1 Samuel 31: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Israel loses the battle against the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. Saul's three sons are killed, Saul is badly wounded by archers and takes his own life, his armor-bearer does the same, and the Israelites in the area abandon their towns. The Philistines display Saul's head, armor, and body, until the men of Jabesh-gilead travel through the night to recover the bodies, burn them, bury the bones, and fast for seven days.

Claim by Claim

1. 31:1
   • The Philistines fought against Israel.
   • The men of Israel fled from before the Philistines.
   • Men of Israel fell slain on Mount Gilboa.
2. 31:2
   • The Philistines pressed hard after Saul and his sons.
   • The Philistines struck down Jonathan.
   • The Philistines struck down Abinadab.
   • The Philistines struck down Malchishua.
   • Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua were sons of Saul.
3. 31:3
   • The battle went heavily against Saul.
   • The archers found Saul.
   • Saul was severely wounded by the archers.
4. 31:4
   • Saul spoke to his armor-bearer.
   • Saul told his armor-bearer to draw his sword.
   • Saul told his armor-bearer to run him through with the sword.
   • Saul said this was lest these uncircumcised men come and run him through.
   • Saul said this was lest these uncircumcised men abuse him.
   • The armor-bearer was not willing to do it.
   • The armor-bearer was very afraid.
   • Saul took the sword.
   • Saul fell upon the sword.
5. 31:5
   • The armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead.
   • The armor-bearer also fell upon his own sword.
   • The armor-bearer died with Saul.
6. 31:6
   • Saul died.
   • Saul's three sons died.
   • Saul's armor-bearer died.
   • All Saul's men died.
   • They all died on that same day together.
7. 31:7
   • The men of Israel on the other side of the valley saw what happened.
   • The men of Israel on the other side of the Jordan saw what happened.
   • They saw that the men of Israel had fled.
   • They saw that Saul and his sons were dead.
   • They abandoned the cities.
   • They fled.
   • The Philistines came.
   • The Philistines settled in those cities.
8. 31:8
   • On the next day the Philistines came to strip the slain.
   • The Philistines found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.
9. 31:9
   • They cut off Saul's head.
   • They stripped off his armor.
   • They sent word throughout the land of the Philistines all around.
   • The message was to be proclaimed in the house of their idols.
   • The message was to be proclaimed among the people.
10. 31:10
    • They put Saul's armor in the house of Ashtoreth.
    • They fastened Saul's body to the wall of Beth-shan.
11. 31:11
    • The inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul.
12. 31:12
    • All the valiant men arose.
    • They traveled all night.
    • They took the body of Saul from the wall of Beth-shan.
    • They took the bodies of Saul's sons from the wall of Beth-shan.
    • They came to Jabesh.
    • They burned the bodies there.
13. 31:13
    • They took the bones of Saul and his sons.
    • They buried the bones under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh.
    • They fasted seven days.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

31:1

The Philistines were a people settled on the coastal plain southwest of Israel, organized around five main cities. Through this whole period they were Israel's chief military rival. Mount Gilboa is a ridge in northern Israel, overlooking the wide Jezreel Valley.

31:2

Jonathan is Saul's oldest son and heir, and the same Jonathan who became David's closest friend earlier in the book. With him dead, the throne passes out of Saul's line to David.

31:3

Archers were soldiers who fought with bows and arrows. They could hit a man from far off, before he could reach them. In the King James, "sore" means badly or severely, not painful.

31:4

An armor-bearer was a soldier's personal attendant, who carried his spare weapons and shield and stayed at his side in battle. It was a position of close trust. "Uncircumcised" was a contemptuous Israelite term for foreigners: circumcision was a mark of belonging to Israel, and the Philistines did not practice it. The word behind "torture me" (KJV "abuse me") means to deal wantonly with someone or make sport of them; it covers mockery and mutilation as well as torture, and the text does not narrow it down.

31:7

"The other side of the Jordan" means the east bank of the Jordan River. Israelite families lived on both sides, so the collapse of Saul's army left settlements on a wide front undefended.

31:8

Stripping the dead after a battle was normal practice. Armor, weapons and personal goods were valuable, and the victors took them as a matter of course.

31:9

Carrying a defeated king's head and armor around the country, and announcing the news in the temples, was how a victory was publicised and credited to the winning side's gods. The head and armor served as proof.

31:10

Ashtoreth was a goddess worshiped widely in Canaan and by the Philistines; the plural form here may refer to several images of her, or be a general word for the goddesses of the region. Beth-shan was a fortified city at the eastern end of the Jezreel Valley, controlling the road down to the Jordan, roughly ten miles from Mount Gilboa. Hanging an enemy's body on the city wall put the defeat on public display.

31:11

Jabesh-gilead was a town east of the Jordan. Saul's first act after becoming king had been to march to its rescue when an Ammonite army besieged it and demanded that every man there lose his right eye (told in chapter 11). The town owed him for that.

31:12

Israelites normally buried their dead whole; burning a body was unusual and elsewhere associated with punishment. The text does not say why they did it here, the bodies had been mutilated and exposed for some time, which may be the reason.

31:13

The Hebrew names the tree specifically: a tamarisk, a hardy tree that grows in dry ground. Going without food for seven days was the formal period of public mourning.