples of their idols and to the Philistine people. v10 They put Saul’s armor in the temple of Ashtoreth. Then they hung Saul’s body on the wall of Beth-shan.
v11 The Israelites who were in the town of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul. v12 So the brave men of Jabesh Gilead marched all night until they arrived at Beth-shan. They took the bodies of Saul and his sons off the wall of the town. Then they brought the bodies to Jabesh Gilead and burned them. v13 Then they took the bones and buried them under a large tree at Jabesh Gilead. The men did not eat any food for 7 days.
Commentary
In this chapter Saul, who was the Israelite’s first king, dies. But the account of Saul’s death is very short. In 9:16, God told Samuel to anoint Saul as king. God said, "He will save my people from the Philistines." But Saul failed to do what God wanted. Now the Philistines attacked the Israelites and won. And Saul and his sons died. 1 Samuel 31 and 1 Chronicles 10 give almost the same account.
The account of this attack started in chapter 28. When Saul went to this battle, he was full of fear (verse 5). The Lord would not answer him (verse 6). Saul knew that the Philistines would win. And Saul knew that he and his sons would die (verses 18-19). Saul could not encourage his soldiers. Therefore, he could not be a good leader for his army. The result was that the Israelites ran away. And the Philistines killed many of them including three of Saul’s sons.
In 31:3, Saul was still alive but had bad injuries. He was afraid of what the Philistines might do to him. In those days, people lost their honor if their enemy killed them. That is what they believed. They had more honor if they killed themselves. ‘Heathen Philistines’ (verse 4) means that they did not worship the God of the Israelites. Saul wanted to die but his officer would not kill him. Perhaps the officer respected the Lord as David did. (David would not hurt the king that God had anointed. See 24:11 and 26:9.) So Saul killed himself. Then his loyal officer followed Saul’s example.
The army had no leader and the men had run away. The Israelites who lived near to the battle heard the bad news. The Israelite army would not be able to protect their towns. So they left before the Philistines attacked them. Soon, the Philistines went and lived in all the empty towns in that part of the land of Israel.
After the battle, the Philistines took all the weapons and armor from the dead soldiers. They cut off Saul’s head and put his armor in the temple of Ashtoreth. 1 Chronicles 10:10 says that the Philistines put Saul’s head in the temple of Dagon. (Chapter 7 explains about Dagon and Ashtoreth.) The Philistines did this to give honor to their gods. They believed that their gods had given them success. Compare this to David and Goliath. David cut off Goliath’s head (17:51). And Goliath’s sword was in the holy place with the priest of the Lord (21:9).
David knew that the Lord had given him success. The Lord was greater than the Philistines’ gods. So David gave honor to the Lord. Now, Saul was dead. The Philistines believed that their gods had more power than the God of Israel. But 1 Chronicles 10:13-14 says that the Lord killed Saul.
Beth-shan was a town about 8 miles east of the mountain of Gilboa in the valley of Jezreel (29:1). The town of Jabesh Gilead was about 10 miles southeast of Beth-shan, on the other side of the river Jordan. When Saul first became king, enemies from the country of Ammon attacked Jabesh Gilead. Saul killed the Ammonites and saved the town (11:1-11).
The Israelites of Jabesh Gilead were loyal to Saul. Now they saved Saul’s body and his son’s bodies from the Philistines. They buried them under a special tree in their town. The name of this type of tree was a tamarisk tree. The Israelites believed that they should bury people in the proper way to give them honor. Many people still believe this today. Later, in 2 Samuel 21:12-14, David moved the bones to Saul’s family grave. The men from Jabesh Gilead did not eat for 7 days. This shows that they were very sad that King Saul was dead.
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