21 Mountains of Gilboa! No dew nor rain be on you, And fields of heave-offerings! For there hath become loathsome The shield of the mighty, The shield of Saul -- without the anointed with oil.
And the Philistines are fighting against Israel, and the men of Israel flee from the face of the Philistines, and fall wounded in mount Gilboa,
Arrange the table, watch in the watch-tower, Eat, drink, rise, ye heads, anoint the shield,
Curse Meroz -- said a messenger of Jehovah, Cursing, curse ye its inhabitants, For they came not to the help of Jehovah, To the help of Jehovah among the mighty!
And the Philistines have fought with Israel, and the men of Israel flee from the face of the Philistines, and fall wounded in mount Gilboa,
Let the day perish in which I am born, And the night that hath said: `A man-child hath been conceived.' That day -- let it be darkness, Let not God require it from above, Nor let light shine upon it. Let darkness and death-shade redeem it, Let a cloud tabernacle upon it, Let them terrify it as the most bitter of days. That night -- let thick darkness take it, Let it not be united to days of the year, Into the number of months let it not come. Lo! that night -- let it be gloomy, Let no singing come into it. Let the cursers of day mark it, Who are ready to wake up Leviathan. Let the stars of its twilight be dark, Let it wait for light, and there is none, And let it not look on the eyelids of the dawn. Because it hath not shut the doors Of the womb that was mine! And hide misery from mine eyes.
And I make it a waste, It is not pruned, nor arranged, And gone up have brier and thorn, And on the thick clouds I lay a charge, From raining upon it rain.
Cursed `is' the day in which I was born, The day that my mother bare me, Let it not be blessed! Cursed `is' the man who bore tidings `to' my father, saying, `Born to thee hath been a child -- a male,' Making him very glad! Then hath that man been as the cities, That Jehovah overthrew, and repented not, And he hath heard a cry at morning, And a shout at time of noon.
Thus said the Lord Jehovah: In the day of his going down to sheol I have caused mourning, I have covered for him the deep, and diminish its flowings, And restrained are many waters, And I make Lebanon black for him, And all trees of the field have been covered for him.
Cut off hath been present and libation from the house of Jehovah, Mourned have the priests, ministrants of Jehovah.
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,