2 Samuel 1:21 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, &c. This is not an imprecation, but a passionate expression of the sorrow and horror which he felt at this public disgrace and loss, which were such as if he thought every person or thing which contributed to it ought to bear tokens of the divine displeasure, such as the earth does when it is deprived of the influence of dew and rain. Nor fields of offerings That is, fertile fields, which may produce fair and goodly fruits fit to be offered to God. For there the shield of the mighty is vilely (that is, dishonourably) cast away “Throwing away the shield was a matter of the highest reproach in all the accounts of antiquity. And this in the practice of so brave a prince as Saul was an example of terrible consequence, and therefore must not go unreproved, especially in a song which soldiers were to learn. David could not censure Saul; he was his prince and his enemy; the infamy, however, must fall somewhere; let the place in which it happened be accursed. Poetry justifies this, and we need not scruple to say, it is the most masterly stroke the science will admit. And with what inimitable address has he conducted this reproach! For at the same time that the mountains are cursed for it, he hath contrived to turn it into praise upon Saul: There the shield of the mighty was cast away; no hint by whom.”