1 Samuel 31:7-13

Saul's Burial. 1 Samuel 31:7-13

7 And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other side 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.

8 And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen in mount Gilboa.
9 And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armor, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish it in the house of their idols, and among the people.

10 And they put his armor in the house of Ashtaroth: and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan.
11 And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which 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 came to Jabesh, and burnt them there.
13 And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

6.

What was the outcome of the battle of Mt. Gilboa? 1 Samuel 31:7

The principal engagement of the war took place in the plain of Jezreel. When the Israelites were obliged to yield, they fled up the mountains of Gilboa and were pursued and slain there. The Philistines followed Saul, smote his three sons, and fought fiercely against Saul himself. When the men of Israel upon the hillsides that were opposite to the valley of Jezreel and the Jordan saw that the troops fled and Saul and his sons were dead, they took flight out of the cities; whereupon the Philistines nailed the bodies of Saul and his sons to the wall of Beth-shean. This presupposes the capture of that city, from which it is evident that they had occupied the land as far as the Jordan. All the northern part of the land of Israel, in other words, the whole land with the exception of Perea and the land of Judah, came into the hands of the Philistines when Saul was slain.

7.

Where was Saul's corpse gibbeted? 1 Samuel 31:10

On the following day, when the Philistines stripped the slain, they found Saul and his three sons lying upon Gilboa. Having cut off their heads and plundered their weapons, they sent them as trophies into the land of the Philistines, passing them round about among the different towns and hamlets of their land to announce the joyful news in the idol-temples and to the people. The corpses they fastened to the town-wall of Beth-shean, a city in the valley of the Jordan (see Joshua 17:11). It is not stated that the Philistines plundered the bodies of Saul's sons and mutilated them by cutting off their heads; but it is evident from verse twelve, where the Jabesh-gileadites are said to have taken down from the wall of Beth-shean not Saul's body only, but the bodies of his sons also, that the Philistines had treated the corpses of Saul's sons in just the same manner as that of Saul himself. The writer speaks distinctly of the abuse of Saul's body, because it was his death that he had chiefly in mind at the time.

8.

Was Saul's body burned? 1 Samuel 31:11-13

The men of Jabesh in Gilead had special reason to remember Saul with gratitude (see 1 Samuel 11:1-11); and they undertook to remove the disgrace that had been heaped upon Israel by the gibbeting of the king's corpse. All the brave men of the town set out to Beth-shean, took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall, brought them to Jabesh and burned them there, It was not the custom in Israel to burn the corpse, but to bury it in the ground. The former treatment was restricted to the worst criminals (see Leviticus 20:14). Consequently the Chaldees interpreted the word burned as relating to the burning of spices, a custom which is met afterwards as a special honor shown to certain of the kings of Judah on the occasion of their burial (2 Chronicles 16:14; 2 Chronicles 21:19; Jeremiah 34:5). In these later instances, however, it is written that the men did make a burning for him; whereas here it is stated distinctly that they burned them. The reason for the burning of the bodies in the case of Saul and his sons is seen in the peculiarity of the circumstances. The bodies were mutilated by the removal of the heads, and therefore a regular burial of the dead was impossible. Moreover these men were anxious lest the Philistines follow up their victory, come to Jabesh, and desecrate the bodies still further. Then, too, this burning was not a complete burning to ashes, but merely a burning of the skin and flesh; so that the bones still remained; were buried in the ground under a shady tree; and were later fetched away and buried in Saul's family grave at Zela, in the land of Benjamin (2 Samuel 21:11 ff), as an act of kindness on the part of David.

9.

What judgment of God is seen in Saul's death?

In the ignominious fate of Saul there was manifested the righteous judgment of God in consequence of the hardening of his heart. The love which the citizens of Jabesh displayed in their treatment of the corpses of Saul and his sons, had reference not to the king as rejected by God, but to the king as anointed of Jehovah, and was a practical condemnation, not of the divine judgment which had fallen upon Saul, but of the cruelty of the enemies of Israel and its anointed. For although Saul had waged war almost incessantly against the Philistines, it is not known that in any one of his victories he had ever been guilty of such cruelties towards the conquered and slaughtered foe as could justify this barbarous revenge on the part of the uncircumcised upon his lifeless corpse. Throughout the whole narrative one can almost hear the words of the prophet of God who had tried to admonish the king and had declared, Behold, to hearken is better than sacrifice; and to obey is better than the fat of rams.