1 & 2 Samuel (TOTC) by Joyce G. Baldwin

Author:Joyce G. Baldwin [Baldwin, Joyce G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783592296
Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
Published: 2008-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

v. Saul’s last battle (31:1–13)

The event to which the last chapters have been leading, the death of Saul, comes swiftly now. The account is brief and factual, and the more moving for that.

1. Now the Philistines fought against Israel, as they had done at the beginning of Saul’s reign (1 Sam. 13:5), and even earlier (1 Sam. 4:1–11). Saul’s divine commission had been to save Israel from their hand (1 Sam. 9:16), but ironically he dies at their hand, such is the measure of his failure. The narrator, omitting all detail, records Israel’s retreat and the slaughter on Mount Gilboa.

2–7. The sons of Saul are the first named casualties (cf. Samuel’s words in 1 Sam. 28:19), but Saul is also much sought, and is wounded by the archers, though not killed outright. David, who had once been Saul’s armour-bearer, would have approved of the one who refused to run his sword through the king, out of awe for the person of the Lord’s anointed. Saul heroically fell upon his own sword rather than have the uncircumcised Philistines make sport of him, as they had done with Samson (Judg. 16:25); there was no telling what indignity they might inflict on him, so death was preferable to capture. The armour-bearer chose to die with his master and all his men, the chosen troops with whom he surrounded himself.

Troop movements could be seen from the other side of the valley, from the Hill of Moreh and the hills on the north side of the Valley of Jezreel, as well as from vantage-points east of Jordan. The bad news caused a mass evacuation from Israelite towns in the region, so leaving them open to Philistine occupation.

8–10. Though Saul did not live to witness the scene, the Philistines did enjoy themselves at his expense; in particular, they made capital out of their victory by congratulating their gods, and by dedicating Saul’s armour to become a trophy in the temple of Ashtaroth, in much the same way as Goliath’s sword had been treasured in Israel’s sanctuary (1 Sam. 21:9). The foreign deity had triumphed, and the decapitated body of Israel’s anointed king was hung, exposed, on the city wall of Bethshan, the easternmost of the line of old Canaanite fortress cities across the country from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, which the Israelites had not conquered (Josh. 17:11). Excavation has established that from the fifteenth to the thirteenth century BC the city was under Egyptian control, and in the twelfth-century remains, anthropoid clay coffins, characteristic of the Philistines, indicate that Philistine garrisons were stationed there by the Egyptians. ‘In level V (c. 11th century) two temples were uncovered, one (the S) dedicated to the god Resheph and the other to the goddess Antit, and Rowe has suggested that these are the temples of Dagon and Ashteroth in which Saul’s head and armour were displayed by the Philistines …’60 It remained in Philistine hands in the time of Saul, and we are reminded what a formidable enemy he had in these deeply entrenched and well-armed troops.

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