Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
1 Samuel 31:1-7
The Death Of Saul And Jonathan On Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:1).
It is noteworthy that in the description of the battle the emphasis is not on the defeat of Israel, even though that is briefly described, but on the death of Saul and its consequences. Nevertheless even in its brevity we do get a vivid picture of the last stages of the battle as it brings about the deaths of Saul and his heirs.
Analysis.
a Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:1).
b And the Philistines followed hard on Saul and on his sons, and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchi-shua, the sons of Saul (1 Samuel 31:2).
c And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers overtook him, and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers. And Saul said to his armourbearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me” (1 Samuel 31:3 a).
d But his armourbearer would not, for he was very much afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword, and fell on it (1 Samuel 31:4 b).
c And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell on his sword in similar fashion, and died with him (1 Samuel 31:5).
b So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together (1 Samuel 31:6).
a And 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 fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled, and the Philistines came and dwelt in them (1 Samuel 31:7).
Note than in ‘a' the Israelites fled before the Philistines, and in the parallel the remainder of Israel did the same. In ‘b' the Philistines pressed hard on Saul and slew his three sons, and in the parallel Saul and his three sons are described as dead. In ‘c' Saul calls on his armourbearer to thrust him through, and in the parallel the armourbearer thrusts himself through. Centrally in ‘d' we have described the death of Saul.
‘ Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa.'
What must have been a fiercely fought battle between two totally unmatched armies is told briefly. We are not told where it actually took place, although the assumption must be that it was in the Valley of Jezreel. All that we are told is that the Philistines fought against Israel (for the description compare 1 Samuel 28:1. This description is picking up the story from there), and that the men of Israel fled over Mount Gilboa where they were systematically slaughtered. The writer is not interested in the details of the battle, only in the consequences of it for Israel.
We are even left in some doubt as to whom ‘the men of Israel' were. They would undoubtedly include Saul's standing army, and it may well be that it was mainly these who suffered as they bravely bore the main brunt of the rearguard action, while what was left of the ‘volunteer' army escaped over the Jordan under the leadership of Abner, the overall general of the army (1 Samuel 31:7; 2 Samuel 2:8). Saul's supreme bravery comes out, both in his being an important part of the rearguard action, and in the fact that he fought at all, given the fact of what he had learned from Samuel through the medium of Endor.
1 Samuel 31:7 would also suggest, either that the full muster of the tribes had not yet arrived. An alternative possibility is that they had been kept in reserve at the other side of the valley in order to intervene when called on. Either way the defeat of Israel's main army was clearly so conclusive that they played no part in the battle, and then recognised that their only course, with Saul and his sons dead, was to disappear as quickly as possible, leaving the cities of Israel wide open to the Philistine invaders. They knew that further resistance would be useless and would only bring reprisals on those cities.
‘ And the Philistines followed hard on Saul and on his sons, and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchi-shua, the sons of Saul.'
Playing a valiant part in the rearguard action Saul's three warrior sons, fighting in the forefront, died bravely in action, while Saul also found himself hard pressed. he had not flinched from the battle.
‘And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers overtook him, and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers. And Saul said to his armourbearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me.”
Saul was apparently behind the units commanded by his three sons, as a second line of defence, and he and his men now found themselves under heavy bombardment by the missiles of the archers who had been able to come up on them as a result of the destruction of the first line of defence. It was clear to Saul that the situation was lost and that he would be unable to evade capture. It must also be seen as almost certain that he had been wounded by arrows that had found their target. Thus the thought of being overtaken and abused by the uncircumcised Philistines, who would undoubtedly satisfy their blood lusts on him, and would at the same time humiliate him as the king of Israel, was too much for him, and he cried to his armourbearer to thrust him through, rather than allowing the Philistines to do it. He knew that death or worse was inevitable. He preferred therefore to die on a good Israelite blade rather than on a Philistine one. At least he would prevent their enjoying that triumph. YHWH's anointed would thus not be sullied in his death.
Saul (and the writer) may well have had in mind at this point the example of Abimelech who asked the same of his armourbearer when a woman split his head open with a millstone flung from the walls of Thebez, because he did not want to be thought of as the king who had been slain by a woman (Judges 9:53). That story appears to have been a well known one to Israel's warriors, and had also been the result of YHWH's judgment on his previous behaviour (see 2 Samuel 11:21).
‘But his armourbearer would not, for he was very much afraid. Therefore Saul took his sword, and fell on it.'
His armourbearer, however, refused to do it through fear. The fear was probably because he considered that to slay YHWH's anointed would be a grievous sin. Alternately he may have been afraid of what might happen to him afterwards, for it was his duty to preserve YHWH's anointed at all costs. Either way he would not do it. Saul therefore took his own sword and fell on it. It is probable that he saw it as a religious act, almost a kind of sacrifice, in defence of YHWH's honour.
‘ And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell on his sword in similar fashion, and died with him.'
Once the armourbearer saw that Saul was dead by his own hand he followed his example, and thus died with him. This may have simply been out of a kind of loyalty to his master, although it could have included remorse because, as his personal bodyguard, he had failed, through no fault of his own, to preserve his master's life. The shame may have been too much for him. He may even have feared the later consequences if he survived. The Philistines might have seen Saul's armourbearer as a good substitute for Saul himself, thus bringing shame on Saul by proxy, while he may have felt that if he survived intact he might equally suffer shame at the hands of the Israelites for failing to keep Saul alive. People had strange ideas about honour.
‘ So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.'
The slaughter on the Mount was so complete that Saul, his three sons, his armourbearer and all ‘his men' (his standing army) died there with him on that same day, thereby avenging all the misery that they had brought on David, and destroying any hopes of Israel's survival as an independent nation. Without this central force Israel could put up little resistance against an enemy like the warlike Philistines. They had been Israel's mainstay in all the wars with the Philistines through the years.
‘ And 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 fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled, and the Philistines came and dwelt in them.'
That this means that the forces of Israel, who had been mustered from the most northerly tribes and from Transjordan, in order to assist in the fight against the Philistines, but had not taken part in the battle, fled, must be seen as probable. It is not likely that all the inhabitants of the cities fled. They would simply have submitted to the approaching Philistines, thus hopefully avoiding reprisals by becoming voluntary vassals. (It was the normal for invaders only to take reprisals when cities resisted. Otherwise they simply demanded tribute. It was to their advantage. See Deuteronomy 20:10). The Philistines would then occupy them and take authority over them, as they had previously done with the Canaanites over whom they ruled. They would become a part of the Philistine empire. (This had apparently not just been a raid with the aim of obtaining tribute, as previously. It was seemingly an attempt to build an empire and occupy the cities permanently).
In view of the brevity of the statement, however, the position is not totally clear, something reinforced by the fact that we are not totally sure what Philistine attitudes were in such a situation. They may have had a policy of slaughtering a good number of men of fighting age when they took over a city. The writer's main aim, in fact, was simply to explain that the main cities of central Israel were now to be under the rule of the Philistines.