David's Lamentation Over Saul And Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:17-27).
In this lamentation the writer crowns the life of Saul and leads on into the life of David. As far as the whole book is concerned Saul was an unfortunate but necessary interlude between the lives of two successful YHWH inspired leaders, Samuel, with whom the book began, and David, who throughout the life of Saul has been trained up and prepared for this moment. This lamentation, in which David reveals how highly he valued both Saul and Jonathan, aptly closes off the life of Saul in readiness for David's triumph. Except to the cynically minded there is really no doubt that David truly admired Saul and saw him as a great king and war-leader in spite of his faults, an assessment which is clearly reflected in the background to the narratives, narratives which have themselves tended to focus in on Saul's failures through unbelief.
Furthermore humanly speaking David would never have been the king he was (in spite of his failures) without Saul. It was Saul who introduced him to court life. It was Saul who made him a company commander, and at first encouraged and nurtured his military prowess. It was Saul who then constantly persecuted him and hunted him down and threw him in God. And it was those experiences, together with his time as a shepherd, and as a petty king at Ziklag, that honed him for kingship, and firmly established his faith and trust in YHWH and his consideration towards men.
Analysis (which also gives the poem in full prior to looking at the detail).
a And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son, and he bade them teach the children of Judah ‘the bow', behold, it is written in the book of Jashar,
“Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places!
How are the mighty fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:17-19).
b
Do not tell it in Gath,
Do not publish it in the streets of Ashkelon,
Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.” (2 Samuel 1:20).
c
“You mountains of Gilboa,
Let there be no dew nor rain upon you,
Nor fields of offerings,
For there the shield of the mighty was vilely soiled,
The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.” (2 Samuel 1:21).
d
“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.” (2 Samuel 1:22).
c
“Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
And in their death they were not divided,
They were swifter than eagles,
They were stronger than lions.” (2 Samuel 1:23).
b
“You daughters of Israel,
Weep over Saul,
Who clothed you in scarlet delicately,
Who put ornaments of gold on your clothing.” (2 Samuel 1:24).
a
“How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
Jonathan is slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan,
Very pleasant have you been to me,
Your love to me was wonderful,
Passing the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen,
And the weapons of war perished!” (2 Samuel 1:25-27)
Note how in ‘a' the mighty have fallen, and the same occurs twice in the parallel. In ‘b' the daughters of the Philistines are hopefully to be prevented from singing about the fall of Saul by keeping the knowledge from them, and in the parallel the daughters of Jerusalem are called on to weep over Saul because of what he had done for them. In ‘c' there was to be mourning because the shield of the mighty had failed, and in the parallel we have the mighty jointly described both before and after their failure. Centrally in ‘d' we have a eulogy to Saul and Jonathan.
‘ And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son,
The composing of a lamentation over a dead ‘hero' was a regular practise of those days, for what happened at the time of death was seen as important and it ensured in a small way the ‘survival' of those spoken of. Through the lamentation they lived on in the memory. It would thus be natural for David, ‘the sweet Psalmist of Israel' (2 Samuel 23:1), to compose such a lamentation.
The cynical might see it as partly a political ploy in order to win over the hearts of the Israelites, but there really can be no doubt that there is a genuineness in the words that belies such a thought. It is remarkably free from any edge of bitterness, and from that point of view unnecessarily fulsome. It is indeed quite clear from the lamentation that David genuinely admired both Saul and Jonathan and saw them both as great leaders and warriors, and Saul as overall a great king. It reflects what we have seen previously that to David Saul was ‘the anointed of YHWH' and that nothing that Saul did to him could dim that appreciation, even though to the writer of the book Saul was a fallen hero.
‘ And he bade them teach the children of Judah ‘The Bow', behold, it is written in the book of Jashar,'
It is clear from this that the lamentation was included in the Book of Jashar (literally ‘the book of the upright one', compare Joshua 10:13) under the title of ‘The Bow'. It would appear that this was a regularly maintained book containing tributes to famous heroes of Israel, in a similar way to that in which cities kept a special roll of those who had brought most honour to their city (compare Isaiah 4:3; Psalms 69:28; Malachi 3:16). That this particular lamentation was given the title of ‘The Bow' was possibly partly because it was the title already given to it by David in honour of Jonathan the bowman (2 Samuel 1:22), and partly because to the Benjaminites, who were skilled bowmen, (and were the tribe from which Saul and Jonathan came), the bow represented the highest form of weaponry (1 Chronicles 12:2). It was thus a title of martial honour.
“Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places!
How are the mighty fallen!
In a moving opening tribute David describes Saul and Jonathan as ‘the glory' of Israel. They were the ones to whom the nation had looked and who had striven to maintain its glory, security and independence, and they had maintained that position honourably. But now ‘the glory of Israel' was no more. It was slain on the heights of Israel, the mountains of Gilboa. Those who had once been mighty had fallen, and how they had fallen! It is being made clear that it was a national tragedy.
Note how the phrase ‘how are the mighty fallen' is used as an inclusio. Compare 2 Samuel 1:27. It also occurs in 2 Samuel 1:25. It weighed heavily on the heart of David, made more poignant by the death of his beloved Jonathan.
Do not tell it in Gath,
Do not publish it in the streets of Ashkelon,
Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph. “
David was now concerned lest the streets of the Philistine cities be filled with rejoicing women (in contrast with the lamenting women of Israel in 2 Samuel 1:24), for it was then the custom for the womenfolk to unite in order to celebrate the victories of their nation by singing and dancing (compare 1 Samuel 18:6; Exodus 15:20-21). Thus he calls for a blanket on the news and the silencing of the criers in the streets of Gath and Ashkelon, the former the Philistine city with which he was most familiar, and the latter closely associated with it on the coast, possibly also as the city to which Saul's armour had been taken, for it contained a famous Temple of Ashtoreth. The thought of ‘the daughters of the uncircumcised' celebrating the death of the anointed of YHWH filled David with abhorrence. He saw it as an act of religious defilement. Note that although YHWH is not mentioned in the lamentation, (it is a eulogy, not a religious song), it nevertheless breathes His presence simply because of David's love for Him.
“You mountains of Gilboa,
Let there be no dew nor rain upon you,
Nor fields of offerings,
For there the shield of the mighty was vilely soiled,
The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.”
He next calls on the mountains of Gilboa to bear the brunt of YHWH's displeasure at what had happened. They had been the scene of the disaster, and had received the blood, and the cast off weapons, of the heroes. Let them therefore from henceforth not receive rain or dew from the heavens (the absence of which was a sign of God's displeasure), and let them no longer enjoy the fruitfulness that would result in offerings to YHWH. Let them rather be places of perpetual mourning. For this was the place where the shields of Saul and Jonathan had been soiled with their blood at the height of battle, and unanointed because they were dead (it was a regular practise to oil shields after a battle, in order to remove the grime of battle and preserve the material). How then could such ‘guilty' soil, produce anything that could be pleasing to YHWH?
“Vilely soiled.” That is, with the blood of the heroes. The verb means to cast away, to abhor, and in the niphal (as here) to defile so as to be fit only to be hated and cast away.
It need hardly be pointed out that this was poetic licence indicating David's feelings. There was no intention that it actually happen to the literal mountains, although he may have felt like it at the time.
“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.”
Centrally in the dirge David now recounts the glory of Saul and Jonathan. They had never returned from battle with their weaponry unused. Rather they would be covered with the blood of those whom they had slain, and with the flesh of the mighty warriors that they had defeated. They never turned back until it was so. They never came back ‘empty'. The description is simply intended to indicate what mighty and intrepid warriors they were.
The descriptions of bow and sword do not mean that Jonathan was essentially only a bowman, although as we know he regularly practised the art. It is simply taking the two principle sophisticated weapons of war and assigning one to each. He may, however, have been looked on as especially adept with the bow, as many Benjaminites were.
“Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
And in their death they were not divided,
They were swifter than eagles,
They were stronger than lions.”
The thought now turns back to the deaths of the two heroes, paralleling verse 21. They had lived lovely and pleasant lives, especially towards each other (at such a time exceptions could be ignored), and as in life, so in death, they were in full accord and not separated. They, as it were, died together in full harmony. The eulogy then continues. They could be compared with advantage to the most voracious of hunters, the swift eagle and the powerful lion, for they were ‘swifter than eagles, stronger than lions'. The speed of an eagle's strike was renowned, and the lion was seen as the most ferocious of beasts, but as hunters (of men) Saul and Jonathan outdid them both.
“You daughters of Israel,
Weep over Saul,
Who clothed you in scarlet delicately,
Who put ornaments of gold on your clothing.”
In contrast with the rejoicing daughters of the Philistines in 2 Samuel 1:20 David calls on the daughters of Israel to weep over the loss of Saul, reminding them that it was due to his prowess and victories that they had been able to clothe themselves in finery, and be ornamented with gold. It was only the victors who could afford such things for all. They had much to be grateful to Saul for.
“How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
Jonathan is slain on your high places.
I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan,
Very pleasant have you been to me,
Your love to me was wonderful,
Passing the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen,
And the weapons of war perished!”
David then closes his dirge off with the same thought with which he had begun, the fall of the mighty (2 Samuel 1:25; 2 Samuel 1:27). He had previously singled out Saul to receive the lamentations of the daughters of Israel, now he singles out Jonathan to receive his own lamentations (an evidence of Davidic authorship). Previously it was ‘the glory of Israel' who had been slain on the high places (2 Samuel 1:19), now it was specifically Jonathan. And David then goes on to emphasise his own personal distress over Jonathan's death. It slightly disturbs the balance of the poem but it adequately expresses his own personal grief distress. For the death of his beloved comrade-in-arms had distressed him greatly, and he remembered what a good friend Jonathan had been to him, and especially the love that Jonathan had had for him, that noble love that exceeds that of a woman because it is pure and wholly altruistic. Jonathan had had absolutely nothing to gain by it. It had been freely given. (Again we are not to take it too literally. Some women do love like this as well).
The lamentation then closes with a repetition of the thought of the fall of the mighty already spoken of in 2 Samuel 1:25, and it is paralleled with the idea of their weapons of war being destroyed because there is no further use for them. Those who would have used them have gone. Alternately we might see ‘the weapons of war' as indicating Saul and Jonathan. The two ideas in fact go together. The whole poem is magnificent, and exalts Saul and Jonathan, as king and crown prince, to the heights. None could now doubt their glory and splendour, and the dreadfulness of what their deaths meant for Israel (although we can add, had not YHWH raised up David to take their place).