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1 Samuel 31

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

The death of Saul and his sons

1 Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell slain on Mount Gilboa. 2 The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines struck down Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchishua, the sons of Saul. 3 The battle pressed hard against Saul, and the archers, men with bows, found him, and he was badly wounded by the archers. 4 Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and run me through and make sport of me." But his armor-bearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. So Saul took his sword and fell on it. 5 When his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword and died with him. 6 So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor-bearer, and all his men, that same day together. 7 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 had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled; and the Philistines came and lived in them.

The men of Jabesh-gilead honor Saul

8 On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. 9 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 the house of their idols and to the people. 10 They put his armor in the temple of the Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan.

11 Now when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what 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 Beth-shan; and they came to Jabesh and burned them there. 13 Then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

Notes

  • 31:2 Jonathan, David's faithful friend, dies beside his father. Abinadab does not appear in the list of 14:49 (which names Jonathan, Ishvi and Malchishua), and Saul's son Ish-bosheth (Eshbaal), who survives, will reign briefly after him (2 Samuel 2:8-10; 1 Chronicles 8:33).
  • 31:4 Saul fears the kind of mockery the Philistines had made of Samson, their captive (Judges 16:25), and like Abimelech (Judges 9:54) he asks his armor-bearer to kill him. In 2 Samuel 1:6-10 an Amalekite tells David that he himself finished Saul off; many read that as a lie told to win David's favor, since this chapter gives the narrator's own account.
  • 31:6 Chronicles tells the same account in closely matching words (though it says "all his house died together") and then adds the reason: "So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he committed against Yahweh, because of the word of Yahweh which he did not keep, and also for consulting a medium to inquire by it" (1 Chronicles 10:13). In both books the word of Samuel in 28:19 is fulfilled to the letter.
  • 31:9 What David once did to Goliath, cutting off his head and taking his weapons (17:51, 54), the Philistines now do to Saul. "To carry the good news" is the verb basar, used of announcing victory; David will lament, "Tell it not in Gath, … lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice" (2 Samuel 1:20).
  • 31:10 The Ashtaroth were images of Ashtoreth (Astarte), the goddess of fertility and war (see the note on Judges 2:13). Chronicles says that they put his armor in "the house of their gods" and fastened his skull in the temple of Dagon (1 Chronicles 10:10); the two accounts seem to name different trophies shown in different places. Beth-shan (the Beth-shean of Joshua 17:11) guarded the eastern end of the Valley of Jezreel, near the Jordan.
  • 31:12 Saul's first act as king had been to rescue Jabesh-gilead from Nahash (11:1-11); now its men repay that kindness at great risk, marching all night into enemy territory to recover his body. Burning bodies was not Israel's usual custom; it may have been done because the bodies had been mutilated and exposed, and the bones were still buried with honor (verse 13). Chronicles, which tells the same story, does not mention the burning.

1 Samuel 30 · 2 Samuel 1

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