The Death of Saul (1-6)

The writer returns to the war between Saul and the Philistines. It picks the battle up when the Israelites’ dead bodies were littering Mt. Gilboa. So, while David fought and prevailed against the Amalekites, Saul and his sons, Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchi-shua were being slain in battle (1-2).

The details of the battle are absent. All that is known is that the day after Saul visited the witch, the Philistines launched their attack. The point of this account is to focus on the death of Saul. The Israelites had been so utterly defeated that the archers of the Philistines left the battle and became fixed on Saul and his guard. They had Saul within range of an arrow barrage and let them fly.

In one of the arrow clusters, Saul was hit and fatally wounded (3).

Saul asked his armor-bearer to draw his sword and finish him off, not wanting to fall into the abuses and torture of the Philistines. Saul knew that if captured, the Philistines would mutilate his body while alive. The armor-bearer refused, so Saul placed his own sword against his chest and then fell down on it, killing himself. Saul’s armor-bearer, seeing Saul had fallen on his own sword, did the same, refusing to survive his master. His armor-bearer was likely unable to handle the remorse of not being able to save his master's life. Saul’s 3,000 men fought valiantly and faithfully to save Saul’s life, all of them dying in the process (4-6).

The Consequence of War (7-13)

The Philistine army, in turning and concentrating on Saul, gave the rest of Saul’s army a moment in the battle for escape. As they fled the battlefield, news spread quickly that Saul and his dynasty were dead. None was left to take up the scepter of Israel. 

The Israelites in the north and on the other side of the Jordan began to abandon their cities without a fight. The dominance of Philistine power over the Israelites was greater than it had been before Saul had become king. 

The main mission Yahweh had given to Saul was not only a failed mission under Saul’s leadership but a mission so unsuccessful that it left the Philistine oppression, at least in the north, at an all-time-worst-ever moment. It does not appear the Philistines invaded southern Israel, where the tribe of Judah lived (7).

Saul must have been killed at dusk, as his body was not found until the next day when the Philistines came to strip the Israeli soldiers of their valuables. In the stripping of the soldiers, Saul’s body was found; it was decapitated and stripped just as Goliath’s had been. The news of Saul’s death was sent throughout the worship centers of the Philistines (8).

Eventually, they treated Saul’s armor as Goliath’s weapons had been treated by Israel, placing them in the temple at Ashtaroth. They hung Saul’s head in the temple of Dagon (1 Chronicles 10:10). Then they took Saul’s headless and naked body, along with his sons’, to Bethshan and nailed them to a wall, maybe a wall in the public square (2 Samuel 21:12). Bethshan was believed to be the Philistines’ easternmost city into Israeli territory. The Philistines were making it clear to the Israelites that they had no king—they were leaderless (9-10).

The men of Jabesh-gilead heard that Saul’s body was hanging on the wall at Beth-shan. Under the cover of night, they traveled just under 15 miles and took the body of Saul, along with his sons, and brought them back to Jabesh-gilead. There they burned them so they would no longer be discoverable by the Philistines to desecrate further (11-12).

Finally, they took the remaining bones that had survived the fire, buried them under the tamarisk, and then fasted for seven days (13).

Eventually, David had the bodies of Saul and his sons removed to the family sepulcher of Kish (2 Samuel 21:12, 14).