1 Samuelchapter 31
13 verses · BSB1 Samuel book hub →
The Death of Saul, Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866), public domain
Key verse
When the people of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,
It stands in scene B of the chapter, verses 8 to 13.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The book ends where chapter 28 said it would. Israel flees before the Philistines and falls slain in mount Gilboa; the pursuit overtakes Saul, and Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchi-shua are killed. The archers find Saul and he is sore wounded; he asks his armor-bearer to run him through lest the uncircumcised abuse him, and when the man will not, Saul falls upon his own sword. The Philistines cut off his head, put his armor in the house of Ashtaroth, and fasten his body to the wall of Beth-shan. The valiant men of Jabesh-gilead, whose eyes he saved in his first act as king, march all night to take the bodies down, and fast seven days.
Context
History · Samuel, Nathan, Gad · 1 Samuel overview
Where the chapter sits
1 Samuel 31 falls in David's rise in Saul's shadow (chapters 16–31). David anointed in secret; Goliath; Jonathan's covenant; Saul's pursuit; the cave of Adullam; Nabal and Abigail; the Philistine sanctuary; Saul's death at Gilboa.
Saul's death at Gilboa. The armour-bearer refuses; Saul falls on his own sword; the book closes with the arc ending.
Before it: Saul's reign: promise and rejection, chapters 9–15.
The whole shape of 1 Samuel→The world behind this chapter
1 Samuel 31The history
Gilboa is a ridge on the southeastern edge of the Jezreel valley, and fighting there was the worst possible ground for Israel. The Philistines had the flat valley for their chariots and the numbers to press uphill; Israel had no line of retreat except back into the hills with the enemy between them and the Jordan crossings. The men of Israel fled and fell on Mount Gilboa, and the archers found Saul, bowmen were the arm that broke infantry at distance, and the king went down wounded before anyone reached him.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Saul's request that his armor-bearer run him through is about what would be done to him alive. A captured king was displayed, mutilated, and paraded; the word he uses for what the uncircumcised would do to him means to make sport of. When the armor-bearer refuses out of fear, Saul falls on his own sword, and his armor-bearer does the same. Three of his sons die with him, Jonathan among them, exactly as the word at Endor said.
The Philistines then do what victors did. They cut off his head, strip his armor, send the news around their temples and their people, put the armor in the house of Ashtaroth, and fasten his body to the wall of Beth-shan. Beth-shan sat where the Jezreel valley meets the Jordan, a fortress city that had been an Egyptian garrison for centuries, and its excavated remains include temple structures of the period. Hanging bodies on that wall announced to the whole valley who now held it, and the text says Israelites on the far side of the valley and beyond the Jordan abandoned their towns.
The last act belongs to Jabesh-gilead. Their valiant men march all night, take the bodies down from the wall, carry them back across the Jordan, burn them, an unusual step in Israel, most likely because the bodies had been mutilated and exposed, bury the bones under the tamarisk at Jabesh, and fast seven days.
What it meant to them
The book closes where its first battle chapter left off: Israel beaten by the Philistines, the northern valley lost, and the towns emptied. The king they asked for so they would be like the nations and have someone to fight their battles is dead on a hillside with his armor in a Philistine temple.
And the men who bury him are from the town he rescued forty years earlier, in the one hour of his reign that was wholly good. First hearers were left with that: the kindness he did as a young man was the only thing that came back for him at the end.
Sources cited
- Eugene H. Merrill, Kingdom of Priests: A History of Old Testament Israel
- Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Study
A. Gilboa: Saul and his sons fall
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.fought against Israel: The rout at Gilboa is where the king Israel asked for goes down in full view, on the same hillside where he had gone the night before to consult the dead because the LORD would no longer answer him at Endor. Jonathan dies with his brothers Abinadab and Malchi-shua, ending at the sword the covenant he had made with David at the throne's own door; the dirge David sings over him waits for the next chapter and is not drawn forward here. Wesley reads a mercy folded into the loss: of Saul's sons Jonathan alone stood fairest for the crown, and his death clears the road David's anointing had already marked.
1 Samuel 31:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
1 Samuel 31:1
“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.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Samuel 31:2, 1 voice
1 Samuel 31:2
“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 therefore maintained the battle till the three brothers were slain.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 3-5)
a.Saul's request that his armourbearer run him through, and the refusal born of fear, plays out the sentence Samuel had spoken to him from beyond the grave at Endor, that he and his sons would be with Samuel by the morrow, the word chapter 15 had already fixed when Saul spared Agag against the ban on Amalek. The armourbearer's fear answers Saul's own fear of Philistine abuse, and in the end neither man dies by an enemy's hand; both fall on their own swords. The text narrates the act without comment and passes no verdict beyond the one Samuel had already spoken.
1 Samuel 31:3, 1 voice
1 Samuel 31:3
“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.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 31:4, 2 voices
1 Samuel 31:4
“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.”
1 Samuel 31:4
“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?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 31:5, 1 voice
1 Samuel 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.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3. (v. 6)
a.The verse counts the dead together, king, sons, armourbearer and army entangled in one sentence, on the day Samuel's word from Endor had already named. Chronicles supplies the verdict this history leaves the reader to draw for himself: Saul died for his transgression which he committed against the LORD, and also for asking counsel of one that had a familiar spirit, and enquired not of the LORD. The king raised up because the people would not have the LORD reign over them goes down having refused, at the last, to ask the LORD anything at all.
1 Samuel 31:6, 2 voices
1 Samuel 31:6
“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.”
1 Samuel 31:6
“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.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
4. (v. 7)
a.The defeat at Gilboa reaches past the battlefield: towns across the valley and beyond the Jordan empty rather than face a Philistine army with no king and no standing force left to answer it, and the Philistines settle into cities Joshua's conquest had won. Barnes locates the abandoned country in the north, the ground of Naphtali, Zebulun and Issachar, held by the tribes since the conquest itself. One lost battle undoes what generations had kept, the practical cost of the manner of a king Samuel had catalogued back at chapter eight.
1 Samuel 31:7, 2 voices
1 Samuel 31:7
“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.”
1 Samuel 31:7
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
B. Fastened to the wall, and the men of Jabesh come by night
1. (vv. 8-10)
a.The Philistines strip Saul as David once stripped Goliath, and cut off his head as David cut off the head of Gath's own champion; the roles have reversed since chapter seventeen, and the head that once stood higher than any man in Israel is carried through Philistine territory as a trophy. Samuel's own text says only the house of their idols; Chronicles names it plainly, that they fastened his head in the temple of Dagon, the same god who had fallen on his face before the ark at Ashdod and now receives Israel's anointed in triumph. The armour goes to the house of Ashtaroth and the body to the wall of Beth-shan, and the cry raised at Shiloh, the glory is departed, reaches its full picture here in a king hung up for a god that could not stand on its own threshold.
1 Samuel 31:8, 2 voices
1 Samuel 31:8-10
“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 amongst the people concerning the successor: David's way to the crown being by this means made the more clear.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Samuel 31:8
“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.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Samuel 31:9, 2 voices
1 Samuel 31:9
“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:”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 31:9
“Cut off his head - As the Israelites did by Goliath, and fastened it in the temple of Dagon, 1 Chron. x, 10. Idols - To give them the glory of this victory.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
1 Samuel 31:10, 2 voices
1 Samuel 31:10
“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:”
1 Samuel 31:10
“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.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2. (vv. 11-13)
a.Jabesh-gilead is the one city in the book with a debt to Saul, delivered from Nahash the Ammonite and the threat of a gouged right eye in the first act of his reign, and it becomes the one place that pays a kindness back in full. Its valiant men march all night to take Saul and his sons down from the wall of Beth-shan, an open defiance of the army now settled in the land, then burn the bodies already corrupted by the heat and the days on the wall, bury the bones under a tamarisk, and fast seven days, the length Israel had once kept for Jacob. Samuel's history opens with Saul's finest hour, delivering a besieged city; it closes with that city delivering him, the one unbroken act of gratitude the book records.
1 Samuel 31:11, 3 voices
1 Samuel 31:11
“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. (p) Pisgah-Sight of Palestine, b.”
1 Samuel 31:11
“When the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard ... - See 1Sa 11:1-15. This is a touching and rare example of national gratitude.”
1 Samuel 31:11-13
“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 had more sinfully spilt; that of David too, which he would have spilt, must come into the account.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Samuel 31:12, 2 voices
1 Samuel 31:12
“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.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Samuel 31:12
“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.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Samuel 31:13, 3 voices
1 Samuel 31:13
“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:”
1 Samuel 31:13
“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.”
1 Samuel 31:13
“But you must not understand this word of fasting strictly, as if they eat 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.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on 1 Samuel 31. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel and Matthew Henry.
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