The Mighty Have Fallen
1 Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on Mount Gilboa. 2 The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul. 3 The battle went hard against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers. 4 Then Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and abuse me!” But his armor bearer would not, for he was terrified. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell on it. 5 When his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell on his sword, and died with him. 6 So Saul died with his three sons, his armor bearer, and all his men that same day together. 7 When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and those who were beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled; and the Philistines came and lived in them. 8 On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. 9 They cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and sent into the land of the Philistines all around, to carry the news to the house of their idols and to the people. 10 They put his armor in the house of the Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan. 11 When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, 12 all the valiant men arose, went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth Shan; and they came to Jabesh and burned them there. 13 They took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.
Saul dies by his own sword with his sons around him — and the men of a town he once rescued walk all night to take his body down.
The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul.
Jonathan dies first in the telling, and the account gives him no farewell — the finest man in the book falls in a line of names, beside the father whose war it was. He had known the throne was not his and served anyway 1 Samuel 23:17; the promise that he would be second in David's kingdom dies on the mountain with him. Scripture does not tidy this. It records a good man's death in a lost battle and moves on, and David's lament will do the grieving 2 Samuel 1:25–26.
Then Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and abuse me!” But his armor bearer would not, for he was terrified. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell on it.
The end is of a piece with the life: wounded, cornered, and above all afraid of humiliation. It was fear of the people's opinion that drove the unlawful sacrifice 1 Samuel 13:11–12, fear of the song that started the hunt 1 Samuel 18:8, fear of an army that sent him to Endor. He dies managing his reputation, and the Philistines mutilate his body anyway 1 Samuel 31:9–10 — head off, armor in the temple of Ashtaroth, corpse fastened to a wall, the trophy display Israel's own ark had once been meant to be 1 Samuel 5:2. The wheel of the book turns full circle: it opened with a sanctuary looted and closes with a king's body nailed up in a pagan town.
So Saul died with his three sons, his armor bearer, and all his men that same day together.
Hannah's song is the frame around this. She sang that the bows of the mighty are broken, that no man prevails by strength 1 Samuel 2:4 1 Samuel 2:9 — and the tallest man in Israel, the one chosen for his height, dies on a hill with his own sword in him while the shepherd is three days south. The overture and the last chapter are the same music.
all the valiant men arose, went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth Shan; and they came to Jabesh and burned them there.
And the book's final act is a mercy from an unexpected quarter. The men of Jabesh Gilead — the town whose right eyes Saul saved in the first hour of his reign 1 Samuel 11:11 — march through the night into Philistine territory to take his body down, and fast seven days for him. Forty years later, one good deed is still on the books.
It is the right ending for this book, and a deliberately incomplete one. A king is dead under a judgment he earned, and the men who buried him remembered him at his best; the anointed successor is in the south with ashes in his hair, uncrowned. What God promised is still true and not yet visible, which is where the story of Israel's kings, and most of the life of faith, actually lives.
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