21 Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, no rain upon you, nor fields of heave-offerings! For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, The shield of Saul, [as] not anointed with oil.
And the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on mount Gilboa.
Prepare the table, appoint the watch; eat, drink: arise, ye princes, anoint the shield.
"Curse Meroz, says the angel of the LORD, curse bitterly its inhabitants, because they came not to the help of the LORD, to the help of the LORD against the mighty.
And the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on mount Gilboa.
Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, There is a man child conceived. That day -- let it be darkness, let not +God care for it from above, neither let light shine upon it: Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it; let clouds dwell upon it; let darkeners of the day terrify it. That night -- let gloom seize upon it; let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. Behold, let that night be barren; let no joyful sound come therein; Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to rouse Leviathan; Let the stars of its twilight be dark; let it wait for light, and have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the dawn: Because it shut not up the doors of the womb that bore me, and hid not trouble from mine eyes.
and I will make it a waste -- it shall not be pruned nor cultivated, but there shall come up briars and thorns; and I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
Cursed be the day wherein I was born; let not the day wherein my mother bore me be blessed! Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee; making him very glad! And let that man be as the cities which Jehovah overthrew, and repented not; and let him hear a cry in the morning, and a shouting at noonday,
Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: In the day when he went down to Sheol, I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed; and I made Lebanon black for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.
The oblation and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests, Jehovah's ministers, mourn.
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,