"Now the Philistines fought against Israel; the Israelites fled before them, and many fell dead on Mount Gilboa." (1 Samuel 31:1) Saul has an elite fighting force of three thousand men in addition to all the fighting men he called up from all over the nation of Israel. Yet they are unable to repel the Philistine forces, either because they are outnumbered or simply because it is the will of God for the battle to go against them in order to rid the nation of the wicked King Saul and to make David's path to the throne much clearer.
Before Saul perishes, his three oldest sons lose their lives. "The Philistines were in hot pursuit of Saul and his sons, and they killed his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Malki-Shua." (1 Samuel 31:2) Naturally the Philistines would want to wipe out as many male members of the royal family of Israel as possible because they want to cripple the nation militarily and politically. King Saul, whom we were told was an unusually tall man, would have stuck out like a sore thumb even in the intense action and confusion of fierce battle. His sons weren't as tall as he was (the Bible said Saul was head and shoulders taller than any other man in the nation) but they may have inherited a taller-than-average stature that made them easy to spot in a crowd. Even if they were average-sized men, they were likely dressed in a manner that singled them out as princes or as the generals of Saul's army.
We are sorry to hear of the death of Jonathan. To everyone who wasn't "in the know" about David's anointing as king, Jonathan was the heir-apparent to the throne. But as we've seen on several occasions, Jonathan made it clear that he knew he wasn't the Lord's choice for king. The Lord had revealed to him that David was His choice for king and Jonathan was happy to accede to the Lord's will. He had the type of attitude we find in the Lord Jesus Christ who said to God the Father, "Not my will, but Your will, be done." On the last occasion when Jonathan and David met face to face, Jonathan firmly declared his intention to support and serve his best friend David when David at last ascended to the throne. But, sadly, this is not to be. Jonathan dies bravely in battle, being faithful as always to his God and to his king and to his country. Jonathan dies before his father and cannot be proclaimed as king by anyone on the battlefield or by anyone in the nation. He would, of course, have declined this promotion if he had lived, but that would have allowed those who are loyal to the house of Saul to have always questioned the legitimacy of David's reign. The next two men who would have been in line for the throne, Abinadab and Malki-Shua, cannot be made king either. The path to the throne is being cleared for David although he isn't quite there yet. David's own tribe of Judah will soon declare him king but one of Saul's surviving sons, Ish-Bosheth, will be put forward by Saul's army commander Abner as the one and only rightful king of Israel. This will result in war between the houses of David and Saul. It is not until the war is won by David that he is finally king over the whole nation in 2 Samuel 5.
After Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua fall in battle, Saul is mortally wounded by the arrows of the Philistines. "The fighting grew fierce around Saul, and when the archers overtook him, they wounded him critically." (1 Samuel 31:3) The archers can clearly see that Saul is too critically wounded to survive so they move on to shoot at other targets. Saul begs his armor-bearer, who is always at his side, to end his life before he falls into the hands of the enemy. "Saul said to his armor-bearer, 'Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me.'" (1 Samuel 31:4a) If the Philistine commanders find Saul before he perishes of his injuries, they will make sport of him and torture him, so Saul appeals to his armor-bearer by saying something like, "Good and faithful servant, there is only one thing you can do for me now. Don't let me fall into the clutches of these godless heathens. End my life before they find me lying here wounded. Don't allow your king and military commander to be ridiculed and tormented by the enemy. Hurry and finish me off."
The armor-bearer cannot bring himself to do such a thing, perhaps because he has the same respect for Saul's office and the same reverent fear of the Lord as David had when David could not bring himself to kill Saul on the two occasions when it was within his power to do so. "But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell upon it." (1 Samuel 31:4a) Saul musters the strength to get up off the ground enough to position his own sword underneath him in such a way that he can end his own life before the enemy comes and takes hold of him. Even at the end of his life we find him fearing man more than he fears God. If he made any sort of confession to the Lord or uttered any words of contrition for a life lived in disobedience, the author does not record them for us. The only words we find him saying are words that concern the remaining moments of his earthly life.
Saul's final act brings his armor-bearer to such a state of despair and grief that it doesn't occur to him to flee the battle so he can "live to fight another day", as the saying goes. Instead he follows the example of a man who has never set many good examples for anyone. He too falls on his sword and kills himself. "When the armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer all died together on that same day." (1 Samuel 31:5-6)
The soldiers of Israel who survived the battle are on the run. The Israelites who live along the route of the fleeing army also take flight, leaving their dwellings abandoned and unprotected against the enemy. "When the Israelites along the valley and those across the Jordan saw that the Israelite army had fled and that Saul and his sons had died, they abandoned their towns and fled. And the Philistines came and occupied them." (1 Samuel 31:7) This major defeat along with the knowledge that their king and three of the princes are dead causes even the people who live on the opposite side of the Jordan from the battle to abandon their towns. The panic is overwhelming and widespread.
King Saul managed to avoid being abused while he lay mortally injured but he can do nothing to protect his body after death. When the Philistines come to loot the dead, they decide to make sport of the corpses of the king and his sons. "The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head and stripped off his armor, and they sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news in the temple of their idols and among their people. They put his armor in the temple of the Ashtoreths and fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan. When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all their valiant men marched through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them. Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days." (1 Samuel 31:8-13)
The Philistines believe their pagan deities gave them the victory over Israel and they place the armor of King Saul in a heathen temple as a gesture of thanks to their false gods. But there are people who owe a debt of gratitude to Saul and they won't stand for the bodies of their king and his sons to be treated shamefully. As wicked as Saul may have been in the final two decades of his life, he did a great deal of good for the people of Jabesh Gilead in the early years of his reign. In 1 Samuel 11 the Ammonites laid siege to Jabesh Gilead and Saul called up 330,000 men to go with him to Jabesh Gilead to deliver its people from the enemy. Saul and his soldiers were successful in defeating the Ammonites and now, as thanks for what he once did for them, brave men of Jabesh Gilead come and retrieve his body and the bodies of his sons. It was considered the ultimate shame in the ancient world to have one's dead body hung up on display. The men of Jabesh Gilead won't have their king and the princes disgraced in this manner. It breaks their hearts to even think about it and they risk their own lives to take possession of the bodies so the bones can be respectfully buried. Then they observe a mourning period of seven days.
They won't be the only ones mourning the death of King Saul. The person we would least expect to mourn his death---David---will tear his clothes and fast and weep when he hears the news. No one would have blamed him for rejoicing at the news that his nemesis is dead but instead he will write a beautiful hymn, not only for his departed friend Jonathan, but for the fallen king whose mind and whose spirit went so sadly off course. In this hymn David will choose to remember only good things about the man who was once a mentor and a father figure to him. So we will take our cue from him and not say, "At last David's enemy is dead!" Instead we can adopt David's attitude and say, as he will in his hymn in the next chapter, "Saul was a mighty warrior, loved and admired by many." We can say this because most people are not all bad and neither was Saul. He clearly did good things for the people of Jabesh Gilead. He was admired and respected by a number of his top officials and soldiers. He was loved, in spite of his tremendous moral and spiritual faults, by his godly son Jonathan. He was even loved and respected by David, for no matter how much Saul persecuted him, David still cared about Saul's mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. David would have loved to hear that Saul had repented and had given his whole heart to the Lord and that he was a completely changed man. That's how we can love our enemies as the Lord Jesus commanded us to do: by remembering that we aren't necessarily obligated to like everyone but that we are obligated to care about the condition of their eternal souls. Some people make it impossible for us to like them but we can care about their spiritual wellbeing. If David was able to care about the spiritual wellbeing of a man who wanted him dead, surely we can pray for the souls of of our fellow man---even for those we don't particularly like and for those who have treated us poorly.
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