14David said to him, “Why were you not afraid to stretch out your hand to destroy Yahweh’s anointed?”15David called one of the young men, and said, “Go near, and cut him down!” He struck him so that he died.16David said to him, “Your blood be on your head; for your mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have slain Yahweh’s anointed.’ ”
17David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son
1 Samuel 26:9(vv14, 16)David said to Abishai, “Don’t destroy him; for who can stretch out his hand against Yahweh’s anointed, and be guiltless?”
Matthew 27:25(v16)All the people answered, “May his blood be on us, and on our children!”
Numbers 12:8(v14)With him, I will speak mouth to mouth, even plainly, and not in riddles; and he shall see Yahweh’s form. Why then were you not afraid to…
1 Samuel 24:6(v14)He said to his men, “Yahweh forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, Yahweh’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, since he…
1 Samuel 31:4(v14)Then Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through,…
Show all 38 cross-references
2 Chronicles 35:25(v17)Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women spoke of Josiah in their lamentations to this day; and they made…
Psalms 105:15(v14)“Don’t touch my anointed ones! Do my prophets no harm!”
Luke 19:22(v16)“He said to him, ‘Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant! You knew that I am an exacting man, taking up that which I…
2 Peter 2:10(v14)but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to…
Leviticus 20:9(v16)“ ‘For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall…
Romans 3:19(v16)Now we know that whatever things the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be closed, and all the world…
Joshua 2:19(v16)It shall be that whoever goes out of the doors of your house into the street, his blood will be on his head, and we will be guiltless.…
2 Samuel 1:10(v16)So I stood beside him and killed him, because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen. I took the crown that was on his head…
2 Samuel 1:19(v17)“Your glory, Israel, was slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!
1 Kings 2:37(v16)For on the day you go out and pass over the brook Kidron, know for certain that you will surely die. Your blood will be on your own head.”
Proverbs 6:2(v16)you are trapped by the words of your mouth; you are ensnared with the words of your mouth.
Genesis 9:5-6(v16)I will surely require accounting for your life’s blood. At the hand of every animal I will require it. At the hand of man, even at the hand…
Genesis 50:11(v17)When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, “This is a grievous mourning by the…
Leviticus 20:11-13(v16)“ ‘The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness. Both of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood…
Leviticus 20:16(v16)“ ‘If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal. They shall surely be put to death. Their…
Leviticus 20:27(v16)“ ‘A man or a woman that is a medium or is a wizard shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones. Their blood shall be…
Deuteronomy 19:10(v16)This is so that innocent blood will not be shed in the middle of your land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance, leaving…
Judges 8:20(v15)He said to Jether his firstborn, “Get up and kill them!” But the youth didn’t draw his sword; for he was afraid, because he was yet a youth.
Judges 9:24(v16)that the violence done to the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might come, and that their blood might be laid on Abimelech their brother who…
1 Samuel 22:17-18(v15)The king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn, and kill the priests of Yahweh; because their hand also is with David, and because…
2 Samuel 3:28-29(v16)Afterward, when David heard it, he said, “I and my kingdom are guiltless before Yahweh forever of the blood of Abner the son of Ner. Let it…
2 Samuel 4:10-12(v15)when someone told me, ‘Behold, Saul is dead,’ thinking that he brought good news, I seized him and killed him in Ziklag, which was the…
1 Kings 2:25(v15)King Solomon sent Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he fell on him, so that he died.
1 Kings 2:32-33(v16)Yahweh will return his blood on his own head, because he fell on two men more righteous and better than he, and killed them with the sword,…
1 Kings 2:34(v15)Then Benaiah the son of Jehoiada went up and fell on him, and killed him; and he was buried in his own house in the wilderness.
1 Kings 2:46(v15)So the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada; and he went out, and fell on him, so that he died. The kingdom was established in the…
Job 5:12(v15)He frustrates the plans of the crafty, So that their hands can’t perform their enterprise.
Job 15:6(v16)Your own mouth condemns you, and not I. Yes, your own lips testify against you.
Proverbs 11:18(v15)Wicked people earn deceitful wages, but one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.
Jeremiah 9:17-21(v17)Yahweh of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come. Let…
Ezekiel 18:13(v16)has lent with interest, and has taken increase from the poor; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations. He…
Ezekiel 33:5(v16)He heard the sound of the trumpet, and didn’t take warning. His blood will be on him; whereas if he had heeded the warning, he would have…
Acts 20:26(v16)Therefore I testify to you today that I am clean from the blood of all men,
38 distinct cross-references across this passage (39 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn v16Thou art justly punished for thy fault.
Thou art justly punished for thy fault.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv14–172Sa 1:14 And David said unto him, How wast…
2Sa 1:14 And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the LORD’S anointed?
Ver. 14. How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand, &c.] William Parry was for burglary condenmed to die: and yet saved by Queen Elizabeth’s pardon. {a} But he, ungrateful man, sought to requite her by vowing her death, A.D. 1584; but ever he was daunted, though he had opportunity, when he beheld the glory of her presence and majesty in her face.
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{a} Speed.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv14, 16Why didst not thou refuse to kill him, as…
Why didst not thou refuse to kill him, as his armour-bearer had done? For notwithstanding his great danger, something might have fallen out through God’s all-disposing providence, whereby his life might have been preserved.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry1710 · Public DomainOn v17When David had rent his clothes, mourned, and wept,…
When David had rent his clothes, mourned, and wept, and fasted, for the death of Saul, and done justice upon him who made himself guilty of it, one would think he had made full payment of the debt of honour he owed to his memory; yet this is not all: we have here a poem he wrote on that occasion; for he was a great master of his pen as well as of his sword. By this elegy he designed both to express his own sorrow for this great calamity and to impress the like on the minds of others, who ought to lay it to heart. The putting of lamentations into poems made them, 1. The more moving and affecting. The passion of the poet, or singer, is, by this way, wonderfully communicated to the readers and hearers. 2. The more lasting. Thus they were made, not only to spread far, but to continue long, from generation to generation. Those might gain information by poems that would not read history. Here we have,
I. The orders David gave with this elegy (Sa2 1:18): He bade them teach the children of Judah (his own tribe, whatever others did) the use of the bow, either. 1. The bow used in war. Not but that the children of Judah knew how to use the bow (it was so commonly used in war, long before this, that the sword and bow were put for all weapons of war, Gen 48:22), but perhaps they had of late made more use of slings, as David in killing Goliath, because cheaper, and David would have them now to see the inconvenience of these (for it was the archers of the Philistines that bore so hard upon Saul, Sa1 21:3), and to return more generally to the use of the bow, to exercise themselves in this weapon, that they might be in a capacity to avenge the death of their prince upon the Philistines, and to outdo them at their own weapon. It was a pity but those that had such good heads and hearts as the children of Judah should be well armed. David hereby showed his authority over and concern for the armies of Israel, and set himself to rectify the errors of the former reign. But we find that the companies which had now come to David to Ziklag were armed with bows (Ch1 12:2); therefore, 2. Some understand it either of some musical instrument called a bow (to which he would have the mournful ditties sung) or of the elegy itself: He bade them teach the children of Judah Kesheth, the bow, that is, this song, which was so entitled for the sake of Jonathan's bow, the achievements of which are here celebrated. Moses commanded Israel to learn his song (Deu 31:19), so David his. Probably he bade the Levites teach them. It is written in the book of Jasher, there it was kept upon record, and thence transcribed into this history. That book was probably a collection of state-poems; what is said to be written in that book (Jos 10:13) is also poetical, a fragment of an historical poem. Even songs would be forgotten and lost if they were not committed to writing, that best conservatory of knowledge.
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II. The elegy itself. 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. This elegy proves David to have been,
1. A man of an excellent spirit, in four things: -
(1.) He was very generous to Saul, his sworn enemy. Saul was his father-in-law, his sovereign, and the anointed of the Lord; and therefore, though he had done him a great deal of wrong, David does not wreak his revenge upon his memory when he is in his grave; but like a good man, and a man of honour, [1.] He conceals his faults; and, though there was no preventing their appearance in his history, yet they should not appear in this elegy. Charity teaches us to make the best we can of every body and to say nothing of those of whom we can say no good, especially when they are gone. De mortuis nil nisi bonum - Say nothing but good concerning the dead. We ought to deny ourselves the satisfaction of making personal reflections upon those who have been injurious to us, much more drawing their character thence, as if every man must of necessity be a bad man that has done ill by us. Let the corrupt part of the memory be buried with the corrupt part of the man - earth to earth, ashes to ashes; let the blemish be hidden and a veil drawn over the deformity. [2.] He celebrates that which was praiseworthy in him. He does not commend him for that which he was not, says nothing of his piety or fidelity. Those funeral commendations which are gathered out of the spoils of truth are not at all to the praise of those on whom they are bestowed, but very much the dispraise of those who unjustly misplace them. But he has this to say in honour of Saul himself, First, That he was anointed with oil (Sa2 1:21), the sacred oil, which signified his elevation to, and qualification for, the government. Whatever he was otherwise, the crown of the anointing oil of his God was upon him, as is said of the high priest (Lev 21:12), and on that account he was to be honoured, because God, the fountain of honour, had honoured him. Secondly, That he was a man of war, a mighty man (Sa2 1:19-21), that he had often been victorious over the enemies of Israel and vexed them whithersoever he turned, Sa1 14:47. His sword returned not empty, but satiated with blood and spoil, Sa2 1:22. His disgrace and fall at last must not make his former successes and services to be forgotten. Though his sun set under a cloud, time was when it shone brightly. Thirdly, That take him with Jonathan he was a man of a very agreeable temper, that recommended himself to the affections of his subjects (Sa2 1:23): Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant. Jonathan was always so, and Saul was so as long as he concurred with him. Take them together, and in the pursuit of the enemy, never were men more bold, more brave; they were swifter than eagles and stronger than lions. Observe, Those that were most fierce and fiery in the camp were no less sweet and lovely in the court, as amiable to the subject as they were formidable to the foe; a rare combination of softness and sharpness they had, which makes any man's temper very happy. It may be understood of the harmony and affection that for the most part subsisted between Saul and Jonathan: they were lovely and pleasant one to another, Jonathan a dutiful son, Saul an affectionate father; and therefore dear to each other in their lives, and in their death they were not divided, but kept close together in the stand they made against the Philistines, and fell together in the same cause. Fourthly, That he had enriched his country with the spoils of conquered nations, and introduced a more splendid attire. When they had a king like the nations, they must have clothes like the nations; and herein he was, in a particular manner, obliging to his female subjects, Sa2 1:24. The daughters of Israel he clothed in scarlet, which was their delight.
(2.) He was very grateful to Jonathan, his sworn friend. Besides the tears he shed over him, and the encomiums he gives of him in common with Saul, he mentions him with some marks of distinction (Sa2 1:25): O Jonathan! thou wast slain in thy high places! which (compared with Sa2 1:19) intimates that he meant him by the beauty of Israel, which, he there says, was slain upon the high places. He laments Jonathan as his particular friend (Sa2 1:26): My brother, Jonathan; not so much because of what he would have been to him if he had lived, very serviceable no doubt in his advancement to the throne and instrumental to prevent those long struggles which, for want of his assistance, he had with the house of Saul (had this been the only ground of his grief it would have been selfish), but he lamented him for what he had been: "Very pleasant hast thou been unto me; but that pleasantness is now over, and I am distressed for thee." He had reason to say that Jonathan's love to him was wonderful; surely never was the like, for a man to love one who he knew was to take the crown over his head, and to be so faithful to his rival: this far surpassed the highest degree of conjugal affection and constancy. See here, [1.] That nothing is more delightful in this world than a true friend, that is wise and good, that kindly receives and returns our affection, and is faithful to us in all our true interests. [2.] That nothing is more distressful than the loss of such a friend; it is parting with a piece of one's self. It is the vanity of this world that what is most pleasant to us we are most liable to be distressed in. The more we love the more we grieve.
(3.) He was deeply concerned for the honour of God; for this is what he has an eye to when he fears lest the daughters of the uncircumcised, that are out of covenant with God, should triumph over Israel, and the God of Israel, Sa2 1:20. Good men are touched in a very sensible part by the reproaches of those that reproach God.
(4.) He was deeply concerned for the public welfare. It was the beauty of Israel that was slain (Sa2 1:19) and the honour of the public that was disgraced: The mighty have fallen (this is three times lamented, Sa2 1:19, Sa2 1:25, Sa2 1:27), and so the strength of the people is weakened. Public losses are most laid to heart by men of public spirit. David hoped God would make him instrumental to repair those losses and yet laments them.
2. A man of a fine imagination, as well as a wise and holy man. The expressions are all excellent, and calculated to work upon the passions. (1.) The embargo he would fain lay upon Fame is elegant (Sa2 1:20): Tell it not in Gath. It grieved him to the heart to think that it would be proclaimed in the cities of the Philistines, and that they would insult over Israel upon it, and the more in remembrance of the triumphs of Israel over them formerly, when they sang, Saul has slain his thousands; for this would now be retorted. (2.) The curse he entails on the mountains of Gilboa, the theatre on which this tragedy was acted: Let there be no dew upon you, nor fields of offerings, Sa2 1:21. This is a poetical strain, like that of Job, Let the day perish wherein I was born. Not as if David wished that any part of the land of Israel might be barren, but, to express his sorrow for the thing, he speaks with a seeming indignation at the place. Observe, [1.] How the fruitfulness of the earth depends upon heaven. 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. But, when he wished them barren, he wished there might be no rain upon them; and, if the heavens be brass, the earth will soon be iron. [2.] How the fruitfulness of the earth must therefore be devoted to heaven, which is intimated in his calling the fruitful fields fields of offerings. Those fruits of their land that were offered to God were the crown and glory of it: and therefore the failure of the offerings is the saddest consequent of the failure of the corn. See Joe 1:9. To want that wherewith we should honour God is worse than to want that wherewith we should sustain ourselves. This is the reproach David fastens upon the mountains of Gilboa, which, having been stained with royal blood, thereby forfeited celestial dews. In this elegy Saul had a more honourable interment than that which the men of Jabesh-Gilead gave him.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv14–17And David said unto him, how, wast thou not…
And David said unto him, how, wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand,.... By which it should seem that he did more than stand upon him, and press his body, that the spear might pierce through him, but that he drew his sword, and slew him; so David understood him, and is the sense of the phrase in Sa1 17:51,
to destroy the Lord's anointed? a reason why David did not destroy him, when it was in the power of his hands, and which he made use of to dissuade others from it; and here charges it not only as a criminal, but a daring action in this young man, at which he expresses his admiration how he could do it; hereby representing it as a very shocking and detestable action; see Sa1 24:6.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv16–17Verse 16. Thy blood be upon thy head] If…
Verse 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's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv15, 172Sa 1:15. He smote him that he died —…
2Sa 1:15. He smote him that he died — Abarbinel thinks that, as the man was an Amalekite, David supposed that he had killed Saul out of revenge for the slaughter he had made of the Amalekites. But, if not; if the fact were as this Amalekite stated, and Saul bid him despatch him, “David rightly judged, that Saul had no power over his own life; and, consequently, should not have been obeyed in such a command: God and the state had as much right to his life when he was weary of it as when he most loved it. And, besides all this, it behooved David to vindicate his own innocence to the world, by so public an execution: he might otherwise, perhaps, have been branded with the guilt of employing that wretch to murder his persecutor. David also, doubtless, had it in view to deter others by this example. He consulted his own safety in this, as Cesar is said, by restoring the statues of Pompey, to have fixed his own. This was a wise lecture to princes, and many of them have unquestionably profited by it.” — Delaney.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv16–17David might well think his sentence just though severe,…
David might well think his sentence just though severe, for he had more than once expressed the deliberate opinion that none could lift up his hand against the Lord’s anointed, and be guiltless (see 1Sa 24:6; 1Sa 26:9, 1Sa 26:11, 1Sa 26:16).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn v16Head. None but thyself can be answerable for thy…
Head. None but thyself can be answerable for thy death. See Matthew xxvii. 25. David was already supreme magistrate, and he wished that all should be convinced that he rejoiced not at the death of the king, and that none might imitate the example of this wretch. (Calmet) --- Thus Vitellius punished the murderers of Galba, "not out of respect to Galba; but, according to the custom of princes, as a protection for the present, and a threat of vengeance for the future," in case any should dare to treat him in like manner. (Tacitus i.) Tradito principibus more, munimentum in præsens, in posterum ultionem.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn v17DAVID LAMENTS SAUL AND JONATHAN. (Sa2 1:17-27)
DAVID LAMENTS SAUL AND JONATHAN. (Sa2 1:17-27)
David lamented with this lamentation--It has always been customary for Eastern people, on the death of great kings and warriors, to celebrate their qualities and deeds in funeral songs. This inimitable pathetic elegy is supposed by many writers to have become a national war song, and to have been taught to the young Israelites under the name of "The Bow," in conformity with the practice of Hebrew and many classical writers in giving titles to their songs from the principal theme (Psa 22:1; Psa 56:1; Psa 60:1; Psa 80:1; Psa 100:1). Although the words "the use of" are a supplement by our translators, they may be rightly introduced, for the natural sense of this parenthetical verse is, that David took immediate measures for instructing the people in the knowledge and practice of archery, their great inferiority to the enemy in this military arm having been the main cause of the late national disaster.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv16–1716. Thy blood be upon thy head — Thy…
16. Thy blood be upon thy head — Thy infamous deed of slaying the king can be atoned for only by the immediate shedding of thine own blood.
Thy mouth hath testified against thee — David regarded an offence against the person of the king as most execrable sacrilege, and therefore, to his mind, a man who gloried in slaying the Lord’s anointed deserved death.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv14, 16, 1714. the Lord’s anointed] The person of the king,…
14. the Lord’s anointed] The person of the king, consecrated to the service of Jehovah by anointing, was inviolable. Compare David’s reiterated expressions on this point in 1Sa_24:6; 1Sa_26:9; 1Sa_26:11; 1Sa_26:16; and the armourbearer’s reverence in 1Sa_31:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv14, 15, 17(14) How wast thou not afraid?—David now turns to…
(14) How wast thou not afraid?—David now turns to the Amalekite. It does not matter whether he fully believed his story or not, the man must be judged by his own account of himself. (See 2Sa_1:16.) Regicide was not in David’s eyes merely a political crime; he had showed on more than one occasion of great temptation (1Sa_24:6; 1Sa_26:9; 1Sa_26:11; 1Sa_26:16) that he considered taking the life of “the Lord’s anointed” as a religious offence of the greatest magnitude. It was an especially grievous thing for a foreigner and an Amalekite thus to smite him whom God had appointed as the monarch of Israel.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv14, 15, 17A weighty question.
A weighty question.
David could consistently ask this question, for he had throughout acted with devout regard to the Divine anointing which Saul. had received. When the opportunity was afforded him of slaying Saul, and he was urged to do so, he again and again steadily refused, notwithstanding all the provocation he received, and although he knew that Saul would have no scruple in putting him to death. Yet the person to whom this question was addressed could, perhaps, hardly appreciate its significance. Supposing his narrative truthful, he may have been actuated by compassion in what he did; and he hoped for reward from David, in whom he saw the coming king of Israel. But, however this may be, the question may be used as applicable to those who assail with deadly intention him who is pre-eminently the anointed (the Christ) of God. First, to those who actually slew him, or took part in his death; and then to all who become sharers in their guilt by endeavouring to destroy his authority and sway amongst men.
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I WHO MAY BE THUS ADDRESSED.
1. Those who assail the gospel of Christ.
2. Those who endeavour to destroy his work in the souls of men.. Such as resolutely resist and suppress the thoughts and emotions he produces in themselves, resisting his Spirit. Such also as set themselves to prevent or destroy his influence over others; endeavouring to undermine their faith, to corrupt their morals, to entice them from the paths of piety and goodness. (Mat_18:6, Mat_18:7)
3. Those who persecute his people. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
II WHY THEY ARE NOT AFRAID.
1. Ignorance, in some, of what they are doing. As seems to have been the case with this Amalekite. This palliation of guilt is admitted in the case of those who put our Lord to death (Act_3:17; 1Co_2:8) And he told his disciples that their persecutors even unto death would think they were "doing God service". (Joh_16:2) But ignorance itself may be guiltiness, though not so great as sinning against the light, knowing it to be light and hating it on that account.
2. Disbelief as to the truth of Christianity, as to God himself, or even as to the reality and worth of godliness and goodness.
3. Moral insensibility. Which may spring from disbelief, or from habits of godlessness and wickedness, or of mere worldliness.
4. Expectation of impunity. Because of the seeming weakness of him whom they assail, (Mat_27:42, Mat_27:43) or his delay in punishing, (Ecc_8:11) or from false notions of the goodness of God. All these reasons cannot exist in the same person; but some in one, some in another.
III WHY THEY OUGHT TO BE AFRAID.
1. Because Jesus is the Lord"s Anointed the Christ of God. He comes to men with Divine authority, appointed to be their King and Saviour. There is sufficient proof of this. "This is my beloved Son" was not only uttered from heaven; it appears in the whole character, teaching, miracles, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; in the correspondence of prophecy and history; in the testimony of the apostles and the miracles which attested their mission; in the birth, growth, and perpetuation of the Church; in the mighty beneficial influence of Christianity in the world; in its effects on individual character and happiness, on family life and national life. It is echoed in the hearts and consciences of men; in the happy consciousness of every Christian. It is fashionable now to apologize for unbelief, and treat sceptics very tenderly, as if their love of truth made them sceptics. But compare the sayings of our Lord, "He that is of the truth heareth my voice," and "If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God." If, then, Jesus be God"s Anointed, to fight against him is to fight against God, which is both impious and perilous.
2. Because of the penalties incurred by opposition to Christ. The injury they do to themselves now, the judgment which will come upon them hereafter. Him whom they assail they will one day see coming in the clouds of heaven, to take vengeance on his foes. "Those mine enemies ... bring hither and slay them before me.
3. Because of the injury they do to others. Men with any regard to the welfare of others may well be asked to pause before they endeavour to rob them of their faith, and all that springs out of it, in sound moral principles, right character, happiness, comfort under the troubles and burdens of life, and hope in death; especially as avowedly they have no adequate substitute to offer. They ought to be afraid of taking a course which, if successful, would deprive the lowly and the poor of their chief consolation, leave unrestrained by any sufficient check the passions of men, and so demoralize and disorganize society.
IV THE EXPOSTULATIONS. WHICH SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THEM. "How is it that thou art not afraid," etc.? Christian speakers and writers sometimes oppose those who are opposing Christ in a style suitable to the discussion of some abstract question. The conflict is conducted as if it were one of mere opinion. But surely those to whom Christ is dear ought to make it felt that they regard the question of his position and claims as one of life and death one in which all that is most valued by them for the sake of themselves, their families, and society at large is involved. And it is due to the foes of Christ themselves that this should be done. Their consciences should be addressed as well as their reasoning faculty. Remonstrance should be employed, and warning, as well as argument. Only let the warmth shown be that of love and intense desire for the salvation of men.
Finally, let the Christian rejoice that all opposition to "the Lord"s Anointed" is, and must be, vain. It cannot injure him; it cannot seriously or permanently injure his cause. It can only recoil on those who engage in it (see Psalm 2.; G.W. (Luk_20:17, Luk_20:18)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn v17And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and…
2Sa_1:17
And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son.
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David's lament
1. The Bible has been called the record of human sorrows, and so it is. There are, however, parts of the sacred Scriptures where the shadows lay thickest, and the notes are ever in the minor key: I refer to the lamentations. What strains in music are more pathetic and moving than those of the Marcia Funebre! and when did ever Handel, or Beethoven, or Chopin exercise their genius with greater effect than in those compositions which unveil in sound the secret agony of bereavement! So in Holy Scripture, when the plectrum of the Spirit sweeps across the chords of the human soul in the dark hour of grief, there is something unspeakably touching in the inspired cadences.
2. Such outpourings of grief as are found in the dirge in this lesson, composed by David, may be highly poetical, and betray the tense condition of the emotions; yet they are not devoid of moral teaching, and vividly depict the affectionate character of him who was a type of the Man of sorrows.
I. David's lament over Saul.
1. I see in this the spirit of forgiveness. There was enough in Saul's dealings with David to have dulled the poignancy of grief, and even to have called up resentment. David's conduct seems an anticipation of the Christian precept, not only to forgive, but to love your enemies. Forgiveness of injuries, the flower of charity, was ripened by the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, for there was little enough of it in the world before Christ came. I am not forgetting that Solomon said, It is the glory of a man to pass by a transgression (Pro_19:11). On the other hand, there is a tone of vindictiveness in parts of the Old Testament--in the Psalter, for instance--which reveals a low standard of morality in some respects. The eye for eye and tooth for tooth principle required nothing short of the Life and Death of Christ to dislodge it. Even David, on another occasion, betrayed something very much like the spirit of revenge (1Ki_2:9). However, before us we have a beautiful instance of forgiveness, when the maxim, De mortuis nil nisi bonum, was certainly not in the ascendant.
2. Moreover, David not only gave vent to his grief in the utterances of this elegy; but he taught it to the people. This arose from his generous desire that Israel should remember the greatness of Saul.
3. The object of teaching this dirge to the people was that they might remember it and repeat it. In the same way, the Lamentations of Jeremiah are repeated by the Jews at the Wailing Place with weeping, and thus the recollection of their sins and miseries is perpetuated. David willed that the memory of his predecessor should live in the hearts of the people.
4. David weeping over Saul is a type of Christ weeping over Jerusalem which rejected Him.
II. David's lament over Jonathan.
1. This was the climax of his grief, the bitterest element in the cup of sorrow.
2. David's sorrow arose from the friendship which existed between him and Jonathan (1Sa_18:1). Similarly, Jacob's love for Benjamin is described (Gen_44:30). But this was outside all family ties. Strangers found in each other what they could not find in the domestic circle. This romantic form of love played a conspicuous part in the ancient world. Poets, artists, and philosophers made it their subject. Christianity has been taunted with its disregard of friendship. Yet the wider circles of love did not obliterate, in the heart of Christ, that. love of mutual benevolence which could delight in certain souls through an affinity of natural qualities and feelings. Thus Lazarus was a friend of Christ, and St. John the disciple whom Jesus loved.
3. But it may be admitted--although there are Christian friendships recorded in the history of the Church, and to be found amongst Christians, which are beautiful and separate from all that is essential or merely sentimental--that friendship has not the same conspicuous place which it had when Aristotle took two books of his Ethics to treat the theme; and there are reasons for this which need not now be discussed. It is sufficient to observe that its rightful value as a form of love is preserved. What it seems to lose in importance, it gains in inward, worth by the consecration it receives from the Christian spirit (Luthardt).
4. The description of Jonathan's love for David has ever been interpreted as a type of the love of the Christian for Christ, David's Son and Lord; and the covenant which he made with him, and the way he stripped himself of his robes and weapons (1Sa_18:3-4), to be an image of the covenant with Christ, and the willingness to be stripped of all for His sake. The strong language which depicts the fervour of natural affection is a vehicle to describe the intensity and transforming character of Christian love.
Lessons:
1. To try to learn the lesson--hard for flesh and blood, but possible through the grace of the Holy Spirit, not only to forgive, but to love those who have injured us. Though Saul had sought David's life, David wept over Saul's death.
2. To learn from the friendship between Jonathan and David, and the value which has been set upon friendship, how important is the choice of friends. How the influence may be powerful either for good or evil which comes from companionship: With the holy thou shalt be holy, and with a perfect man thou shalt be perfect; so the opposite, With the froward thou shalt learn forwardness (Psa_18:25-26).
3. All human friendship must be subordinate to the love of that Friend who laid down His life for us, and who is faithful when all others desert us. (W. H. Hutchings, M. A.)
Death of Saul and Jonathan
I. A Good Chance Will Not Ensure A Successful Career. Be thankful for an open path to success. But be cautious. Education, fortune, and friends will not make a man. That, his own energy and faithfulness must do. The world's competition makes short work of external advantages, and a good chance makes more conspicuous poor achievement. Indeed, the kindest choice may be the adversity which puts men on their mettle, calling out that earnestness and thoroughness which the world loves to honour. A thousand times it has been proved that he who will succeed, can; a thousand times, that the fairest opportunity may be thrown away by reckless or impotent or unwise favourites of fortune.
II. Divine help will not secure success. What more could Heaven have done for this king with a ruined life? And are there none in these days for whom God seems to have done everything? Their very birth was into blessings. How sacred influences have sung over their cradles, and rocked them to sleep in a fond mother's arms. How friends have taken them by the hand, wise to counsel, patient to bear, helpful to instruct. And God has come very near. It is almost impossible for a youth to grow up in a Christian land without feeling strongly and persuasively the claim of God upon him. Companions, older friends, become Christians. He joins them and catches the inspiration. He knows God has come to him, and thinks he has come to God. Is it genuine? Will it last? Each of us knows some Saul who has fought against Heaven's kindness to accomplish his own ruin. Divine love cannot save an unwilling heart.
III. Entire consecration to God is the only assurance of a successful career. Saul's ruin sprang from his disobedience. Absolute surrender to God, unquestioning and unswerving obedience, would have fixed his will and enthroned the good in his nature. Though God gives opportunity, man must use it. Special Divine favours heap up condemnation, if not met with a consecrated will. The Divine purpose may use a bad man against his will and without his profit. There is no sadder sight than the gradual breaking down of a lofty soul under the influence of unresisted temptation. Religious impressions are not religious principles. Good and evil dwell together in every soul; character is determined, not by our sensitiveness to their influence, but by our choice. How do I know but that now some of you may be hesitating before great temptations--to use for yourselves that which is not yours; to break over the pure and sacred laws which control the relations of man and woman? That way lies death. The laws of God cannot be overcome. Though you lived a king, shame would defile you, gloom and fear gather about your last hours. But to the wise, God increaseth knowledge; to the obedient He addeth strength. On this earth they have peace and honour; among the angels, before the face of God, eternal blessedness. (Monday Club Sermons.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary1892 · Public DomainOn v172Sa_1:17. “Lamented—Lamentation.” These words must be understood in a…
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES.—
2Sa_1:17. “Lamented—Lamentation.” These words must be understood in a technical sense.… This lamentation has a peculiar interest as being the only specimen preserved to us of David’s secular poetry. (Bib. Commentary.)
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2Sa_1:18. “The bow.” This is the name given to the dirge probably on account of its warlike character. “The use of.” These words are improperly inserted in the English version. “The Book of Jasher.” Or, the book of the righteous or the “upright ones.” “It was in existence before the Books of Joshua and Samuel (Jos_10:13), and contained (judging from the extracts) a collection of songs on specially remarkable events of the Israelitish history, together with a celebration of the prominently pious men whose names were connected with these events.” (Erdmann.). Other conjectures have been formed about this book, but they appear unworthy of attention.
2Sa_1:19. “The ode” (which here begins) “is arranged in three strophes, which gradually dimiuish in force and sweep (viz., 2Sa_1:19-27), and in which the vehemence of sorrow is gradually modified, and finally dies away. Each strophe opens with the exclamation, How are the mighty fallen! The first contains all that had to be said in praise of the fallen heroes; the deepest mourning for their death, etc. The second commemorates the friendship between David and Jonathan. The third simply utters the last sigh, with which the elegy becomes silent.” (Kiel.)
2Sa_1:19. Some read the first stanza, “Thy glory, O Israel, upon thy heights (is) slain.” De Wette, Kitto, Stanley, and others, for glory read gazelle, and Ewald refers it to Jonathan. “But this,” says Erdmann, “in the absence in the song of any comparison with the gazelle, or any allusion to its swiftness and agility, is untenable, because the song speaks throughout not of one hero but of two. As the composition has the ring of a hero song in honour of these two, who were, in fact, the hero glory of Israel, we must render the word glory, ornament.”
2Sa_1:20. “Gath, Askelon.” “These two Philistine cities as the most prominent, are named for the whole land, which they represent (Gath very near, Askelon at a distance on the sea.”) (Erdmann.) “Lest the daughter,” etc. Referring to the Oriental custom of the celebration of victories by the women of the nation. (1Sa_18:6, etc.)
2Sa_1:21. “Fields of offerings,” or of first-fruits, i.e., fields from which were taken the first-fruits, which were, of course, the most fruitful. The last clause of this verse should be read without the italics in the authorised version—“The shield of Saul not anointed with oil.” It was customary to clean and polish the shield with oil (see Isa_21:5), and this expression denotes its defilement and unfitness for war consequent upon the defeat of its owner.
2Sa_1:24. “With delights,” “or with lovelinesses; i.e., in a lovely manner.” (Keil.) Al the adornments here enumerated were probably the spoils of war.
2Sa_1:25. “O Jonathan.” “David’s union of heart with his friend differences this lament sharply from the foregoing over him and Saul as heroes.” (Erdmann.)
2Sa_1:27. “Weapons of war.” Not the materials of warfare but the heroes themselves.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—2Sa_1:17-27
DAVID’S LAMENT OVER SAUL AND JONATHAN
I. The truly great can separate the man and the enemy. We cannot do David the injustice to suppose that any of the language which he here uses is anything but the expression of the feelings of his heart—that any word of praise which occurs here is used merely for effect, or is an exaggeration of what he felt to be truth. How, then, was it possible for him so to regard the man who had now for so many years made him an exile—who had made his youth and early manhood a season of unceasing anxiety and danger? To be able honestly to render such a tribute to Saul’s memory, David must have been able to look at the man quite apart from the treatment which he had received from him—to put entirely aside the hatred with which he knew Saul regarded him, and to look at him not only without prejudice but with pity, and thus sincerely to mourn over his sins and his sorrows.
II. The truly great think their own advancement as nothing compared with God’s honour. The first and ruling emotion in the breasts of most men in David’s place would have been.—if not gratification at the downfall of an enemy, yet of exultation at being delivered from his persecution and being once more free to return in safety to his native land. And with the remembrance of the anointing oil upon his head, no one in whom all thoughts of a personal nature were not swallowed up in anxiety for the public good could have avoided looking forward with anticipation to the issue of this great event. But such a man as David found more matter of mourning in the triumph of the uncircumcised than of rejoicing in his own altered prospects. It was more to him that the God of Israel had been dishonoured in the eyes of the heathen than that the heavy cloud was lifted from his own future. In all his conduct at this time he showed that true nobility which is only possible to him who makes God, and not himself, the centre of the universe.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
I believe it is not dangerous but safe, not a homage to falsehood but to truth, in our judgments of those who are departed, to follow David’s example. We may dwell upon bright and hallowed moments of lives that have been darkened by many shadows, polluted by many sins; these moments may be welcomed as revelations to us of what God intended His creature to be; we may feel that there has been a loveliness in them which God gave them, and which their own evil could not take away. We may think of this loveliness as if it expressed the inner purpose of their existence; the rest may be for us as though it were not. As Nature, with her old mosses and her new spring foliage, hides the ruins which man has made, and gives to the fallen tower and broken cloister a beauty scarcely less than that which belonged to them in their prime, so human love may be at work too, “softening and concealing, and busy with her hand in healing” the rents that have been made in God’s nobler temple, the habitation of His own Spirit.—Maurice.
2Sa_1:12. The only deep mourning for Saul, with the exception of that of the Jabeshites, proceeded from the man whom he had hated and persecuted for so many years even to the time of his death; just as David’s successor wept over the fall of Jerusalem, even when it was about to destroy himself.—Von Gerlach.
2Sa_1:26. Passing the love of woman? How can that be? we of these days shall say. What love can pass that, saving the boundless love of Him who stooped from heaven to earth that He might die on the cross for us? No. David, when he sang these words, knew not the depth of a woman’s love. And we shall have a right so to speak. The indefeasible and divine right which is bestowed by fact. As a fact we do not find among the ancient Jews that exalting and purifying ideal of the relations between man and woman which is to be found, thank God, in these days, in almost every British work of fiction or fancy. It is enunciated, remember always, in the oldest Hebrew document. On the very threshold of the Bible it is enunciated in its most ideal purity and perfection. But in practice it was never fulfilled.… Abraham had Sarah his princess wife. But he has others.… And so has David in like wise, to the grief and harm both of him and Abraham.—Kingsley.
If ever to the human heart of David the throne had seemed desirable as the height of worldly grandeur, detestable in the last degree would such a feeling now appear, when the same act that opened it up to him deprived him of his dearest friend—his sweetest source of earthly joy. The only way in which it was possible for David to enjoy his new position was by losing sight of self; by identifying himself more closely than ever with his people; by regarding the throne only as a position for more self-denying labours for the good of others. And in this song there is evidence of the great strength and activity of this feeling.… Thus both by the afflictions that saddened his heart and by the stroke of prosperity that raised him to the throne, David was impelled to that course of action which is the best safeguard under God against the baneful influences both of adversity and prosperity.—Blaikie.
These words of the song,—
“Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon,”
have, since that time, in the circles of the faithful, become a proverb. It is frequently heard when one of their community has failed to take heed to his ways, and therefore has given rise to a scandal. Would that that call were more faithfully observed than is for the most part the case! Would that the honour of the spiritual Zion lay always as near to the heart of the children of the kingdom as did that of the earthly to the heart of David! But how often does it happen that they even strive to disclose before the world the weaknesses of their brethren, and thus, by a repetition of the wickedness of Ham, become traitors to the Church which Christ has purchased with His own blood. Thus they make themselves guilty of bringing dishonour upon the Gospel, while they open the gates to such dishonour through their perhaps altogether malicious tale-bearing, and to their own great prejudice disown the charity which “believeth all things, and hopeth all things,” and also “covereth a multitude of sins.”—Krummacher.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann1924 · Public DomainOn v17David’s Lament
David’s Lament
v. 17. And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan, his son; he composed this elegy, or song of mourning, as an expression of his deep and sincere grief over the death of the king and of his dearest friend
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v. 18. (also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow, he commanded that this song be practiced, learned by heart; behold, it is written in the Book of Jasher, it was a battle-song recorded in the Book of the Upright, and the bow was afterwards a very important weapon in Israel):
v. 19. The beauty, the glory, of Israel is slain upon thy high places, namely, by the death of Saul and Jonathan on Mount Gilboa. Now are the mighty fallen!
v. 20. Tell it not in Gath, publish, announce, it not in the streets of Askelon, these being two of the five large Philistine cities, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. If Philistia should learn of the death of the heroes of Israel, there would be, and there undoubtedly was, a scornful joy over the victory.
v. 21. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you nor fields of offerings, of first-fruits; the heavens should withhold their moisture, and the earth should refuse to give her increase, as a sign of mourning over the defeat; for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, defiled with dust and blood, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil; no one was there to take the shield, the emblem of the leader of the army, out of the dirt to clean and to polish its surface anew.
v. 22. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, considered a sign of great strength, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty; both heroes were accustomed to gain complete victories, to destroy every opposing enemy, their bravery, their prowess, was known far and wide.
v. 23. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant, worthy of lore, beloved, and amiable, in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. United by love in life, they were bound together in death, together they gave their lives for Israel. They were swifter than eagles, distinguished for quickness and agility; they were stronger than lions, of lionlike courage and strength.
v. 24. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, in crimson or purple garments from the booty of war, with other delights, adornments that pleased them; who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel, as a proof of his kingly largess.
v. 25. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places! Here the key-note of the entire lament is once more sounded, with special reference to Jonathan.
v. 26. I am distressed for thee, filled with anxious thoughts by reason of grief and mourning, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant, beloved, hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women, known for the depth of their affection and devotion.
v. 27. How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war, the heroes of Israel, as the instruments of battle, perished! The elegy was a national song and preserved the names of Saul and Jonathan in Israel. True lore and friendship requites that a person mourn the loss of a friend and always keep him in fond remembrance.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv14, 17Why were you not afraid to kill Yahweh's anointed…
Why were you not afraid to kill Yahweh's anointed ... hand?
This rhetorical question is used to rebuke the man. It can be translated as a statement. AT: "You should have feared Yahweh and not killed his anointed ... hand!" (See: Rhetorical Question)
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Yahweh's anointed king
This refers to Saul.
with your own hand
This phrase refers to doing something yourself. AT: "yourself" or "personally" (See: Metonymy)
struck him down
This idiom means "killed him." (See: Idiom)
Your blood is on your head
Here "blood" is a metonym that implies "shed blood" and is associated with death. Here "your head" is a synecdoche referring to the man and means that he is responsible. AT: "You are responsible for your own death" or "You have caused your own death" (See: Metonymy and Synecdoche)
your own mouth has testified against you
Here "your own mouth" refers to the man himself. AT: "you have testified against yourself" (See: Synecdoche)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On v151:15-16 The Amalekite expected a reward for killing David’s…
1:15-16 The Amalekite expected a reward for killing David’s rival but was instead condemned for killing the Lord’s anointed. David himself had twice refused the opportunity to kill Saul (see 1 Sam 24:5-7; 26:9-11).
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v16 Thou art justly punished for thy fault.
Thou art justly punished for thy fault.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv14–17 2Sa 1:14 And David said unto him, How wast…
2Sa 1:14 And David said unto him, How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand to destroy the LORD’S anointed?
Ver. 14. How wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand, &c.] William Parry was for burglary condenmed to die: and yet saved by Queen Elizabeth’s pardon. {a} But he, ungrateful man, sought to requite her by vowing her death, A.D. 1584; but ever he was daunted, though he had opportunity, when he beheld the glory of her presence and majesty in her face.
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{a} Speed.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv14, 16 Why didst not thou refuse to kill him, as…
Why didst not thou refuse to kill him, as his armour-bearer had done? For notwithstanding his great danger, something might have fallen out through God’s all-disposing providence, whereby his life might have been preserved.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v17 When David had rent his clothes, mourned, and wept,…
When David had rent his clothes, mourned, and wept, and fasted, for the death of Saul, and done justice upon him who made himself guilty of it, one would think he had made full payment of the debt of honour he owed to his memory; yet this is not all: we have here a poem he wrote on that occasion; for he was a great master of his pen as well as of his sword. By this elegy he designed both to express his own sorrow for this great calamity and to impress the like on the minds of others, who ought to lay it to heart. The putting of lamentations into poems made them, 1. The more moving and affecting. The passion of the poet, or singer, is, by this way, wonderfully communicated to the readers and hearers. 2. The more lasting. Thus they were made, not only to spread far, but to continue long, from generation to generation. Those might gain information by poems that would not read history. Here we have,
I. The orders David gave with this elegy (Sa2 1:18): He bade them teach the children of Judah (his own tribe, whatever others did) the use of the bow, either. 1. The bow used in war. Not but that the children of Judah knew how to use the bow (it was so commonly used in war, long before this, that the sword and bow were put for all weapons of war, Gen 48:22), but perhaps they had of late made more use of slings, as David in killing Goliath, because cheaper, and David would have them now to see the inconvenience of these (for it was the archers of the Philistines that bore so hard upon Saul, Sa1 21:3), and to return more generally to the use of the bow, to exercise themselves in this weapon, that they might be in a capacity to avenge the death of their prince upon the Philistines, and to outdo them at their own weapon. It was a pity but those that had such good heads and hearts as the children of Judah should be well armed. David hereby showed his authority over and concern for the armies of Israel, and set himself to rectify the errors of the former reign. But we find that the companies which had now come to David to Ziklag were armed with bows (Ch1 12:2); therefore, 2. Some understand it either of some musical instrument called a bow (to which he would have the mournful ditties sung) or of the elegy itself: He bade them teach the children of Judah Kesheth, the bow, that is, this song, which was so entitled for the sake of Jonathan's bow, the achievements of which are here celebrated. Moses commanded Israel to learn his song (Deu 31:19), so David his. Probably he bade the Levites teach them. It is written in the book of Jasher, there it was kept upon record, and thence transcribed into this history. That book was probably a collection of state-poems; what is said to be written in that book (Jos 10:13) is also poetical, a fragment of an historical poem. Even songs would be forgotten and lost if they were not committed to writing, that best conservatory of knowledge.
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II. The elegy itself. 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. This elegy proves David to have been,
1. A man of an excellent spirit, in four things: -
(1.) He was very generous to Saul, his sworn enemy. Saul was his father-in-law, his sovereign, and the anointed of the Lord; and therefore, though he had done him a great deal of wrong, David does not wreak his revenge upon his memory when he is in his grave; but like a good man, and a man of honour, [1.] He conceals his faults; and, though there was no preventing their appearance in his history, yet they should not appear in this elegy. Charity teaches us to make the best we can of every body and to say nothing of those of whom we can say no good, especially when they are gone. De mortuis nil nisi bonum - Say nothing but good concerning the dead. We ought to deny ourselves the satisfaction of making personal reflections upon those who have been injurious to us, much more drawing their character thence, as if every man must of necessity be a bad man that has done ill by us. Let the corrupt part of the memory be buried with the corrupt part of the man - earth to earth, ashes to ashes; let the blemish be hidden and a veil drawn over the deformity. [2.] He celebrates that which was praiseworthy in him. He does not commend him for that which he was not, says nothing of his piety or fidelity. Those funeral commendations which are gathered out of the spoils of truth are not at all to the praise of those on whom they are bestowed, but very much the dispraise of those who unjustly misplace them. But he has this to say in honour of Saul himself, First, That he was anointed with oil (Sa2 1:21), the sacred oil, which signified his elevation to, and qualification for, the government. Whatever he was otherwise, the crown of the anointing oil of his God was upon him, as is said of the high priest (Lev 21:12), and on that account he was to be honoured, because God, the fountain of honour, had honoured him. Secondly, That he was a man of war, a mighty man (Sa2 1:19-21), that he had often been victorious over the enemies of Israel and vexed them whithersoever he turned, Sa1 14:47. His sword returned not empty, but satiated with blood and spoil, Sa2 1:22. His disgrace and fall at last must not make his former successes and services to be forgotten. Though his sun set under a cloud, time was when it shone brightly. Thirdly, That take him with Jonathan he was a man of a very agreeable temper, that recommended himself to the affections of his subjects (Sa2 1:23): Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant. Jonathan was always so, and Saul was so as long as he concurred with him. Take them together, and in the pursuit of the enemy, never were men more bold, more brave; they were swifter than eagles and stronger than lions. Observe, Those that were most fierce and fiery in the camp were no less sweet and lovely in the court, as amiable to the subject as they were formidable to the foe; a rare combination of softness and sharpness they had, which makes any man's temper very happy. It may be understood of the harmony and affection that for the most part subsisted between Saul and Jonathan: they were lovely and pleasant one to another, Jonathan a dutiful son, Saul an affectionate father; and therefore dear to each other in their lives, and in their death they were not divided, but kept close together in the stand they made against the Philistines, and fell together in the same cause. Fourthly, That he had enriched his country with the spoils of conquered nations, and introduced a more splendid attire. When they had a king like the nations, they must have clothes like the nations; and herein he was, in a particular manner, obliging to his female subjects, Sa2 1:24. The daughters of Israel he clothed in scarlet, which was their delight.
(2.) He was very grateful to Jonathan, his sworn friend. Besides the tears he shed over him, and the encomiums he gives of him in common with Saul, he mentions him with some marks of distinction (Sa2 1:25): O Jonathan! thou wast slain in thy high places! which (compared with Sa2 1:19) intimates that he meant him by the beauty of Israel, which, he there says, was slain upon the high places. He laments Jonathan as his particular friend (Sa2 1:26): My brother, Jonathan; not so much because of what he would have been to him if he had lived, very serviceable no doubt in his advancement to the throne and instrumental to prevent those long struggles which, for want of his assistance, he had with the house of Saul (had this been the only ground of his grief it would have been selfish), but he lamented him for what he had been: "Very pleasant hast thou been unto me; but that pleasantness is now over, and I am distressed for thee." He had reason to say that Jonathan's love to him was wonderful; surely never was the like, for a man to love one who he knew was to take the crown over his head, and to be so faithful to his rival: this far surpassed the highest degree of conjugal affection and constancy. See here, [1.] That nothing is more delightful in this world than a true friend, that is wise and good, that kindly receives and returns our affection, and is faithful to us in all our true interests. [2.] That nothing is more distressful than the loss of such a friend; it is parting with a piece of one's self. It is the vanity of this world that what is most pleasant to us we are most liable to be distressed in. The more we love the more we grieve.
(3.) He was deeply concerned for the honour of God; for this is what he has an eye to when he fears lest the daughters of the uncircumcised, that are out of covenant with God, should triumph over Israel, and the God of Israel, Sa2 1:20. Good men are touched in a very sensible part by the reproaches of those that reproach God.
(4.) He was deeply concerned for the public welfare. It was the beauty of Israel that was slain (Sa2 1:19) and the honour of the public that was disgraced: The mighty have fallen (this is three times lamented, Sa2 1:19, Sa2 1:25, Sa2 1:27), and so the strength of the people is weakened. Public losses are most laid to heart by men of public spirit. David hoped God would make him instrumental to repair those losses and yet laments them.
2. A man of a fine imagination, as well as a wise and holy man. The expressions are all excellent, and calculated to work upon the passions. (1.) The embargo he would fain lay upon Fame is elegant (Sa2 1:20): Tell it not in Gath. It grieved him to the heart to think that it would be proclaimed in the cities of the Philistines, and that they would insult over Israel upon it, and the more in remembrance of the triumphs of Israel over them formerly, when they sang, Saul has slain his thousands; for this would now be retorted. (2.) The curse he entails on the mountains of Gilboa, the theatre on which this tragedy was acted: Let there be no dew upon you, nor fields of offerings, Sa2 1:21. This is a poetical strain, like that of Job, Let the day perish wherein I was born. Not as if David wished that any part of the land of Israel might be barren, but, to express his sorrow for the thing, he speaks with a seeming indignation at the place. Observe, [1.] How the fruitfulness of the earth depends upon heaven. 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. But, when he wished them barren, he wished there might be no rain upon them; and, if the heavens be brass, the earth will soon be iron. [2.] How the fruitfulness of the earth must therefore be devoted to heaven, which is intimated in his calling the fruitful fields fields of offerings. Those fruits of their land that were offered to God were the crown and glory of it: and therefore the failure of the offerings is the saddest consequent of the failure of the corn. See Joe 1:9. To want that wherewith we should honour God is worse than to want that wherewith we should sustain ourselves. This is the reproach David fastens upon the mountains of Gilboa, which, having been stained with royal blood, thereby forfeited celestial dews. In this elegy Saul had a more honourable interment than that which the men of Jabesh-Gilead gave him.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv14–17 And David said unto him, how, wast thou not…
And David said unto him, how, wast thou not afraid to stretch forth thine hand,.... By which it should seem that he did more than stand upon him, and press his body, that the spear might pierce through him, but that he drew his sword, and slew him; so David understood him, and is the sense of the phrase in Sa1 17:51,
to destroy the Lord's anointed? a reason why David did not destroy him, when it was in the power of his hands, and which he made use of to dissuade others from it; and here charges it not only as a criminal, but a daring action in this young man, at which he expresses his admiration how he could do it; hereby representing it as a very shocking and detestable action; see Sa1 24:6.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv16–17 Verse 16. Thy blood be upon thy head] If…
Verse 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's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv15, 17 2Sa 1:15. He smote him that he died —…
2Sa 1:15. He smote him that he died — Abarbinel thinks that, as the man was an Amalekite, David supposed that he had killed Saul out of revenge for the slaughter he had made of the Amalekites. But, if not; if the fact were as this Amalekite stated, and Saul bid him despatch him, “David rightly judged, that Saul had no power over his own life; and, consequently, should not have been obeyed in such a command: God and the state had as much right to his life when he was weary of it as when he most loved it. And, besides all this, it behooved David to vindicate his own innocence to the world, by so public an execution: he might otherwise, perhaps, have been branded with the guilt of employing that wretch to murder his persecutor. David also, doubtless, had it in view to deter others by this example. He consulted his own safety in this, as Cesar is said, by restoring the statues of Pompey, to have fixed his own. This was a wise lecture to princes, and many of them have unquestionably profited by it.” — Delaney.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv16–17 David might well think his sentence just though severe,…
David might well think his sentence just though severe, for he had more than once expressed the deliberate opinion that none could lift up his hand against the Lord’s anointed, and be guiltless (see 1Sa 24:6; 1Sa 26:9, 1Sa 26:11, 1Sa 26:16).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On v16 Head. None but thyself can be answerable for thy…
Head. None but thyself can be answerable for thy death. See Matthew xxvii. 25. David was already supreme magistrate, and he wished that all should be convinced that he rejoiced not at the death of the king, and that none might imitate the example of this wretch. (Calmet) --- Thus Vitellius punished the murderers of Galba, "not out of respect to Galba; but, according to the custom of princes, as a protection for the present, and a threat of vengeance for the future," in case any should dare to treat him in like manner. (Tacitus i.) Tradito principibus more, munimentum in præsens, in posterum ultionem.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On v17 DAVID LAMENTS SAUL AND JONATHAN. (Sa2 1:17-27)
DAVID LAMENTS SAUL AND JONATHAN. (Sa2 1:17-27)
David lamented with this lamentation--It has always been customary for Eastern people, on the death of great kings and warriors, to celebrate their qualities and deeds in funeral songs. This inimitable pathetic elegy is supposed by many writers to have become a national war song, and to have been taught to the young Israelites under the name of "The Bow," in conformity with the practice of Hebrew and many classical writers in giving titles to their songs from the principal theme (Psa 22:1; Psa 56:1; Psa 60:1; Psa 80:1; Psa 100:1). Although the words "the use of" are a supplement by our translators, they may be rightly introduced, for the natural sense of this parenthetical verse is, that David took immediate measures for instructing the people in the knowledge and practice of archery, their great inferiority to the enemy in this military arm having been the main cause of the late national disaster.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv16–17 16. Thy blood be upon thy head — Thy…
16. Thy blood be upon thy head — Thy infamous deed of slaying the king can be atoned for only by the immediate shedding of thine own blood.
Thy mouth hath testified against thee — David regarded an offence against the person of the king as most execrable sacrilege, and therefore, to his mind, a man who gloried in slaying the Lord’s anointed deserved death.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv14, 16, 17 14. the Lord’s anointed] The person of the king,…
14. the Lord’s anointed] The person of the king, consecrated to the service of Jehovah by anointing, was inviolable. Compare David’s reiterated expressions on this point in 1Sa_24:6; 1Sa_26:9; 1Sa_26:11; 1Sa_26:16; and the armourbearer’s reverence in 1Sa_31:4.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 17 (14) How wast thou not afraid?—David now turns to…
(14) How wast thou not afraid?—David now turns to the Amalekite. It does not matter whether he fully believed his story or not, the man must be judged by his own account of himself. (See 2Sa_1:16.) Regicide was not in David’s eyes merely a political crime; he had showed on more than one occasion of great temptation (1Sa_24:6; 1Sa_26:9; 1Sa_26:11; 1Sa_26:16) that he considered taking the life of “the Lord’s anointed” as a religious offence of the greatest magnitude. It was an especially grievous thing for a foreigner and an Amalekite thus to smite him whom God had appointed as the monarch of Israel.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv14, 15, 17 A weighty question.
A weighty question.
David could consistently ask this question, for he had throughout acted with devout regard to the Divine anointing which Saul. had received. When the opportunity was afforded him of slaying Saul, and he was urged to do so, he again and again steadily refused, notwithstanding all the provocation he received, and although he knew that Saul would have no scruple in putting him to death. Yet the person to whom this question was addressed could, perhaps, hardly appreciate its significance. Supposing his narrative truthful, he may have been actuated by compassion in what he did; and he hoped for reward from David, in whom he saw the coming king of Israel. But, however this may be, the question may be used as applicable to those who assail with deadly intention him who is pre-eminently the anointed (the Christ) of God. First, to those who actually slew him, or took part in his death; and then to all who become sharers in their guilt by endeavouring to destroy his authority and sway amongst men.
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I WHO MAY BE THUS ADDRESSED.
1. Those who assail the gospel of Christ.
2. Those who endeavour to destroy his work in the souls of men.. Such as resolutely resist and suppress the thoughts and emotions he produces in themselves, resisting his Spirit. Such also as set themselves to prevent or destroy his influence over others; endeavouring to undermine their faith, to corrupt their morals, to entice them from the paths of piety and goodness. (Mat_18:6, Mat_18:7)
3. Those who persecute his people. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
II WHY THEY ARE NOT AFRAID.
1. Ignorance, in some, of what they are doing. As seems to have been the case with this Amalekite. This palliation of guilt is admitted in the case of those who put our Lord to death (Act_3:17; 1Co_2:8) And he told his disciples that their persecutors even unto death would think they were "doing God service". (Joh_16:2) But ignorance itself may be guiltiness, though not so great as sinning against the light, knowing it to be light and hating it on that account.
2. Disbelief as to the truth of Christianity, as to God himself, or even as to the reality and worth of godliness and goodness.
3. Moral insensibility. Which may spring from disbelief, or from habits of godlessness and wickedness, or of mere worldliness.
4. Expectation of impunity. Because of the seeming weakness of him whom they assail, (Mat_27:42, Mat_27:43) or his delay in punishing, (Ecc_8:11) or from false notions of the goodness of God. All these reasons cannot exist in the same person; but some in one, some in another.
III WHY THEY OUGHT TO BE AFRAID.
1. Because Jesus is the Lord"s Anointed the Christ of God. He comes to men with Divine authority, appointed to be their King and Saviour. There is sufficient proof of this. "This is my beloved Son" was not only uttered from heaven; it appears in the whole character, teaching, miracles, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; in the correspondence of prophecy and history; in the testimony of the apostles and the miracles which attested their mission; in the birth, growth, and perpetuation of the Church; in the mighty beneficial influence of Christianity in the world; in its effects on individual character and happiness, on family life and national life. It is echoed in the hearts and consciences of men; in the happy consciousness of every Christian. It is fashionable now to apologize for unbelief, and treat sceptics very tenderly, as if their love of truth made them sceptics. But compare the sayings of our Lord, "He that is of the truth heareth my voice," and "If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God." If, then, Jesus be God"s Anointed, to fight against him is to fight against God, which is both impious and perilous.
2. Because of the penalties incurred by opposition to Christ. The injury they do to themselves now, the judgment which will come upon them hereafter. Him whom they assail they will one day see coming in the clouds of heaven, to take vengeance on his foes. "Those mine enemies ... bring hither and slay them before me.
3. Because of the injury they do to others. Men with any regard to the welfare of others may well be asked to pause before they endeavour to rob them of their faith, and all that springs out of it, in sound moral principles, right character, happiness, comfort under the troubles and burdens of life, and hope in death; especially as avowedly they have no adequate substitute to offer. They ought to be afraid of taking a course which, if successful, would deprive the lowly and the poor of their chief consolation, leave unrestrained by any sufficient check the passions of men, and so demoralize and disorganize society.
IV THE EXPOSTULATIONS. WHICH SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO THEM. "How is it that thou art not afraid," etc.? Christian speakers and writers sometimes oppose those who are opposing Christ in a style suitable to the discussion of some abstract question. The conflict is conducted as if it were one of mere opinion. But surely those to whom Christ is dear ought to make it felt that they regard the question of his position and claims as one of life and death one in which all that is most valued by them for the sake of themselves, their families, and society at large is involved. And it is due to the foes of Christ themselves that this should be done. Their consciences should be addressed as well as their reasoning faculty. Remonstrance should be employed, and warning, as well as argument. Only let the warmth shown be that of love and intense desire for the salvation of men.
Finally, let the Christian rejoice that all opposition to "the Lord"s Anointed" is, and must be, vain. It cannot injure him; it cannot seriously or permanently injure his cause. It can only recoil on those who engage in it (see Psalm 2.; G.W. (Luk_20:17, Luk_20:18)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v17 And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and…
2Sa_1:17
And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son.
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David's lament
1. The Bible has been called the record of human sorrows, and so it is. There are, however, parts of the sacred Scriptures where the shadows lay thickest, and the notes are ever in the minor key: I refer to the lamentations. What strains in music are more pathetic and moving than those of the Marcia Funebre! and when did ever Handel, or Beethoven, or Chopin exercise their genius with greater effect than in those compositions which unveil in sound the secret agony of bereavement! So in Holy Scripture, when the plectrum of the Spirit sweeps across the chords of the human soul in the dark hour of grief, there is something unspeakably touching in the inspired cadences.
2. Such outpourings of grief as are found in the dirge in this lesson, composed by David, may be highly poetical, and betray the tense condition of the emotions; yet they are not devoid of moral teaching, and vividly depict the affectionate character of him who was a type of the Man of sorrows.
I. David's lament over Saul.
1. I see in this the spirit of forgiveness. There was enough in Saul's dealings with David to have dulled the poignancy of grief, and even to have called up resentment. David's conduct seems an anticipation of the Christian precept, not only to forgive, but to love your enemies. Forgiveness of injuries, the flower of charity, was ripened by the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, for there was little enough of it in the world before Christ came. I am not forgetting that Solomon said, It is the glory of a man to pass by a transgression (Pro_19:11). On the other hand, there is a tone of vindictiveness in parts of the Old Testament--in the Psalter, for instance--which reveals a low standard of morality in some respects. The eye for eye and tooth for tooth principle required nothing short of the Life and Death of Christ to dislodge it. Even David, on another occasion, betrayed something very much like the spirit of revenge (1Ki_2:9). However, before us we have a beautiful instance of forgiveness, when the maxim, De mortuis nil nisi bonum, was certainly not in the ascendant.
2. Moreover, David not only gave vent to his grief in the utterances of this elegy; but he taught it to the people. This arose from his generous desire that Israel should remember the greatness of Saul.
3. The object of teaching this dirge to the people was that they might remember it and repeat it. In the same way, the Lamentations of Jeremiah are repeated by the Jews at the Wailing Place with weeping, and thus the recollection of their sins and miseries is perpetuated. David willed that the memory of his predecessor should live in the hearts of the people.
4. David weeping over Saul is a type of Christ weeping over Jerusalem which rejected Him.
II. David's lament over Jonathan.
1. This was the climax of his grief, the bitterest element in the cup of sorrow.
2. David's sorrow arose from the friendship which existed between him and Jonathan (1Sa_18:1). Similarly, Jacob's love for Benjamin is described (Gen_44:30). But this was outside all family ties. Strangers found in each other what they could not find in the domestic circle. This romantic form of love played a conspicuous part in the ancient world. Poets, artists, and philosophers made it their subject. Christianity has been taunted with its disregard of friendship. Yet the wider circles of love did not obliterate, in the heart of Christ, that. love of mutual benevolence which could delight in certain souls through an affinity of natural qualities and feelings. Thus Lazarus was a friend of Christ, and St. John the disciple whom Jesus loved.
3. But it may be admitted--although there are Christian friendships recorded in the history of the Church, and to be found amongst Christians, which are beautiful and separate from all that is essential or merely sentimental--that friendship has not the same conspicuous place which it had when Aristotle took two books of his Ethics to treat the theme; and there are reasons for this which need not now be discussed. It is sufficient to observe that its rightful value as a form of love is preserved. What it seems to lose in importance, it gains in inward, worth by the consecration it receives from the Christian spirit (Luthardt).
4. The description of Jonathan's love for David has ever been interpreted as a type of the love of the Christian for Christ, David's Son and Lord; and the covenant which he made with him, and the way he stripped himself of his robes and weapons (1Sa_18:3-4), to be an image of the covenant with Christ, and the willingness to be stripped of all for His sake. The strong language which depicts the fervour of natural affection is a vehicle to describe the intensity and transforming character of Christian love.
Lessons:
1. To try to learn the lesson--hard for flesh and blood, but possible through the grace of the Holy Spirit, not only to forgive, but to love those who have injured us. Though Saul had sought David's life, David wept over Saul's death.
2. To learn from the friendship between Jonathan and David, and the value which has been set upon friendship, how important is the choice of friends. How the influence may be powerful either for good or evil which comes from companionship: With the holy thou shalt be holy, and with a perfect man thou shalt be perfect; so the opposite, With the froward thou shalt learn forwardness (Psa_18:25-26).
3. All human friendship must be subordinate to the love of that Friend who laid down His life for us, and who is faithful when all others desert us. (W. H. Hutchings, M. A.)
Death of Saul and Jonathan
I. A Good Chance Will Not Ensure A Successful Career. Be thankful for an open path to success. But be cautious. Education, fortune, and friends will not make a man. That, his own energy and faithfulness must do. The world's competition makes short work of external advantages, and a good chance makes more conspicuous poor achievement. Indeed, the kindest choice may be the adversity which puts men on their mettle, calling out that earnestness and thoroughness which the world loves to honour. A thousand times it has been proved that he who will succeed, can; a thousand times, that the fairest opportunity may be thrown away by reckless or impotent or unwise favourites of fortune.
II. Divine help will not secure success. What more could Heaven have done for this king with a ruined life? And are there none in these days for whom God seems to have done everything? Their very birth was into blessings. How sacred influences have sung over their cradles, and rocked them to sleep in a fond mother's arms. How friends have taken them by the hand, wise to counsel, patient to bear, helpful to instruct. And God has come very near. It is almost impossible for a youth to grow up in a Christian land without feeling strongly and persuasively the claim of God upon him. Companions, older friends, become Christians. He joins them and catches the inspiration. He knows God has come to him, and thinks he has come to God. Is it genuine? Will it last? Each of us knows some Saul who has fought against Heaven's kindness to accomplish his own ruin. Divine love cannot save an unwilling heart.
III. Entire consecration to God is the only assurance of a successful career. Saul's ruin sprang from his disobedience. Absolute surrender to God, unquestioning and unswerving obedience, would have fixed his will and enthroned the good in his nature. Though God gives opportunity, man must use it. Special Divine favours heap up condemnation, if not met with a consecrated will. The Divine purpose may use a bad man against his will and without his profit. There is no sadder sight than the gradual breaking down of a lofty soul under the influence of unresisted temptation. Religious impressions are not religious principles. Good and evil dwell together in every soul; character is determined, not by our sensitiveness to their influence, but by our choice. How do I know but that now some of you may be hesitating before great temptations--to use for yourselves that which is not yours; to break over the pure and sacred laws which control the relations of man and woman? That way lies death. The laws of God cannot be overcome. Though you lived a king, shame would defile you, gloom and fear gather about your last hours. But to the wise, God increaseth knowledge; to the obedient He addeth strength. On this earth they have peace and honour; among the angels, before the face of God, eternal blessedness. (Monday Club Sermons.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v17 2Sa_1:17. “Lamented—Lamentation.” These words must be understood in a…
CRITICAL AND EXPOSITORY NOTES.—
2Sa_1:17. “Lamented—Lamentation.” These words must be understood in a technical sense.… This lamentation has a peculiar interest as being the only specimen preserved to us of David’s secular poetry. (Bib. Commentary.)
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2Sa_1:18. “The bow.” This is the name given to the dirge probably on account of its warlike character. “The use of.” These words are improperly inserted in the English version. “The Book of Jasher.” Or, the book of the righteous or the “upright ones.” “It was in existence before the Books of Joshua and Samuel (Jos_10:13), and contained (judging from the extracts) a collection of songs on specially remarkable events of the Israelitish history, together with a celebration of the prominently pious men whose names were connected with these events.” (Erdmann.). Other conjectures have been formed about this book, but they appear unworthy of attention.
2Sa_1:19. “The ode” (which here begins) “is arranged in three strophes, which gradually dimiuish in force and sweep (viz., 2Sa_1:19-27), and in which the vehemence of sorrow is gradually modified, and finally dies away. Each strophe opens with the exclamation, How are the mighty fallen! The first contains all that had to be said in praise of the fallen heroes; the deepest mourning for their death, etc. The second commemorates the friendship between David and Jonathan. The third simply utters the last sigh, with which the elegy becomes silent.” (Kiel.)
2Sa_1:19. Some read the first stanza, “Thy glory, O Israel, upon thy heights (is) slain.” De Wette, Kitto, Stanley, and others, for glory read gazelle, and Ewald refers it to Jonathan. “But this,” says Erdmann, “in the absence in the song of any comparison with the gazelle, or any allusion to its swiftness and agility, is untenable, because the song speaks throughout not of one hero but of two. As the composition has the ring of a hero song in honour of these two, who were, in fact, the hero glory of Israel, we must render the word glory, ornament.”
2Sa_1:20. “Gath, Askelon.” “These two Philistine cities as the most prominent, are named for the whole land, which they represent (Gath very near, Askelon at a distance on the sea.”) (Erdmann.) “Lest the daughter,” etc. Referring to the Oriental custom of the celebration of victories by the women of the nation. (1Sa_18:6, etc.)
2Sa_1:21. “Fields of offerings,” or of first-fruits, i.e., fields from which were taken the first-fruits, which were, of course, the most fruitful. The last clause of this verse should be read without the italics in the authorised version—“The shield of Saul not anointed with oil.” It was customary to clean and polish the shield with oil (see Isa_21:5), and this expression denotes its defilement and unfitness for war consequent upon the defeat of its owner.
2Sa_1:24. “With delights,” “or with lovelinesses; i.e., in a lovely manner.” (Keil.) Al the adornments here enumerated were probably the spoils of war.
2Sa_1:25. “O Jonathan.” “David’s union of heart with his friend differences this lament sharply from the foregoing over him and Saul as heroes.” (Erdmann.)
2Sa_1:27. “Weapons of war.” Not the materials of warfare but the heroes themselves.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—2Sa_1:17-27
DAVID’S LAMENT OVER SAUL AND JONATHAN
I. The truly great can separate the man and the enemy. We cannot do David the injustice to suppose that any of the language which he here uses is anything but the expression of the feelings of his heart—that any word of praise which occurs here is used merely for effect, or is an exaggeration of what he felt to be truth. How, then, was it possible for him so to regard the man who had now for so many years made him an exile—who had made his youth and early manhood a season of unceasing anxiety and danger? To be able honestly to render such a tribute to Saul’s memory, David must have been able to look at the man quite apart from the treatment which he had received from him—to put entirely aside the hatred with which he knew Saul regarded him, and to look at him not only without prejudice but with pity, and thus sincerely to mourn over his sins and his sorrows.
II. The truly great think their own advancement as nothing compared with God’s honour. The first and ruling emotion in the breasts of most men in David’s place would have been.—if not gratification at the downfall of an enemy, yet of exultation at being delivered from his persecution and being once more free to return in safety to his native land. And with the remembrance of the anointing oil upon his head, no one in whom all thoughts of a personal nature were not swallowed up in anxiety for the public good could have avoided looking forward with anticipation to the issue of this great event. But such a man as David found more matter of mourning in the triumph of the uncircumcised than of rejoicing in his own altered prospects. It was more to him that the God of Israel had been dishonoured in the eyes of the heathen than that the heavy cloud was lifted from his own future. In all his conduct at this time he showed that true nobility which is only possible to him who makes God, and not himself, the centre of the universe.
OUTLINES AND SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS
I believe it is not dangerous but safe, not a homage to falsehood but to truth, in our judgments of those who are departed, to follow David’s example. We may dwell upon bright and hallowed moments of lives that have been darkened by many shadows, polluted by many sins; these moments may be welcomed as revelations to us of what God intended His creature to be; we may feel that there has been a loveliness in them which God gave them, and which their own evil could not take away. We may think of this loveliness as if it expressed the inner purpose of their existence; the rest may be for us as though it were not. As Nature, with her old mosses and her new spring foliage, hides the ruins which man has made, and gives to the fallen tower and broken cloister a beauty scarcely less than that which belonged to them in their prime, so human love may be at work too, “softening and concealing, and busy with her hand in healing” the rents that have been made in God’s nobler temple, the habitation of His own Spirit.—Maurice.
2Sa_1:12. The only deep mourning for Saul, with the exception of that of the Jabeshites, proceeded from the man whom he had hated and persecuted for so many years even to the time of his death; just as David’s successor wept over the fall of Jerusalem, even when it was about to destroy himself.—Von Gerlach.
2Sa_1:26. Passing the love of woman? How can that be? we of these days shall say. What love can pass that, saving the boundless love of Him who stooped from heaven to earth that He might die on the cross for us? No. David, when he sang these words, knew not the depth of a woman’s love. And we shall have a right so to speak. The indefeasible and divine right which is bestowed by fact. As a fact we do not find among the ancient Jews that exalting and purifying ideal of the relations between man and woman which is to be found, thank God, in these days, in almost every British work of fiction or fancy. It is enunciated, remember always, in the oldest Hebrew document. On the very threshold of the Bible it is enunciated in its most ideal purity and perfection. But in practice it was never fulfilled.… Abraham had Sarah his princess wife. But he has others.… And so has David in like wise, to the grief and harm both of him and Abraham.—Kingsley.
If ever to the human heart of David the throne had seemed desirable as the height of worldly grandeur, detestable in the last degree would such a feeling now appear, when the same act that opened it up to him deprived him of his dearest friend—his sweetest source of earthly joy. The only way in which it was possible for David to enjoy his new position was by losing sight of self; by identifying himself more closely than ever with his people; by regarding the throne only as a position for more self-denying labours for the good of others. And in this song there is evidence of the great strength and activity of this feeling.… Thus both by the afflictions that saddened his heart and by the stroke of prosperity that raised him to the throne, David was impelled to that course of action which is the best safeguard under God against the baneful influences both of adversity and prosperity.—Blaikie.
These words of the song,—
“Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon,”
have, since that time, in the circles of the faithful, become a proverb. It is frequently heard when one of their community has failed to take heed to his ways, and therefore has given rise to a scandal. Would that that call were more faithfully observed than is for the most part the case! Would that the honour of the spiritual Zion lay always as near to the heart of the children of the kingdom as did that of the earthly to the heart of David! But how often does it happen that they even strive to disclose before the world the weaknesses of their brethren, and thus, by a repetition of the wickedness of Ham, become traitors to the Church which Christ has purchased with His own blood. Thus they make themselves guilty of bringing dishonour upon the Gospel, while they open the gates to such dishonour through their perhaps altogether malicious tale-bearing, and to their own great prejudice disown the charity which “believeth all things, and hopeth all things,” and also “covereth a multitude of sins.”—Krummacher.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v17 David’s Lament
David’s Lament
v. 17. And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan, his son; he composed this elegy, or song of mourning, as an expression of his deep and sincere grief over the death of the king and of his dearest friend
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v. 18. (also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow, he commanded that this song be practiced, learned by heart; behold, it is written in the Book of Jasher, it was a battle-song recorded in the Book of the Upright, and the bow was afterwards a very important weapon in Israel):
v. 19. The beauty, the glory, of Israel is slain upon thy high places, namely, by the death of Saul and Jonathan on Mount Gilboa. Now are the mighty fallen!
v. 20. Tell it not in Gath, publish, announce, it not in the streets of Askelon, these being two of the five large Philistine cities, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. If Philistia should learn of the death of the heroes of Israel, there would be, and there undoubtedly was, a scornful joy over the victory.
v. 21. Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you nor fields of offerings, of first-fruits; the heavens should withhold their moisture, and the earth should refuse to give her increase, as a sign of mourning over the defeat; for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, defiled with dust and blood, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil; no one was there to take the shield, the emblem of the leader of the army, out of the dirt to clean and to polish its surface anew.
v. 22. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, considered a sign of great strength, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty; both heroes were accustomed to gain complete victories, to destroy every opposing enemy, their bravery, their prowess, was known far and wide.
v. 23. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant, worthy of lore, beloved, and amiable, in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. United by love in life, they were bound together in death, together they gave their lives for Israel. They were swifter than eagles, distinguished for quickness and agility; they were stronger than lions, of lionlike courage and strength.
v. 24. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, in crimson or purple garments from the booty of war, with other delights, adornments that pleased them; who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel, as a proof of his kingly largess.
v. 25. How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places! Here the key-note of the entire lament is once more sounded, with special reference to Jonathan.
v. 26. I am distressed for thee, filled with anxious thoughts by reason of grief and mourning, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant, beloved, hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women, known for the depth of their affection and devotion.
v. 27. How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war, the heroes of Israel, as the instruments of battle, perished! The elegy was a national song and preserved the names of Saul and Jonathan in Israel. True lore and friendship requites that a person mourn the loss of a friend and always keep him in fond remembrance.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv14, 17 Why were you not afraid to kill Yahweh's anointed…
Why were you not afraid to kill Yahweh's anointed ... hand?
This rhetorical question is used to rebuke the man. It can be translated as a statement. AT: "You should have feared Yahweh and not killed his anointed ... hand!" (See: Rhetorical Question)
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Yahweh's anointed king
This refers to Saul.
with your own hand
This phrase refers to doing something yourself. AT: "yourself" or "personally" (See: Metonymy)
struck him down
This idiom means "killed him." (See: Idiom)
Your blood is on your head
Here "blood" is a metonym that implies "shed blood" and is associated with death. Here "your head" is a synecdoche referring to the man and means that he is responsible. AT: "You are responsible for your own death" or "You have caused your own death" (See: Metonymy and Synecdoche)
your own mouth has testified against you
Here "your own mouth" refers to the man himself. AT: "you have testified against yourself" (See: Synecdoche)
translationWords
fear
Yahweh
anoint
king
call
Amalek
die
blood
head
testimony
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v15 1:15-16 The Amalekite expected a reward for killing David’s…
1:15-16 The Amalekite expected a reward for killing David’s rival but was instead condemned for killing the Lord’s anointed. David himself had twice refused the opportunity to kill Saul (see 1 Sam 24:5-7; 26:9-11).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.