2 Samuelchapter 1
27 verses · Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition · 10th century BC · History
Now it came to pass after the death of Saul, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had abode two days in Ziklag;
Introduction
Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition, History, 2 Samuel Overview.
2 Samuel opens on the day the news of Saul's death reaches David in the south. Its writer is unnamed, and its first hearers were Israelites who had lost a king, three princes and an army in one battle. They knew what a rival usually did when the king who hunted him fell. This chapter shows David first as a judge and then as a poet. Listen for the question he puts to the messenger about the LORD's anointed, and for the refrain that returns three times in the song. Judah was taught this lament as a lesson in how to grieve.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who had just lost a king and an army in a single day
- What
- The report of Saul's death, the execution of the man who claimed to have killed him, and David's lament for Saul and Jonathan.
- Where
- Ziklag, a Philistine border town in the Negev, three days' walk south of the battlefield on Mount Gilboa.
- When
- About 1011 BC, at the end of Saul's reign, a date reckoned back from the reign figures at 5:4 and 5:5.
- Why
- To show that David came to the throne without rejoicing over Saul's death or rewarding the man who claimed it.
Historical context
2 Samuel names no author, and Samuel himself is dead before the book opens. The oldest internal lead is 1 Chronicles 29:29, which names the histories of Samuel the seer, Nathan the prophet and Gad the seer behind the acts of David. This chapter names a written source of its own at verse 18, the Book of Jashar, a collection of Israelite poetry that has not survived. The events sit at the very end of Saul's reign, about 1011 BC by reckoning back from David's forty years at 5:4, which is an inference rather than a fixed point. The place is Ziklag in the Negev, a Philistine border town three days' walk south of the battlefield on Mount Gilboa. News travelled at the speed of a man on foot, and a runner with torn clothes and dust on his head carried a report readable from a distance. The crown and the armlet he brings were working marks of office rather than vault treasures, a circlet worn in battle and a band on the upper arm. Handing them over was handing over the kingdom, which is why the man expected to be paid. A first hearer knew the lament was a form with rules, since it names the fallen, refuses the enemy's towns the news, calls the mountains to mourn and ends on a refrain. Teaching such a song to the men of Judah, as verse 18 orders, is how a poem was kept alive in a world with few books.
Significance
A new king normally celebrated when his rival died. David does the opposite, executing the man who claims the credit and composing a song in honour of the king who had hunted him for years. That set the terms for everything after it, since the throne he later takes was not seized off a corpse.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
The corpus for this chapter holds twenty-four commentary entries and forty rabbinic locators. Fourteen entries carry English text under a licence that permits quotation, and twelve of those are Rashi in the Metsudah translation, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY, cited below by ref alone.
Rashi starts with the man who carries the news to Ziklag. He records an opinion from the Pesikta that the messenger was Doeg the Edomite, and then refuses it, saying that "the explanation is indefensible in my heart" (Rashi on II Samuel 1:2:1). Twice in the chapter he reads the scene through Targum Jonathan. The band on the dead king's arm becomes a different object: "And the bracelet that was on his arm. The tefilin that was on his arm" (Rashi on II Samuel 1:10:1). The edition's note beside it explains that a literal bracelet would have been carried off by the Philistines with the rest of the spoil. On David's sentence over the Amalekite, Rashi again gives the Targum, that the man's death rests on his own head and there is no one else to answer for it (Rashi on II Samuel 1:16:1).
Rashi reads the order about the bow as a soldier's instruction. He has David say that now the mighty of Israel have fallen, the men of Judah need teaching in war and in drawing a bow (Rashi on II Samuel 1:18:1). Inside the lament itself he takes the line about eagles as a statement of obedience, "They were lighter then eagles. To do the will of their Creator" (Rashi on II Samuel 1:23:1), and the edition's note records that he is paraphrasing Pirkei Avot. At the last verse he reads the weapons of war as the two dead men themselves, Saul and Jonathan, whom he calls Israel's weapons (Rashi on II Samuel 1:27:1).
Four other commentators stand on this chapter with no English version in the corpus, so they are cited and not quoted. Radak comments at eight places, among them Radak on II Samuel 1:6:1, Radak on II Samuel 1:11:1 and Radak on II Samuel 1:26:1. Metzudat David stands at Metzudat David on II Samuel 1:14:1. He carries a short English note at Metzudat David on II Samuel 1:5:1, where he says the messenger's knowledge may rest on assumption or on rumour. Malbim stands at Malbim on II Samuel 1:4:1. The corpus also records Malbim on II Samuel 1:1:1 with the placeholder text "Loading..." in place of a translation, so that entry is cited here and nothing is quoted from it.
What the rabbis say
Rashi passes on one rabbinic reading of this chapter with its source attached. Explaining the convulsions Saul speaks of, he brings the Midrash Aggadah's teaching that the king died in this way because he had killed the priests. He ties the two together by a word the verse shares with the priestly tunic (Rashi on II Samuel 1:9:1). The corpus anchors Midrash Tanchuma, Metzora 2:1 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Metzora 4:1 at the same verse, which is where that teaching is found.
Forty rabbinic locators stand on this chapter in the corpus, thirty-three from the Midrash and seven from the Talmud, and every one of them is a locator without text. This site therefore records where the rabbis took the chapter up rather than what they said there. At verses 11 and 12 the corpus anchors Jerusalem Talmud Moed Katan 3:7:14, Ein Yaakov, Moed Katan 3:27 and Nedarim 87a:1. At verse 13 it anchors Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael, Tractate Amalek 2:50 and Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 17:16. The order to teach the bow draws Avodah Zarah 25a:11, and the lament itself draws Midrash Shmuel 25:2, Midrash Shmuel 25:4, Ein Yaakov, Nedarim 3:12 and Jerusalem Talmud Nedarim 3:9:1. The closing verse is taken up at Ruth Rabbah 4:9 and Ruth Rabbah (Lerner) 4:12:3.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Samuel 1:2:1, 1:9:1, 1:10:1, 1:16:1, 1:18:1, 1:23:1 and 1:27:1, The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Samuel 1:5:1, Sefaria Community Translation, CC0, and Metzudat David on II Samuel 1:14:1, cited only; Radak, Radak on II Samuel 1:6:1, 1:11:1 and 1:26:1, cited only, no English version in the corpus; Malbim, Malbim on II Samuel 1:1:1 and 1:4:1, cited only, no usable English text in the corpus; The Midrash and the Talmud on this chapter, Midrash Tanchuma, Metzora 2:1; Jerusalem Talmud Moed Katan 3:7:14; Nedarim 87a:1; Avodah Zarah 25a:11; Midrash Shmuel 25:2 and 25:4; Ruth Rabbah 4:9, as the corpus records them.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
The messenger who lied his way to a death sentence
2 Samuel 1:1-2
after the death of Saul: David returns to Ziklag from his own war against Amalek in chapter 30 the same week an Amalekite walks into his camp with news of Saul, so the unfinished war of Exodus 17 and Deuteronomy 25 stands behind the scene before the man opens his mouth. His rent clothes and earth upon his head are the standard signs of mourning across the ancient world, though the narrator lets the reader judge for himself whether the grief is real. Two quiet days at Ziklag close before the third day brings the man from Gilboa.
2 Samuel 1:1
“David had abode two days in Ziklag--Though greatly reduced by the Amalekite incendiaries, that town was not so completely sacked and destroyed, but David and his six hundred followers, with their families, could still find some accommodation.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Samuel 1:1
“Now it came to pass ... - There is no break whatever between the two books of Samuel, the division being purely artificial.”
He bows to David as to a king. Matthew Henry notes that the man hoped to be the first to honour David as sovereign and became the first man David sentenced to death. John Gill reads Saul’s camp as the men who had fought beside Saul.
2 Samuel 1:2
“A man came out of the camp - The whole account which this young man gives is a fabrication: in many of the particulars it is grossly self-contradictory. There is no fact in the case but the bringing of the crown, or diadem, and bracelets of Saul; which, as he appears to have been a plunderer of the slain, he found on the field of battle; and he brought them to David, and told the lie of having despatched Saul, merely to ingratiate himself with David.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 1:3-4
From whence comest thou?: David questions the man twice, first where he has come from and then how the battle went, a king who has spent this whole book enquiring of the LORD before every move now forced to enquire of a stranger for word of his own king. The answer comes in the plainest terms Samuel's narrator ever uses for a defeat, the people fled, many are fallen and dead, and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also. Nothing yet distinguishes this report from what chapter 31 has already told the reader firsthand.
2 Samuel 1:3
“And David said unto him, from whence comest thou?.... It is very likely by his appearance and circumstances he suspected from whence he came: and he said unto him, out of the camp of Israel am I escaped; which plainly suggested that that was in danger, confusion, and distress.”
David asks for the news with a plea. Matthew Henry reads his eagerness as that of the man in Israel with the most at stake. The troops fled, many fell and died, and the report saves Saul and Jonathan for last.
2 Samuel 1:4
“He therefore asks, How knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan are dead? in answer to which the young man tells him a very ready story, putting it past doubt that Saul was dead, for he himself had been not only an eye-witness of his death, but an instrument of it, and therefore David might rely upon his testimony.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 1:5-7
How knowest thou that Saul: David presses the man for his source, and the answer opens a second account of Saul's death standing beside the one already given in chapter 31, where Saul falls on his own sword after his armourbearer refuses to strike him. This Amalekite tells David instead that he happened by chance upon Gilboa and found Saul leaning on his spear with the chariots and horsemen closing in. Adam Clarke and most of the bench read the whole scene as the plunderer's invention, built to win favor with news he thinks David wants to hear, while Keil and Delitzsch weigh the same possibility without settling it outright. Both texts are left standing rather than forced into one story.
2 Samuel 1:5
“And David said unto the young man that told him,.... These tidings: how knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan his son be dead? this he particularly inquired after, as what most affected him, and was most material for him to know; and his meaning is, whether he had this of his own sight and knowledge, or by report.”
The man claims he came onto Mount Gilboa by chance. Albert Barnes places him among those who came to strip the slain the day after the battle, at 1 Samuel 31:8. Barnes adds that he may have heard what really happened from an Israelite prisoner and built his story on it.
John Gill reads Saul’s turn as a look back to see how near the Philistines had come. Gill doubts an Amalekite would stand in the camp of Israel, and he judges the man came from neither camp. He answered as a man ready to serve Saul.
2 Samuel 1:7
“And when he looked behind him,.... To see how near the enemy was, and who were pursuing him: he saw me, and called unto me; by which it should rather seem that he belonged to the Philistines than to the Israelites, and as his being an Amalekite shows; for such an one would hardly be admitted among the latter, though it is most likely he was with neither, but happened to come that way just at that time: and I answered, here am I; ready to hear what thou hast to say, and do thy pleasure.”
2 Samuel 1:8-10
I am an Amalekite: Thread eight, the war with Amalek that Exodus 17 and Deuteronomy 25 left unfinished, closes on this man's own naming of himself. He claims Saul begged for death, anguish is come upon me, and that he stood upon the dying king and slew him, then stripped the crown and the bracelet as proof to bring David. Clarke reads the crown and bracelet as looted from a body already dead by Saul's own hand, and notes Doctor Delaney's older reading, that an Amalekite lifting the crown Saul forfeited by sparing Amalek at chapter 15 is its own kind of picture.
2 Samuel 1:8
“I am an Amalekite - Dr. Delaney remarks that an Amalekite took that crown from off the head of Saul, which he had forfeited by his disobedience in the case of Amalek.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Saul says agony has seized him, and Albert Barnes notes that the Hebrew word occurs only here. The rabbis read it as a cramp. John Gill doubts that Saul, who died to escape the uncircumcised Philistines, begged an Amalekite to kill him.
2 Samuel 1:9
“And he said unto me again, stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me,.... Which it can hardly be thought Saul would say; since he might as well have died by the hands of the uncircumcised Philistines, which he endeavoured to avoid, as by the hands of an Amalekite: for anguish is come upon me; or trembling, as the Targum, not through fear of death, but through fear of falling into the hands of the Philistines, and of being ill used by them.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 1:9
“Anguish - The Hebrew word used here occurs nowhere else, and is of doubtful meaning (compare the margin). The rabbis interpret it as a cramp or giddiness.”
I took the crown: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown describe the crown as a small metal cap on the head and the band as an armlet worn above the elbow. Both marked a king. Adam Clarke notes that Eastern kings gave crown and band to a man they set over a land, and the Amalekite brought both to David.
2 Samuel 1:10
“The crown - and the bracelet - The crown was probably no more than a royal fillet or diadem, both being the ensigns of royalty. It is sometimes customary in the East for a sovereign prince to give a crown and bracelets, when investing others with dominion or authority over certain provinces. Had Saul these in token of his being God’s vicegerent, and that he held the kingdom from him alone?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 1:11-12
took hold on his clothes: David's grief is public and shared, and every man with him tears his own clothes in the same motion. The company fasts until evening for the king, for Jonathan, for the people of the LORD and for the house of Israel all together, one mourning that will not separate the nation's loss from the family's. Barnes reads David's sorrow here as unmixed with any relief that Saul's death has opened his own road to the throne, and Gill traces the custom of rending clothes for a fallen prince back to Genesis 37:34.
2 Samuel 1:11
“When David took hold on his clothes,.... Not on the young man's but his own: and rent them; on bearing of the death of Saul and Jonathan, see Gen 37:34; from whence the Jews (l) gather, that a man is bound to rend his clothes for a prince, and for the father of the sanhedrim, since Saul, they say, was the prince, and Jonathan the father of that court: and likewise all the men that were with him; rent their clothes also, in imitation of him; the same custom obtained among the Gentiles on mournful occasions (m). (l) T. Bab.”
The verse ends on the cause of the grief, the people of the LORD fallen by the sword. Albert Barnes reads a patriot’s grief at Israel beaten by a pagan foe. Barnes adds that David mourned Jonathan as a loving friend.
2 Samuel 1:13-14
son of a stranger: David asks the man's origin a second time and gets the same answer confirmed, an Amalekite living among Israel rather than one of her own. Verse 14 turns to the argument that governs David's whole restraint toward Saul across both books, how wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the LORD'S anointed. The same title and the same reasoning recur at 1 Samuel 24, 26 and later at 19:21 over Shimei, and here the argument is turned against a man who never even touched Saul in the reign David actually witnessed.
2 Samuel 1:13
“Whether David believed the Amalekite’s story, or not, his anger was equally excited, and the fact that the young man was an Amalekite, was not calculated to calm or check it. That David’s temper was hasty, we know from 1Sa 25:13, 1Sa 25:32-34.”
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 1:13
“That nation, and all that belonged to it, were doomed to destruction, so that, in slaying him, David did what his predecessor should have done and was rejected for not doing. (2.) He did himself confess the crime, so that the evidence was, by the consent of all laws, sufficient to convict him; for every man is presumed to make the best of himself.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 1:13
“In present circumstances it was especially important that his principle should be publicly known; and to free himself from the imputation of being in any way accessory to the execrable crime of regicide was the part of a righteous judge, no less than of a good politician.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Augustine cites this verse to teach that no man may kill another without lawful authority, even when the dying man has begged for it. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown add that David had to clear himself in Israel. David had no hand in the death of Saul.
2 Samuel 1:14
“We know that David went beyond the precepts of the law when, despite Moses' command to pay back one's enemies in kind, he not only did not do this but even embraced his persecutors in love, prayed devoutly to the Lord on their behalf, even wept mournfully for them and revenged them when they were slain.”
John Cassian · written before 435 · CONFERENCE 21.4.2patristic
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 1:14
“And his lying to David, if indeed it was a lie, was highly criminal, and proved, as sooner or later that sin will prove, lying against his own head. He did honourably and well.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 1:15-16
David called one of the young men: David orders the execution carried out at once, and the man dies on the strength of his own confession, whether or not that confession was true. Verse 16 states David's ground plainly, thy blood be upon thy head, for thy mouth hath testified against thee, so the sentence rests on the man's own words and not on proof David could otherwise verify. Amalek's unfinished war closes here on a bitter note, an Amalekite claims the crown of the LORD'S anointed and dies by the very principle that had cost Saul his own kingdom at chapter 15 for sparing Amalek instead of finishing that war.
2 Samuel 1:15
“And David called one of the young men,.... His servants that attended on him: and said, go near, and fall upon him; by smiting him with his sword: and he smote him, that he died; his orders were instantly obeyed. Kings and generals of armies had great power in those times and countries to execute a man immediately, without any other judge or jury: what may serve, or David might think would serve, to justify him in doing this, is what follows.”
Jerome reads the words as the man made the cause of his own death, and he cites David’s sentence in his commentary on Hosea. The blood of the Amalekite rests on his own head, and David stands clear of it. Albert Barnes calls the sentence just though severe.
2 Samuel 1:16
“Whence his blood will come upon him, that is, he will be the cause of his own death, according to what David says to him who reported to him the death of Saul, and remembered that he had killed the king of Israel: "Your blood be upon your own head" (2 Kings 1:16). Not my opinion, but the blood of Saul (i.e. "Al" for Saul) will be spilled because of your blood.”
Jerome · written before 420 · COMMENTARY ON HOSEA 3.12patristic
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 1:16
“Thy blood be upon thy head - If he killed Saul, as he said he did, then he deserved death; at that time it was not known to the contrary, and this man was executed on his own confession.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
How are the mighty fallen: the Song of the Bow
2 Samuel 1:17-18
David lamented with this lamentation: The poem that follows is remembered as the Song of the Bow from this verse's instruction, and it is one of only two pieces of David's own poetry the historical books preserve outright, the other being the short dirge for Abner at 2 Samuel 3:33-34. Henry notes it is a human composition rather than an inspired hymn, without one mention of the name of God, and for that reason it was kept in the book of Jasher, a now lost collection of the nation's poems, rather than among the Psalms. The order to teach Judah's sons the bow doubles as music and as military drill, honoring Jonathan's own skill with the weapon that had served him so well.
2 Samuel 1:17
“The words lamented and lamentation must be understood in the technical sense of a funeral dirge or mournful elegy. (See similar dirges in 2Sa 3:33-34; and 2Ch 35:25.) This and the brief stanza on the death of Abner are the only specimens preserved to us of David’s secular poetry.”
The Hebrew reads only the bow, qesheth. Albert Barnes and Adam Clarke take the Bow as the title of the song, drawn from the bow of Jonathan in verse 22. Charles Spurgeon held that David had the sons of Judah taught the bow itself, in memory of Jonathan.
2 Samuel 1:18
“The use of the bow - The use of is not in the Hebrew; it is simply the bow, that is, a song thus entitled. See the observations at the end, 2Sa 1:21 (note).”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 1:18
“The bow - That is, of their arms, expressed, under the name of the bow, which then was one of the chief weapons; and for the dextrous use whereof Jonathan is commended in the following song: which may be one reason, why he now gives forth this order, that so they might strive to imitate Jonathan in military skill, and to excel in it, as he did.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 1:18
“It is not a divine hymn, nor given by inspiration of God to be used in divine service, nor is there any mention of God in it; but it is a human composition, and therefore was inserted, not in the book of Psalms (which, being of divine original, is preserved), but in the book of Jasher, which, being only a collection of common poems, is long since lost.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The beauty of Israel is slain: The lament opens on the whole nation's loss before it turns to any one man, the beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places, and falls at once into the refrain that structures the entire poem, how are the mighty fallen. Barnes counts the same line three times across the elegy, here, at verse 25 and at verse 27, and reads the repetition as grief returning again and again to the one thought it cannot leave. Jamieson Fausset and Brown take beauty as the gazelle or antelope, the ancient figure for grace and speed rather than mere appearance.
2 Samuel 1:19
“The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places,.... The high mountains of Gilboa, where Saul their king, and Jonathan his son, a prince of the blood, and natural heir to the crown, and multitudes of young men, the flower of the nation, were wounded and slain. Here begins the lamentation, or the elegiac song: how are the mighty fallen! mighty men of war, strong and valiant, as Saul and his sons were, and the soldiers in his army.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 1:19
“The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places--literally, "the gazelle" or "antelope of Israel." In Eastern countries, that animal is the chosen type of beauty and symmetrical elegance of form. how are the mighty fallen!--This forms the chorus.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 Samuel 1:20-21
Tell it not in Gath: David's wish that Gath and Askelon never hear the news is the shape of grief, not an actual instruction, since word of a battle this size had surely already reached the Philistine cities. Wesley reads it as sorrow expressing itself in a wish it knows to be impossible, spoken to relieve the speaker rather than to change events. The curse over the mountains of Gilboa that follows, no dew, no rain, no fields of offerings, is the same kind of poetic imprecation, and Barnes compares it to Job's curse on his own birthday at Job 3:3-10.
2 Samuel 1:20
“Tell it not in Gath,.... One of the five principalities of the Philistines, and the chief of them, being raised to a kingdom, and whose king was at the head of the armies of the Philistines that engaged with Saul.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 1:20
“Tell it not - This is not a precept, but a poetical wish; whereby he doth not so much desire, that this might not be done, which he knew to be impossible; as, express his great sorrow, because it would be done, to the dishonour of God, and of his people.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Shields were rubbed with oil before battle, and Albert Barnes reads Saul’s shield as lying fouled with blood. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold that the curse still lies on the bare slopes of Gilboa. John Gill cites travellers drenched by rain there.
2 Samuel 1:21
“The curse seems still to lie upon them; for the mountains of Gilboa are naked and sterile. the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away--To cast away the shield was counted a national disgrace.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 1:21
“The worst thing he could wish to the mountains of Gilboa was barrenness and unprofitableness to man: those are miserable that are useless. It was the curse Christ pronounced on the fig-tree, Never fruit grow on thee more, and that took effect--the fig-tree withered away: this, on the mountains of Gilboa, did not.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 1:21
“Let there be, &c. - This is no proper imprecation; but a passionate representation of the horror which he conceived at this publick loss; which was such, as if he thought every person or thing which contributed to it, were fit to bear the tokens of divine displeasure, such as this is, when the earth wants the necessary influences of dew and rain.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the bow of Jonathan turned not back: The verse credits both men's weapons rather than either man alone, Jonathan's bow for its accuracy and Saul's sword for the force it carried into battle, matching the joint praise that runs through the whole elegy. Wesley reads the sword's mouth as the ordinary Hebrew figure for an edge, a blade said to devour what it strikes rather than to miss it. Father and son are praised together at every turn of the poem, though only one of them ever wore the crown.
2 Samuel 1:22
“Not back - Without effect: their arrows shot from their bow, and their swords did seldom miss, and commonly pierced fat, and flesh, and blood, and reached even to the heart and bowels. Returned not, &c. - But filled and glutted with blood: for the sword is metaphorically said to have a mouth, which we translate an edge; and to devour.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 1:23-24
lovely and pleasant in their lives: David praises father and son as one, not divided even in death, and commends only what was genuinely true of them, their swiftness and their strength in war, without crediting Saul a piety Wesley points out David never claims for him. The daughters of Israel are called by name in verse 24 to weep for Saul, for the scarlet and the gold he once gave them in his more prosperous years, a small domestic memory set inside a poem about a fallen kingdom. Barnes reads the address to the women as a deliberate turn, the same women who once sang Saul's victories with tabrets are now summoned to mourn him.
2 Samuel 1:23
“But it is observable, that David speaks not a word here of his piety; but only commends him for those things which were truly in him. A fit pattern for all preachers in their funeral commendations. Swifter, &c. - Expeditious in pursuing their enemies, and executing their designs; which is a great commendation in a prince, and in a soldier.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
John Wesley notes that the women of Israel made both the songs of triumph and the songs of lament. Here they are called to mourn the king whose wars had clothed them. Matthew Henry recalls that Saul’s sword came home full of spoil.
2 Samuel 1:24
“The women of Israel are most happily introduced. They who had come out to meet king Saul with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music” in the day of victory, are now called to weep over him.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 1:24
“Daughters - These he mentions; because the women then used to make songs both of triumph, and of lamentation, and, because they usually are most delighted with the ornaments of the body here following.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 1:25-26
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!: The refrain returns a second time and the lament narrows from the nation's grief to David's own, distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan. Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women, opens the covenant thread that runs from Jonathan stripping himself of robe and sword for David at 1 Samuel 18:1-4 through their last meeting at 23:16-18, where Jonathan strengthened David's hand in God. Blaikie and the older writers read the phrase as covenant loyalty rather than romance, the same weight of chesed that names the kindness of God shown later to Jonathan's own son at chapter 9.
2 Samuel 1:25
“How are the mighty fallen - The recurrenee of the same idea 2Sa 1:19, 2Sa 1:25, 2Sa 1:27 is perfectly congenial to the nature of elegy, since grief is fond of dwelling upon the particular objects of the passion, and frequently repeating them. By unanimous consent this is considered one of the most beautiful odes in the Bible, and the generosity of David in thus mourning for his enemy and persecutor, Saul, enhances the effect upon the mind of the reader.”
John Wesley reads the love of women as the love women bear their husbands and children. Wesley adds that David lost the brother who would have given him the throne of Saul in peace. Chrysostom praises Jonathan, who loved David and never envied him.
2 Samuel 1:26
“For, besides the loss of a true friend, which is inestimable; he lost him who both could, and undoubtedly would have given him a speedy, and quiet, and sure possession of the kingdom, whereas now, he met with long and troublesome interruptions. Of women - That is, that love wherewith they love their husbands, or children for their affections are usually more ardent than mens.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
the weapons of war perished!: The lament closes on its own refrain a third time, and this last instance drops the earlier language of Israel's beauty or the midst of battle down to one plain clause, the weapons of war perished. Barnes reads the bare repetition, stripped of ornament, as the elegy choosing to end on exhaustion rather than on any resolution. Nothing in the poem answers the loss it names, and the throne it leaves standing empty is what the chapters after this one exist to fill.
How this psalm is built
The form: A lament, the Song of the Bow, carried inside a short narrative of the news and the execution, as Henry classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| How the mighty have fallen, said three times | The same line opens the poem, turns it and closes it. Albert Barnes counts it at verse 19, at verse 25 and at verse 27, and reads the repetition as grief returning again and again to the one thought it cannot leave. The third instance drops every ornament and ends on the weapons of war.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament, on 2 Samuel 1:19. | 2 Samuel 1:19, 2 Samuel 1:25, 2 Samuel 1:27 |
| Slain on your heights, at the start and at the turn | Verse 19 says the glory of Israel lies slain on your heights, and verse 25 says Jonathan lies slain on your heights. The second use narrows the first from the nation's loss to one man. The phrase is counted in the Berean Standard Bible text of these verses in the store. | 2 Samuel 1:19, 2 Samuel 1:25 |
| The cities, the mountains and the daughters, each addressed in turn | The lament speaks to Gath and Ashkelon at verse 20, to the mountains of Gilboa at verse 21 and to the daughters of Israel at verse 24. John Wesley reads the wish that Gath never hear the news as sorrow expressing itself in a wish it knows to be impossible, since word of a battle that size had already travelled.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Samuel 1:20. | 2 Samuel 1:20, 2 Samuel 1:21, 2 Samuel 1:24 |
| Father and son praised as one pair | Verse 22 credits the bow of Jonathan and the sword of Saul in one couplet, and verse 23 holds them together in life and in death. John Wesley notes that David commends only what was true of them, their swiftness and their strength, and credits Saul no piety David never claims for him.John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on 2 Samuel 1:23. | 2 Samuel 1:22, 2 Samuel 1:23 |
The two accounts of Saul's death
9 more paragraphs on the patterns
The difficulty is visible only when the two passages sit side by side. At 1 Samuel 31:4 Saul falls on his own sword. At 2 Samuel 1:10 the Amalekite says he stood over Saul and killed him. The readings the site's published exposition carries are these.
Adam Clarke holds that the young man's whole account is a fabrication built around a battlefield theft, and the site's judgment file for this chapter records that reading as kept. John Gill holds that the man belonged to neither army, which is what put him on the field to strip a body. Keil and Delitzsch weigh the invention reading without settling it outright. On every one of these the crown and the band are loot from a body already dead. Clarke also carries an older note from Doctor Delaney, that an Amalekite lifting the crown Saul forfeited by sparing Amalek at 1 Samuel 15 is its own kind of picture.
No position here makes the narrator of chapter 31 and the Amalekite of chapter 1 both accurate. The text reports the man's speech, and the execution at verse 15 rests on the speech rather than on its truth.
The argument David uses, and where it recurs
Verse 14 asks why the man was not afraid to lift his hand to destroy the LORD's anointed. The same title and the same reasoning govern David's restraint through both books, at 1 Samuel 24 and 1 Samuel 26 where he spares Saul twice, and again at 2 Samuel 19:21 over Shimei. A man who never touched Saul in the reign David actually witnessed is now held to the argument David used on himself.
How the fathers read the execution
Jerome cites this chapter in his commentary on Hosea to explain the phrase about blood returning on a man's own head. He takes David's word at verse 16 as the plain case of a man who causes his own death. Augustine of Hippo cites the same scene in Letter 204. He argues that killing at another's request is still unlawful where no law or lawful authority commands it, and he names David's order against the slayer of Saul as his proof. John Cassian reads David's whole conduct toward Saul as going beyond the law's requirement, since he wept for his persecutors and avenged them when they were killed.
The war with Amalek, closed on an Amalekite
The man names himself an Amalekite at verse 8 and again at verse 13. Exodus 17:16 and Deuteronomy 25:17 to 19 left that war unfinished, and Saul lost his kingdom for leaving it unfinished at 1 Samuel 15. Its last scene in this book falls on an Amalekite who claims the crown of the LORD's anointed and dies for saying so. The site's published exposition works that thread through the chapter rather than stating it as a prophecy fulfilled.
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The form and classifications
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on 2 Samuel 1:17 to 18, where the poem is read as a human composition without one mention of the name of God, preserved in the Book of Jashar rather than among the Psalms; This site's published book guide, src/components/book/guides/2-samuel/Book2SamuelGuide.tsx, act "The Triumphs: a United Kingdom", beat at chapter 1 and This site's published book sections table, src/lib/bible/book-sections.ts, the entry "2 Samuel": "history".
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Augustine of Hippo, Letter 204; Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 1694, The Use of the Bow; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Hosea 3.12; John Chrysostom, Homilies on 2 Timothy 7; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and W. G. Blaikie, The Second Book of Samuel (Expositor's Bible).