The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places how are the mighty fallen!
David's reign begins with a song of grief, not a crown — grief for the man who hunted him and the friend who died with him. The verse asks what Israel's "glory" was, and why it fell on the very heights that should have kept it safe.
The throne was now open, yet David's first act was not to take it. One writer notes that his sorrow was real, not staged:
David did not pretend to feel for Saul's misfortunes. He did not then seize the kingdom without regret as soon as Saul was dead. David's heart really melted when he heard of Saul's death... Whatever Saul's misfortunes, he was the king of Israel to David. Whatever his faults, he was an unfortunate king... Now that he has fallen, David will only remember what can do him honour. Above all, he remembers that it is the Lord's anointed and the Lord's people who have fallen before their enemies.
Older translations put the opening line as "the beauty of Israel is slain." Commentators read it of Saul himself. He was the finest-looking man in the nation, and he died on Israel's heights.
"The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places: how the mighty have fallen" (v.19). From a natural point of view Saul and Jonathan presented an attractive appearance. In this Israel was certainly not behind any other nation. Yet the "high places" were those in which they fell. Having the throne increased Saul's desire for a place of high honour, but his fall was that much greater.
The heights carry a second irony. Israel's mountains were meant to keep the nation safe.
The flower of Israel was its king, one who had stood out in personal beauty above all his fellows. The heights of Israel should have been strongholds that no enemy could storm. But how the mighty have fallen! All the power, the beauty, and the greatness of men was here laid in the dust.
The same gifts that made Saul admired did nothing to protect him. That is what David chooses to remember, and what he refuses to gloat over.
David's lament over Saul shows a spirit that is missing in us, and that should humble us. Not one hidden word in it hints at triumph over a fallen enemy. There is no note of selfish satisfaction at being free from his persecution. For years Saul had treated him with cruel injustice, yet David passes over all of it, and all his personal wrongs. David remembers only Saul's brilliant natural gifts. They might have graced a throne, but they had no power at all to shield him from the results of his own headstrong will.
That cry is not a one-off. It returns twice more in the song, quoted here in an older wording:
This Song of the Bow has a piercing refrain: "How are the mighty fallen!" (v. 19). "How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!" (v. 25). "How are the mighty fallen, and the instruments of war perished!" (v. 27). What did they lack? The bow which had overcome Saul!
The failure was not just military. Saul leaned on his own strength — and one Man never did:
Israel's mighty men with Saul at their head had met the bow of an enemy stronger than they. The error that led to their ruin was thinking their own strength was enough. But there is no strength without dependence. Strength is not found in us. It is found in Him whose strength never fails on our behalf. The Man Jesus Christ is the example of this... Struck by the archers, His strength did not leave Him.
Saul's fall means more than one king's death. One writer sees in it the fall of human rule at its best.
In the history of Saul we have the history of human government and royal authority at its best, so far as man is concerned. The end, we have seen, is self-destruction... So in the setting aside of Saul we see a picture of the setting aside of mere human government. Christ is the only One whose shoulders can carry the government and hold it secure.
- Fallen — The refrain sounds three times in the lament. On the day the throne came free, the theme is the mighty falling, not David rising.
- Beauty — Saul was Israel's finest-looking man. His natural gifts had no power to shield him from his own headstrong will.
- Height — He fell on Israel's heights. The higher the honour sought, the greater the fall. Ground that should have been a stronghold became a grave.
- Strength — What Saul lacked was the bow. Real strength comes only through dependence on God. Christ shows it: struck by the archers, He did not weaken.
- Grief — David shows no trace of triumph over a fallen enemy. He remembers only what honours Saul: the Lord's anointed and the Lord's people have fallen.
Tell [it] not in Gath, carry not the tidings in the streets of Ashkelon; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
Saul is dead, and David's lament opens with the enemy rather than with his own grief. He names two Philistine cities, Gath and Ashkelon, and asks that Israel's disaster stay out of their streets — even though Saul had been his enemy.
The cities David names were enemy ground. One of them Israel had once held and then lost.
Ashkelon was one of the five main cities of the Philistines. It fell to Judah's lot, and Judah took Ashkelon and the land around it (Judges 1:18). But they did not really subdue it. It was still in the hands of the Philistines when Samson, with the Spirit of the Lord upon him, killed thirty men in the city and took their spoil (Judges 14:19). We see from 1 Samuel 6:17 and 2 Samuel 1:20 that it stayed that way.
David's cry was a wish, not a command, and the report had already outrun him. The "uncircumcised" in his lament are the Philistines themselves.
David wished that no one would tell the sad news in the chief cities of the Philistines, Gath and Ashkelon. But we have already heard that the news went out through the land of the Philistines (1 Samuel 31:9). The daughters of the uncircumcised were already rejoicing in triumph.
Saul's death cleared David's road to the throne. He refused to treat it as good news.
When his enemy fell, his own sorrows were about to end and the way to the throne lay open before him. Yet he had no heart to rejoice in these advantages of his own. He did not look on his own things. He knew nothing but grief at the fall and dishonour of the Lord's anointed... The messenger who brought the news did not understand David. He judged that he was bringing joy to David, and that he should have received a reward.
David's words are an act of covering. He wants no audience for Israel's ruin.
As he thinks of this overthrow, David would gladly draw the curtain over it. He would hide this scene of desolation from the gloating eyes of their enemies.
Behind the covering lies a conviction about what Philistine joy is worth.
Faith always remembers that even judgment on Saul brings no victory to other evildoers. God's enemies gain no real triumph from the fall of human righteousness or excellence.
Not long before, David had thought of fighting Israel on the Philistine side. Here he weeps with Israel instead.
His lament is Israel's lament. In a day of weakness he had thought of fighting that same Israel by joining himself to the Philistines. David now identifies himself with Israel and shares in its tears. Joy may be the portion of the daughters of the uncircumcised, but David will never share in it.
A later prophet borrowed David's line when he warned of an invading army.
This passage describes the advance of the Assyrian. No one is to publish the coming disaster in Gath — that is, the Philistines are not to hear of it. (See 2 Samuel 1:20.)
The same question comes to us. What do we feel when something that bears Christ's name falls?
Do we have David's true feelings toward the Christian profession and its leaders? Do we mourn rather than rejoice? Are we distressed rather than condemning? Satan expects the overthrow of what bears Christ's name, or claims to belong to Him. Are our hearts pained at the thought that he is getting it? ... Tears over the ruin speak more to the hearts of the Lord's sheep caught up in this ruin than the most righteous criticisms do. So do grace and pity toward those who have gone astray.
- Enemy first. David's first thought is Gath and Ashkelon. Israel never truly subdued these Philistine cities, and David measures the loss by who will celebrate it.
- No gloating. Saul's death opened David's way to the throne. Yet he had no heart to rejoice in his own advantage, and the messenger hoping for a reward had misread him.
- Curtain drawn. David would hide the scene from gloating eyes. God's enemies gain no real triumph from the fall of human excellence.
- Tears shared. The man who had once thought of fighting Israel now weeps with Israel. He takes no part in the joy of the uncircumcised.
- Still asked. When what bears Christ's name falls, does it draw mourning from us, or criticism?
Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, no rain upon you, nor fields of heave-offerings! For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, The shield of Saul, [as] not anointed with oil.
David's song over Saul and Jonathan turns from the men to the ground where they fell. He calls down on Mount Gilboa a barrenness to match the disaster. Why curse a hillside, and what does it mean that Saul's shield lay there "not anointed with oil"?
The curse is total. Nothing falls from the sky, and nothing grows on the hill to offer to God. One writer spells out how complete the loss is:
The mountains of Gilboa, where Saul and Jonathan fell, are to be cut off from all future blessing. No dew or rain is to fall on them, and no fields there are to yield their flocks as offerings. It was the scene of death and judgment. For was it not here that the shield of the mighty was cast away — a shield without the oil of the Spirit's power.
Did the land really dry up? One commentator admits we cannot know, and points to the reason behind David's words:
We do not know if David's words came true, though they may have for a time at least. He felt that the mountains of Gilboa should have no dew or rain, because Saul had fallen there as though God had never anointed him king.
Asking for no dew is not just poetry. Dew carries a settled meaning across the Bible:
Dew was the familiar token of God's favour. It was largely the source of the land's fertility, and without it the land would have been parched and barren. Isaac uses this picture when he blesses Jacob (Gen. 27:28). Moses repeats it in his closing blessing on the tribes (Deut. 33:28). Elijah shows God's judgment upon the land by declaring dew should not fall (1 Kings 17:1).
The same writer carries the picture over from the land to the people:
We know that all refreshing, whether for Israel or the Church, comes by the Holy Spirit. The divine dew is His blessed influence, bringing refreshing and help. Just as the land stops bearing fruit without dew, so there is no fruit without the Spirit's unhindered work. Barrenness will be the result.
A shield is for defence. Saul's shield lay thrown down on the field. Older translations read "vilely cast away" where the ESV has "defiled." One commentator hears in it a warning to any believer frightened out of confidence in God:
What is needed then is the "shield of faith." Satan comes and tempts me: Is God for you? How do you know? ... If Satan succeeds in terrifying a man, he runs away, and there is no armour for the back. Of Saul, David said, "the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away" (among the Philistines). "The shield of faith" is what you use to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
Saul was the anointed king, and David never forgets it. Yet on Gilboa his shield lay there as if he had never been anointed at all. One writer names the cause, and it is not a lack of ability:
Israel's mighty men with Saul at their head had met the bow of an enemy stronger than they. The error that led to their ruin was thinking their own strength was enough. But there is no strength without dependence. Strength is not found in us. It is found in Him, whose strength never fails on our behalf.
Saul hunted David for years. David's lament over him holds no trace of relief:
The lamentation of David over Saul reveals a spirit whose absence in us may well humble us. There is not even a hidden word in it that hints at triumph over a fallen enemy, and no sign of selfish satisfaction at being free from his persecution. For years Saul treated him with cruel injustice, yet David passes over it all, along with his many personal wrongs. David remembers only Saul's brilliant natural gifts. They might have graced a throne, but they were completely powerless to shield him from the results of his headstrong will.
- Anointing — Saul really was the Lord's anointed, yet he fell as if he never had been. A title on a man is not the same as power in him.
- Oil — his shield lay there without oil, the picture of the Spirit's power. Where that work is hindered, only barrenness follows.
- Dew — dew is the Bible's familiar sign of God's favour. To ask for none is to ask for that favour to be gone.
- Shield — a dropped shield is faith let go under fear; there is no armour for the back of a man who runs.
- Strength — Saul counted his own strength enough, and it ruined him. Real strength comes only through depending on God, whose strength never fails.
From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, The bow of Jonathan turned not back, And the sword of Saul returned not empty.
David's lament for Saul and Jonathan turns here to praise their courage in battle. Two questions press: why honour the weapons of a king who hunted him, and what does the bow stand for in a song Israel had to learn?
David turned his grief into teaching for the nation. One writer ties the song to the weapon that decided the battle:
In this lament David expresses his grief over the disasters of Israel's leaders and their army. But the people of Judah are to learn this song of the bow (v. 18). It is an instruction for them. They watched Israel's disaster, so they must know how to avoid such disaster in the future. Saul had been overcome by the archers (1 Sam. 31:3) when he himself had no archers left. In fact, from 1 Chronicles 12:1-7 we learn that before Saul's defeat the band of archers from the tribe of Benjamin, and in large part from the family of Kish, had rallied around David and joined him at Ziklag.
The bow carries a fixed meaning across Scripture:
Throughout Scripture the bow is the symbol of strength to conquer the enemy. The sword serves in hand-to-hand combat. The bow attacks from a distance and resists the enemy while he is still approaching. The archer sees him coming far off. He takes account of his movements and his plans, and brings him to the ground before he has a chance to attack. The bow needs more skill than the sword. Above all it is the symbol of strength, because it takes powerful arms and hands to draw a bow and use it properly.
David praises weapons that never failed — yet the men who carried them lost the battle. The same writer names the flaw behind that defeat:
Israel's mighty men with Saul at their head had met the bow of an enemy stronger than they. Their ruin came from one error: they thought their own strength was enough. But there is no strength without dependence. We do not find strength in ourselves. We find it in Him, and His strength never fails on our behalf. The Man Jesus Christ is the example of this. He sought strength only in God; otherwise He would not have been the Perfect Man. Struck by the archers (Gen. 49:23-24), His strength did not leave Him. When His weakness seemed to give way to the enemy's power, His bow stayed strong — His strength was full. This strength existed only in dependence.
Saul's sword came back from the blood of the slain, not empty. Another writer recalls what it had really done:
The lament remembers Saul's skill in battle. He had truly killed his thousands, and his sword had not come back empty from his fighting — over Ammon, for example. So there is recognition of what he had done, joined with the bow of Jonathan.
David names Jonathan's bow before Saul's sword. The order carries weight:
In verse 22 David credits Jonathan first with success in battle, but he credits Saul too, in his measure. Real love always wants to give all the honest praise it can. Yet in this case David cannot praise as much in Saul as he would like to.
The man David praises had spent years trying to kill him. What David leaves unsaid matters:
A heart full of love has no room for resentment or complaints. If in the past David had wept at unjust accusations and hatred, he has now forgotten everything. There is no word of reproach against the man whose bones now lay under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh. But this noble heart is not content just to forget. He loves to remember. He recalls that Saul had been the Lord's anointed, the bearer of His testimony, that he had led His people to victory.
The lesson does not stop with Judah. It becomes practice for every Christian:
As for ourselves, fellow Christians, our bow will stay whole on one condition: we must put our confidence in God, who gives us His strength… Nothing is weaker than a Christian who has given up Christ as his strength… Let us learn the song of the bow by practising how to draw it, and by aiming the arrow at its mark. The more we use it, the stronger we will be against the enemy.
- Bow — strength. The bow stands for strength to defeat the enemy at a distance, before he can even attack.
- Bow lost — Saul falls. Saul's own archers had gone over to David, and archers cut him down; he had thought his own strength was enough.
- Bow held — Jonathan honoured. David names Jonathan's bow first, because love gives all the praise it can.
- Bow remembered — grudges buried. David recalls Saul's real victories and says nothing of the years of hatred. A heart full of love has no room for resentment.
- Bow drawn — our turn. Christ's bow stayed strong because He depended on God. Ours stays whole the same way — by trusting God and practising the draw.