_THE DEATH OF SAUL._
1 SAMUEL xxxi.
The plain of Esdraelon, where the battle between Saul and the
Philistines was fought, has been celebrated for many a deadly encounter,
from the very earliest period of history. Monuments of Egypt lately
deciphered make it very plain that long before the country was possessed
by the Israelites the plain had experienced the shock of contending
armies. The records of the reign of Thotmes III., who has sometimes been
called the Alexander the Great of Egypt, bear testimony to a decisive
fight in his time near Megiddo, and enumerate the names of many towns in
the neighbourhood, most of which occur in Bible history, of which the
spoil was carried to Egypt and placed in the temples of the Egyptian
gods. Here, too, it was afterwards that Barak encountered the
Canaanites, and Gideon the Midianites and Amalekites; here "Jehu smote
all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great
men, and his familiar friends, and his priests, until he left none
remaining;" here Josiah was slain in his great battle with the
Egyptians; here was the great lamentation after Josiah's death,
celebrated by Zechariah, "the mourning of Hadad-Rimmon in the valley of
Megiddo;" in short, in the words of Dr. Clarke, "Esdraelon has been the
chosen place of encampment in every great contest carried on in the
country, until the disastrous march of Napoleon Bonaparte from Egypt
into Syria. Jews, Gentiles, Saracens, Crusaders, Egyptians, Persians,
Druses, Turks, Arabs, and French, warriors out of every nation which is
under heaven, have pitched their tents upon the plains of Esdraelon, and
have beheld their banners wet with the dews of Tabor and Hermon." So
late as 1840, when the Pacha of Egypt had seized upon Syria, he was
compelled to abandon the country when the citadel of Acre, which guards
the entrance of the plain of Esdraelon by sea, was bombarded and
destroyed by the British fleet. It is no wonder that in the symbolical
visions of the Apocalypse, a town in this plain, Ar-Mageddon, is
selected as the battlefield for the great conflict when the kings of the
whole earth are to be gathered together unto the battle of the great day
of Almighty God. As in the plains of Belgium, the plains of Lombardy, or
the carse of Stirling, battle after battle has been fought in the space
between Jezreel and Gilboa, to decide who should be master of the whole
adjacent territory.
The Philistine host are said to have gathered themselves together and
pitched in Shunem (chap. xxviii. 4), and afterwards to have gathered all
their hosts to Aphek, and pitched by the fountain which is in Jezreel
(xxix. 1). That is to say, they advanced from a westward to a northward
position, which last they occupied before the battle. Saul appears from
the beginning to have arranged his troops on the northern slopes of
Mount Gilboa, and to have remained in that position during the battle.
It was an excellent position for fighting, but very unfavourable for a
retreat. Apparently the Philistines began the battle by moving
southwards across the plain till they reached the foot of Gilboa, where
the tug of war began. Notwithstanding the favourable position of the
Hebrews, they were completely defeated. The archers appear to have done
deadly execution; as they advanced nearer to the host of Israel, the
latter would move backward to get out of range; while the Philistines,
gaining confidence, would press them more and more, till the orderly
retreat became a terrible rout. So utterly routed was the Israelite army
that they do not appear to have tried a single rally, which, as they had
to retreat over Mount Gilboa, it would have been so natural for them to
do. Panic and consternation seem to have seized them very early in the
battle; that they would be defeated was probably a foregone conclusion,
but the attitude of a retreating army seems to have been assumed more
quickly and suddenly than could have been supposed. If the Philistine
army, seeing the early confusion of the Israelites, had the courage to
pour themselves along the valleys on each side of Gilboa, no way of
retreat would be left to their enemy except over the top of the hill.
And when that was reached, and the Israelites began to descend, the
arrows of the pursuing Philistines would fall on them with more deadly
effect than ever, and the slaughter would be tremendous.
Saul seems never to have been deficient in personal courage, and in the
course of the battle he and his staff were evidently in the very
thickest of the fight. "The Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon
his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and
Melchi-shua, the sons of Saul." Saul himself was greatly distressed in
his flight by reason of the archers. Finding himself wounded, and being
provided with neither chariot nor other means of escape, a horror
seized him that if once the enemy got possession of him alive they would
subject him to some nameless mutilation or horrible humiliation too
terrible to be thought of. Hence his request to his armour-bearer to
fall on him. When the armour-bearer refused, he took a sword from him
and killed himself.
It may readily be allowed that to one not ruled habitually by regard to
the will of God this was the wisest course to follow. If the Philistine
treatment of captive kings resembled the Assyrian, death was far rather
to be chosen than life. When we find on Assyrian monuments such
frightful pictures as those of kings obliged to carry the heads of their
sons in processions, or themselves pinned to the ground by stakes driven
through their hands and feet, and undergoing the horrible process of
being flayed alive, we need not wonder at Saul shrinking with horror
from what he might have had to suffer if he had been taken prisoner.
But what are we to think of the moral aspect of his act of suicide? That
in all ordinary cases suicide is a daring sin, who can deny? God has not
given to man the disposal of his life in such a sense. It is a daring
thing for man to close his day of grace sooner than God would have
closed it. It is a reckless thing to rush into the presence of his Maker
before His Maker has called him to appear. It is a presumptuous thing to
calculate on bettering his condition by plunging into an untried
eternity. No doubt one must be tender in judging of men pressed hard by
real or imaginary terrors, perhaps their reason staggering, their
instincts trembling, and a horror of great darkness obscuring
everything. Yet how often, in his last written words, does the suicide
bear testimony against himself when he hopes that God will forgive him,
and beseeches his friends to forgive him. Does not this show that in
his secret soul he is conscious that he ought to have borne longer,
ought to have quitted himself more like a man, and suffered every
extremity of fortune before quenching the flame of life within him?
The truth is, that the suicide of Saul, as of many another, is an act
that cannot be judged by itself, but must be taken in connection with
the course of his previous life. We have said that to one not habitually
ruled by regard to the will of God, self-destruction at such a moment
was the wisest course. That is to say, if he merely balanced what
_appeared_ to be involved in terminating his life against what was
involved in the Philistines taking him and torturing him, the former
alternative was by far the more tolerable. But the question comes
up,--if he had not habitually disregarded the will of God, would he ever
have been in that predicament? The criminality of many an act must be
thrown back on a previous act, out of which it has arisen. A drunkard in
a midnight debauch quarrels with his father, and plunges a knife into
his heart. When he comes to himself he is absolutely unconscious of what
he has done. He tells you he had no wish nor desire to injure his
father. It was not his proper self that did it, but his proper self
over-mastered, over-thrown, brutalized by the monster drink. Do you
excuse him on this account? Far from it. You excuse him of a deliberate
design against his father's life. But you say the possibility of that
deed was involved in his getting drunk. For a man to get drunk, to
deprive himself for the time of his senses, and expose himself to an
influence that may cause him to commit a most horrible and unnatural
crime, is a fearful sin. Thus you carry back the criminality of the
murder to the previous act of getting drunk. So in regard to the
suicide of Saul. The criminality of that act is to be carried back to
the sin of which he was guilty when he determined to follow his own will
instead of the will of God. It was through that sin that he was brought
into his present position. Had he been dutiful to God he would never
have been in such a dilemma. On the one hand he never would have been so
defeated and humiliated in battle; and on the other hand he would have
had a trust in the Divine protection even when a bloody enemy like the
Philistines was about to seize him. It was the true source alike of his
public defeat and of his private despair that he indicated when he said
to Samuel, "God is departed from me;" and he might have been sure that
God would not have departed from him if he had not first departed from
God.
It is a most important principle of life we thus get sight of, when we
see the bearing that one act of sin has upon another. It is very seldom
indeed that the consequences of any sin terminate with itself. Sin has a
marvellous power of begetting, of leading you on to other acts that you
did not think of at first, of involving you in meshes that were then
quite out of your view. And this multiplying process of sin is a course
that may begin very early. Children are warned of it in the hymn--"He
that does one fault at first, and lies to hide it, makes it two." A sin
needs to be covered, and another sin is resorted to in order to provide
the covering. Nor is that all. You have a partner in your sin, and to
free yourself you perhaps betray your partner. That partner may be not
only the weaker vessel, but also by far the heavier sufferer, and yet,
in your wretched selfishness, you deny all share of the sin, or you
leave your partner to be ruined. Alas! alas! how terrible are the ways
of sin. How difficult it often is for the sinner to retrace his steps!
And how terrible is the state of mind when one says, I must commit this
sin or that--I have no alternative! How terrible was Saul's position
when he said, "I must destroy myself." Truly sin is a hard, unfeeling
master--"The way of transgressors is hard." He only that walketh
uprightly walketh surely. "Blessed are the undefiled in the way, that
walk in the law of the Lord."
The terrible nature of the defeat which the Israelites suffered on this
day from the Philistines is apparent from what is said in the seventh
verse--"And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the
valley, and they that were beyond Jordan, saw that the men of Israel
fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook their cities
and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them." The plain of
Esdraelon is interrupted, and in a sense divided into two, by three
hills--Tabor, Gilboa, and Little Hermon. On the eastern side of these
hills the plain is continued on to the Jordan valley. The effect of the
battle of Gilboa was that all the rich settlements in that part of the
plain had to be forsaken by the Israelites and given up to the
Philistines. More than that, the Jordan valley ceased to afford the
protection which up to this time it had supplied against enemies from
the west. For the most part, the trans-Jordanic tribes were exposed to
quite a different set of enemies. It was the Syrians from the north, the
Moabites and the Ammonites from the east, and the Midianites and
Amalekites from the remoter deserts, that were usually the foes of
Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh. But on this occasion a new foe assailed them.
The Philistines actually crossed the Jordan, and the rich pastures of
Gilead and Bashan, with the flocks and herds that swarmed upon them,
became the prey of the uncircumcised. Thus the terror of the
Philistines, hitherto confined to the western portion of the country,
was spread, with all its attendant horrors, over the length and breadth
of Israel. We get a vivid view of the state of the country when David
was called to take charge of it. And we get a vivid view of the worse
than embarrassment, the fatal crime, into which David would have been
led if he had remained in the Philistine camp and taken any part in this
campaign.
How utterly crushed the Philistines considered the Israelites to be, and
how incapable of striking any blow in their own defence, is apparent
from the humiliating treatment of the bodies of Saul and his sons, the
details of which are given in this chapter and in the parallel passage
in 1 Chronicles (chap. x.). If there had been any possibility of the
Israelites being stung into a new effort by the dishonour done to their
king and princes, that dishonour would not have been so terribly
insulting. But there was no such possibility. The treatment was doubly
insulting. Saul's head, severed from his body, was put in the temple of
Dagon (1 Chron. x.); his armour was hung up in the house of Ashtaroth;
and his body was fastened to the wall of Beth-shan. The same treatment
seems to have been bestowed on his three sons. The other part of the
insult arose from the idolatrous spirit in which all this was done. The
tidings of the victory were ordered to be carried to the house of their
idols as well as to their people (1 Sam. xxxi. 9). The trophies were
displayed in the temples of these idols. The spirit of vaunting, which
had so roused David against Goliath because he defied the armies of the
living God, appeared far more offensively than ever. Not only was Israel
defeated, but in the view of the Philistines Israel's God as well. Dagon
and Ashtaroth had triumphed over Jehovah. The humiliation suffered in
the days when the ark of God brought such calamities to them and their
gods was now amply avenged. The image of Dagon was not found lying on
its face, all shattered save the stump, after the heads of Saul and his
sons had been placed in his temple. Yes, and the nobles at least of the
Philistines would boast that the slaughter of Goliath by David, and the
placing of his head and his armour near Jerusalem--probably in the holy
place of Israel--were amply avenged. Well was it for David, we may say
again, that he had no share in this terrible battle! Henceforth
undoubtedly there would be no more truce on his part towards the
Philistines. Had they not dishonoured the person of his king? had they
not insulted the dead body of Jonathan his noble friend? had they not
hurled new defiance against the God of Israel? had they not spread
robbery and devastation over the whole length and breadth of the
country, and turned every happy family into a group of cowering slaves?
Were this people to be any longer honoured with his friendship? "O my
soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour,
be not thou united!"
The only redeeming incident, in all this painful narrative, is the
spirited enterprise of the men of Jabesh-gilead, coming to Beth-shan by
night, removing the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall, and
burying them with all honour at Jabesh. Beth-shan was a considerable
distance from Gilboa, where Saul and his sons appear to have fallen;
but probably it was the largest city in the neighbourhood, and therefore
the best adapted to put the remains of the king and the princes to open
shame. Jabesh-gilead was somewhere on the other side of the Jordan,
distant from Beth-shan several miles. It was highly creditable to its
people that, after a long interval, the remembrance of Saul's first
exploit, when he relieved them from the cruel threats of the Ammonites,
was still strong enough to impel them to the gallant deed which secured
honourable burial for the bodies of Saul and his sons. We are conscious
of a reverential feeling rising in our hearts toward this people as we
think of their kindness to the dead, as if the whole human race were one
family, and a kindness done nearly three thousand years ago were in some
sense a kindness to ourselves.
That first exploit of Saul's, rescuing the men of Jabesh-gilead, seems
never to have been surpassed by any other enterprise of his reign. As we
now look back on the career of Saul, which occupies so large a portion
of this book, we do not find much to interest or refresh us. He belonged
to the order of military kings. He was not one of those who were devoted
to the intellectual, or the social, or the religious elevation of his
kingdom. His one idea of a king was to rid his country of its enemies.
"He fought," we are told, "against all his enemies on every side,
against Moab, and against the children of Ammon, and against Edom, and
against the king of Zobah, and against the Philistines: and
whithersoever he turned himself he vexed them. And he did valiantly and
smote Amalek, and delivered Israel out of the hands of them that spoiled
them." That success gave him a good name as king, but it did not draw
much affection to him; and it had more effect in ridding the people of
evil than in conferring on them positive good. Royalty bred in Saul what
it bred in most kings of the East, an imperious temper, a despotic will.
Even in his own family he played the despot. And if he played the despot
at home he did so not less in public. All that we can say in his favour
is, that he did not carry his despotism so far as many. But his jealous
and in so far despotic temper could not but have had an evil effect on
his people. We cannot suppose that when jealousy was so deep in his
nature David was the only one of his officers who experienced it. The
secession of so many very able men to David, about the time when he was
with the Philistines, looked as if Saul could not but be jealous of any
man who rose to high military eminence. That Saul was capable of
friendly impulses is very different from saying that his heart was warm
and winning. The most vital want in him was the want of godliness. He
had little faith in the nation as God's nation, God's heritage. He had
little love for prophets, or for men of faith, or for any who attached
great importance to moral and spiritual considerations. His persecution
of David and his murder of the priests are deep stains than can never be
erased. And that godless nature of his became worse as he went on. It is
striking that the last transaction in his reign was a decided failure in
the very department in which he had usually excelled. He who had gained
what eminence he had as a military king, utterly failed, and involved
his people in utter humiliation, in that very department. His abilities
failed him because God had forsaken him. The Philistines whom he had so
often defeated crushed him in the end. To him the last act of life was
very different from that of Samson--Samson conquering in his death;
Saul defeated and disgraced in his.
Need we again urge the lesson? "Them that honour Me I will honour; but
they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed." You dare not leave GOD
out in your estimate of the forces that bear upon your life. You dare
not give to Him a secondary place. God must have the first place in your
regards. Are you really honouring Him above all, prizing His favour,
obeying His will, trusting in His word? Are you even trying, amid many
mortifying failures, to do so? It is not the worst life that numbers
many a failure, many a confession, many a prayer for mercy and for grace
to help in time of need, provided always your heart is habitually
directed to God as the great end of existence, the Pole Star by which
your steps are habitually to be directed, the Sovereign whose holy will
must be your great rule, the Pattern whose likeness should be stamped on
your hearts, the God and Father of your Lord Jesus Christ, whose love,
and favour, and blessing are evermore the best and brightest inheritance
for all the children of men.
END OF VOL. 1.
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