1 Samuel 31

CHAPTER 31THEME: Saul and Jonathan die in battleWe have now come to the final chapter of 1 Samuel. The Philistines are fighting against Israel. Thank the Lord that David is not engaged in this battle. As you recall, the providence of God intervened to keep him out of it. Because the Philistines did not trust him to fight with them, he had withdrawn and returned to Ziklag. There he found his city looted and burned and the women and children taken captive.

While David and his men are hunting down the Amalekites, Israel is fleeing before the Philistines. They are being defeated in this battle because they are out of the will of God. As we have seen, when the Philistines came against Saul and he asked God for direction, God was silent. That is the reason Saul resorted to the witch of En-dor. Because of his rebellion and sinfulness, God did not answer him and is not protecting him now.

1 Samuel 31:1

The battle goes against Israel from the very first.

1 Samuel 31:2

It is the beginning of the end for Saul. First he was hit in battle by an archer. Apparently it was someone who did not recognize that he had hit the king. It was, shall we say, a real bull’s-eye. It is also tragic that Jonathan was slain in this battle. This is remarkable because on another occasion when Jonathan was fighting the Philistines, he slew 250 of the enemy at one time. This shows how hopelessly outnumbered Israel was at this time. This could well have been a battle in which David and Jonathan would have been on opposite sides, but God had intervened. So we find that Saul is wounded.

1 Samuel 31:4

When Saul saw that he was mortally wounded, he felt that the enemy would come and abuse him and taunt him. I think he was right. As we have seen, Saul was a proud, egotistical man, and he did not feel that such an end was becoming to him. His armor-bearer was afraid to lay a hand on the king when Saul asked him to thrust him through with a sword. So Saul took a sword and fell upon it. It looks as if Saul was a suicide case. Was it really a suicide?

1 Samuel 31:5

We begin to see now, with Saul’s armour being sent around, why he tried to get David to wear it when he fought Goliath. Had David won the battle wearing Saul’s armor, the king would have gotten the credit for the victory. A case in point involves one of his sons. When Jonathan won a victory, instead of giving him credit for it, Saul blew the trumpet in the land and took the credit himself.

1 Samuel 31:10

This concludes the Book of 1 Samuel. Someone says, “Well, there wasn’t such a mystery about the death of Saul after all.” We are not through with this story yet. We will pick it up again in the book of 2 Samuel. We are going to find that Saul spared the Amalekites, and Samuel rebuked him for it. He told Saul, “To obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams.” God wanted obedience, and Saul’s heart never bowed to almighty God. It is interesting that Saul spared the Amalekites, and we are going to find that it may have been the Amalekites who actually killed Saul. “But,” someone says, “we have already read the record that says the Philistines killed Saul.

An archer shot him, and he was mortally wounded. He tried to get his armor-bearer to kill him, but the man would not. Finally, Saul fell on his own sword. Isn’t that the explanation? Isn’t it a closed case? Wasn’t it all wrapped up by the Beth-shan police department?” I don’t think so.

Second Samuel is going to give us some more information.