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CHAPTER 15 : The Battle on Mount Gilboa - Death of Saul - Rescue of
the bodies by the men of Jabesh-gilead - David punishes the false
Messenger of Saul's Death - David king at Hebron - Ish-bosheth king at
Mahanaim - Battle between the forces of Abner and Joab -Abner
deserts the cause of Ish-bosheth - Murder of Abner -Murder of Ish-
bosheth. (1 SAMUEL 31-2 SAMUEL 4)
BRIEF as are the accounts of the battle of Gilboa (1 Samuel 31; 1 Chronicles 10),
we can almost picture the scene. The attack seems to have been made by the
Philistines. Slowly and stubbornly the Israelites yielded, and fell back from Jezreel
upon Mount Gilboa. All day long the fight lasted; and the darkness seems to have
come on before the Philistines knew the full extent of their success, or could get to
the sad work of pillaging the dead. Ill had it fared with Israel that day. Their slain
covered the sides of Mount Gilboa. The three sons of Saul - foremost among them
the noble Jonathan - had fallen in the combat. Saul himself had retreated on Gilboa.
But the battle had gone sore against him. And now the enemy's sharpshooters had
"found him"^236 - come up with him. Thus the fatal moment had arrived: "Saul was
sore afraid." But if he fell, let it at least not be by the hand of the Philistines, lest
Israel's hereditary enemy "make sport"^237 of the disabled, dying king.
Saul will die a king. The last service he asks of his armor-bearer is to save him from
falling into Philistine hands by thrusting him through. But the armor-bearer dares not
lift his sword against the Lord's anointed, and Saul plants his now otherwise useless
sword on the ground, and throws himself upon it. The faithful armor-bearer follows
his master's example. Soon all Saul's personal attendants have likewise been cut
down (1 Samuel 31:6; comp. 1 Chronicles 10:6).
And now darkness stayed further deeds of blood. Before the morning light the
tidings of Israel's defeat had spread far and wide. North of the valley of Jezreel, and
even across the Jordan,^238 which rolled close by, the people deserted the cities and
fled into the open country, leaving their strongholds to the conquerors.
Meantime the plunderers were busy searching and stripping the dead in Jezreel and
on Mount Gilboa. They found what they could scarcely have expected: the dead
bodies of Saul and of his three sons. To strip them would have been comparatively
little; but to add every insult, they cut off the heads of the king and of his sons,
leaving the naked carcasses unburied. The gory heads and the bloody armor were
sent round through Philistia, "to publish it in the houses of their idols, and among the
people." Finally, the armor was distributed among the temples of the Ashtaroth (the
(^)