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leaning upon his spear, while the Philistine chariots and horsemen were closing in
around him. On perceiving him, and learning that he was an Amalekite, the king had
said, "Stand now to me and slay me, for cramp has seized upon me for my life is yet
wholly in me."^239 On this the Amalekite had "stood to" him, and killed him, "for" -
as he added in explanation, probably referring to the illness which from fear and
grief had seized Saul, forcing him to lean for support on his spear - "I knew that he
would not live after he had fallen;^240 and I took the crown that was on his head, and
the arm-band which was upon his arm, and I brought them to my lord - here!"
Improbable as the story would have appeared on calm examination, and utterly
untrue as we know it to have been, David's indignant and horrified expostulation,
how he had dared to destroy Jehovah's anointed (2 Samuel 1:14), proves that in the
excitement of the moment he had regarded the account as substantially correct. The
man had testified against himself: he held in his hand as evidence the king's crown
and arm-band. If he had not murdered Saul, he had certainly stripped him when
dead. And now he had come to David, evidently thinking he had done a deed
grateful to him, for which he would receive reward, thus making David a partaker in
his horrible crime. David's inmost soul recoiled from such a deed as murder of his
sovereign and daring presumption against Jehovah, Whose anointed he was. Again
and again, when defending precious life, Saul had been in his power, and he had
rejected with the strongest energy of which he was capable the suggestion to ensure
his own safety by the death of his persecutor. And that from which in the hour of his
supreme danger he had recoiled, this Amalekite had now done in cold blood for hope
of a reward! Every feeling would rise within him to punish the deed; and if he failed
or hesitated, well might he be charged before all Israel with being an accomplice of
the Amalekite. "Thy blood on thy head! for thy mouth hath testified upon thyself,
saying, I have slain the anointed of Jehovah." And the sentence thus spoken was
immediately executed.
It was real and sincere grief which led David and his men to mourn, and weep, and
fast until even for Saul and for Jonathan, and for their fallen countrymen in their
twofold capacity as belonging to the Church and the nation ("the people of Jehovah
and the house of Israel," ver. 12). One of the finest odes in the Old Testament
perpetuated their memory. This elegy, composed by David "to teach the children of
Israel," bears the general title of Kasheth, as so many of the Psalms have kindred
inscriptions. In our text it appears as extracted from that collection of sacred heroic
poetry, called Sepher hajjashar, "book of the just." It consists, after a general
superscription, of two unequal stanzas, each beginning with the line: "Alas, the
heroes have fallen!" The second stanza refers specially to Jonathan, and at the close
of the ode the head-line is repeated, with an addition, indicating Israel's great loss.
The two stanzas mark, so to speak, a descent from deepest grief for those so brave,
so closely connected, and so honored, to expression of personal feelings for
(^)