21 O mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain on you, you fields of death: for there the arms of the strong have been shamed, the arms of Saul, as if he had not been marked with the holy oil.
Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel: and the men of Israel went in flight before the Philistines, falling down wounded in Mount Gilboa.
They make ready the table, they put down the covers, they take food and drink. Up! you captains; put oil on your breastplates.
Then Samuel took the bottle of oil, and put the oil on his head and gave him a kiss and said, Is not the Lord with the holy oil making you ruler over Israel, his people? and you will have authority over the people of the Lord, and you will make them safe from the hands of their attackers round about them, and this will be the sign for you:
A curse, a curse on Meroz! said the angel of the Lord. A bitter curse on her townspeople! Because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord among the strong ones.
Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel; and the men of Israel went in flight before the Philistines, falling down wounded in Mount Gilboa.
Let destruction take the day of my birth, and the night on which it was said, A man child has come into the world. That day--let it be dark; let not God take note of it from on high, and let not the light be shining on it; Let the dark and the black night take it for themselves; let it be covered with a cloud; let the dark shades of day send fear on it. That night--let the thick dark take it; let it not have joy among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. As for that night, let it have no fruit; let no voice of joy be sounded in it; Let it be cursed by those who put a curse on the day; who are ready to make Leviathan awake. Let its morning stars be dark; let it be looking for light, but may it not have any; let it not see the eyes of the dawn. Because it did not keep the doors of my mother's body shut, so that trouble might be veiled from my eyes.
And I will make it waste; its branches will not be touched with the knife, or the earth worked with the spade; but blackberries and thorns will come up in it: and I will give orders to the clouds not to send rain on it.
A curse on the day of my birth: let there be no blessing on the day when my mother had me. A curse on the man who gave the news to my father, saying, You have a male child; making him very glad. May that man be like the towns overturned by the Lord without mercy: let a cry for help come to his ears in the morning, and the sound of war in the middle of the day;
This is what the Lord has said: The day when he goes down to the underworld, I will make the deep full of grief for him; I will keep back her streams and the great waters will be stopped: I will make Lebanon dark for him, and all the trees of the field will be feeble because of him.
The meal offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's servants, are sorrowing.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 2 Samuel 1
Commentary on 2 Samuel 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Second Book of Samuel
Chapter 1
In the close of the foregoing book (with which this is connected as a continuation of the same history) we had Saul's exit; he went down slain to the pit, though he was the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. We are now to look towards the rising sun, and to enquire where David is, and what he is doing. In this chapter we have,
2Sa 1:1-10
Here is,
2Sa 1:11-16
Here is,
2Sa 1:17-27
When David had rent his clothes, mourned, and wept, and fasted, for the death of Saul, and done justice upon him who made himself guilty of it, one would think he had made full payment of the debt of honour he owed to his memory; yet this is not all: we have here a poem he wrote on that occasion; for he was a great master of his pen as well as of his sword. By this elegy he designed both to express his own sorrow for this great calamity and to impress the like on the minds of others, who ought to lay it to heart. The putting of lamentations into poems made them,