Ye mountains of Gilboa, [let there be] no dew, neither [let there be] rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, [as though he had] not [been] anointed with oil.
Ver. 21. Ye mountains of Gilboa.] A poetical exclamation, together with a hyperbolical imprecation-which possibly was as effectual as that of our Saviour pronounced upon the barren fig tree - in monumentum tanti mali, as a monument of this disastrous accident: the ground being clad in black as in mourning. Adrichomius and others say that these mountains of Gilboa are to this day rocky, dry, and barren: like unto which was Hesiod's country Ascra: and St David's in Wales is said to be a place neither pleasant, fertile, nor safe: for, as Giraldus Cambrensis reporteth of it, it is neither furnished with woods, watered with rivers, beautified with meadows, nor enriched with any kind of fruitful soil.
Is vilely cast away.] As either useless or cumbersome.
As though he had not, &c.] But either a usurper, or a common soldier. So it is a baleful business when God seemeth to cast off his people, as if they were nothing to him; not "holy," or "partakers of the heavenly calling." Heb 3:1