1 Samuel 31:4 Kommentar

In the foregoing chapter we had David conquering, yea, more than a conqueror. In this chapter we have Saul conquered and worse than a captive. Providence ordered it that both these things should be doing just at the same time. The very same day; perhaps, that David was triumphing over the Amalekites, were the Philistines triumphing over Saul. One is set over against the other, that men may see what comes of trusting in God and what comes of forsaking him. We left Saul ready to engage the Philistines, with a shaking hand and an aching heart, having had his doom read him from hell, which he would not regard when it was read him from heaven. Let us now see what becomes of him. Here is, I. His army routed (Sa1 31:1). II. His three sons slain (Sa1 31:2). III. Himself wounded (Sa1 31:3), and slain by his own hand (Sa1 31:4). The death of his armour-bearer (Sa1 31:5) and all his men (Sa1 31:6). IV. His country possessed by the Philistines (Sa1 31:7). His camp plundered, and his dead body deserted (Sa1 31:8). His fall triumphed in (Sa1 31:9). His body publicly exposed (Sa1 31:10) and with difficulty rescued by the men of Jabesh-Gilead (Sa1 31:11-13). Thus fell the man that was rejected of God.

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST SAMUEL 31 This chapter gives an account of the battle between the Philistines and the Israelites, which had been preparing for, and the issue of it; in which Saul, his three sons, and his servants, were slain, upon which his army fled, and several of his cities were taken, Sa1 31:1; what the Philistines did with his body and his armour, Sa1 31:8; the former of which, together with the bodies of his sons, the men of Jabeshgilead rescued, and burnt them, and buried their bones under a tree at Jabesh, expressing great sorrow and concern, Sa1 31:11.

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. (b) Hieron. Trad. Heb. in lib. Reg. fol. 77. B. (c) Antiqu. l. 6. c. 14. sect. 7.

And Saul said to his armor-bearer: Draw your sword, etc. The armor-bearer of Saul signifies the doctors of the law; for just as the arms and arrows of the Philistines are the deceits of the wicked, so on the contrary, the arms of the Israelites ought to be mystically understood as the words of spiritual doctrine, by which the people of God had to fortify themselves against all dangers. But Saul, wounded unto desperation by the archers, preferred to die by the sword of his armor-bearer rather than by that of the uncircumcised, because the rulers of the kingdom of the Jews, once having set the purpose of dying in their sins, preferred to be destroyed by their doctors who were dissolving the commandments of the law and thus teaching them, rather than to be polluted by the company of the gentiles, whom they called common and unclean. Moreover, they feared to enter the praetorium of a gentile, so that they would not be contaminated, but could eat the Passover (John XVIII). Nevertheless, they did not fear to contaminate that same Passover, turned for their ruin by the law, which they had received, with the blood of the innocent.

And his armor-bearer did not want, etc. There is no doubt that among the reprobate teachers of the law there have been some who, through a sinister interpretation, did not want the sharpness of the word to kill their own listeners, and yet those listeners turned to their own ruin either by despising or, what is worse, by blaspheming the things rightly said by their teachers. Upon seeing their spiritual death, that is, their obstinacy in sinning, those ministers of the word, deteriorated over time, saw that the testimonies of the law, which they had feared to interpret wrongly, when contemptuously disregarded, became an occasion of downfall for them. We regret to acknowledge that the same things happen often today. But even heretics, wounded by their own sins, when they twist the words of divine scriptures into arguments for their error, surely turn their own weapons upon their own chests as they are about to die; and any brother, even remaining in the unity of the catholic Church, when he defiles any skill he has learned for the common good of the Church and those among whom he lives with the contagion of pride, arrogance, avarice, or any other vice, miserably pierces himself with his own sword, because that which ought to have been defended against the enemy, instead aided the enemy.

A battle in Mount Gilboa between Israel and the Philistines; in which the former are defeated, and Saul's three sons slain, Sa1 31:1, Sa1 31:2. Saul, being mortally wounded, and afraid to fall alive into the hands of the Philistines, desires his armor-bearer to despatch him; which he refusing, Saul falls on his sword, and his armor-bearer does the same, Sa1 31:3-6. The Israelites on the other side of the valley forsake their cities, and the Philistines come and dwell in them, Sa1 31:7. The Philistines, finding Saul and his three sons among the slain, strip them of their armor, which they put in the house of Ashtaroth, cut of their heads, send the news to all the houses of their idols, and fasten the bodies of Saul and his three sons to the walls of Beth-shan, Sa1 31:8-10. Valiant men of Jabesh-gilead go by night, and take away the bodies; burn them at Jabesh; bury their bones under a tree; and fast seven days, Sa1 31:11-13.

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, (את החרב 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, Ch1 10:4, Ch1 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."

SAUL HAVING LOST HIS ARMY AT GILBOA, AND HIS SONS BEING SLAIN, HE AND HIS ARMOR-BEARER KILL THEMSELVES. (Sa1 31:1-7) Now the Philistines fought against Israel--In a regular engagement, in which the two armies met (Sa1 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 (Sa1 14:49) and Melchishua, overpowered by numbers, were killed on the spot.

Death and Burial of Saul and His Sons - Sa1 31:1-13 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 fallen 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 (Sa1 31:1-7). But he did not attain his object; for the next day the enemy found his corpse and those of his sons, and proceeded to plunder, mutilate, and abuse them (Sa1 31:8-10). However, the king of Israel was not to be left to perish in utter disgrace. The citizens of Jabesh remembered the deliverance which Saul had brought to their city after his election as king, and showed their gratitude by giving an honourable burial to Saul and his sons (Sa1 31:11-13). There is a parallel to this chapter in Ch1 10:1-14, which agrees exactly with the account before us, with very few deviations indeed, and those mostly verbal, and merely introduces a hortatory clause at the end (Ch1 10:13, Ch1 10:14).