1 Samuel 31King James Version
The battle on Mount Gilboa. Israel flees before the Philistines. Jonathan and two of his brothers are killed. Saul, badly wounded, asks his armor bearer to kill him. The armor bearer refuses. Saul falls on his own sword. The armor bearer follows. The men of Jabesh-gilead, remembering that Saul saved them years before, walk all night to recover the bodies and bury them with honor.
The Philistines defeat Israel at Mount Gilboa. Saul's three sons, including Jonathan, are killed. Saul is critically wounded by archers. He asks his armor-bearer to kill him before the Philistines take and abuse him; the armor-bearer refuses out of fear. Saul falls on his own sword. The armor-bearer follows. The Philistines find the bodies, cut off Saul's head, display the armor in the temple of Ashtaroth, and fasten the bodies to the wall of Beth-shan. The men of Jabesh-gilead travel all night to recover the bodies, bury them, and fast seven days.
A kingdom that began with the rescue of Jabesh-gilead ends with Jabesh-gilead rescuing the king. The circle is completed in grief.
13: "And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days." The final act of loyalty comes not from Israel's leaders but from the town Saul saved in his first victory.
Mount Gilboa, in the Jezreel Valley, around 1010 BC. Gilboa is a ridge overlooking the valley where the Philistines deployed their chariots to maximum advantage. Saul had been warned the night before at Endor. He came to the battle anyway. Whether that is courage or fatalism or obedience to the inevitable, the text does not say.
Saul, dying by his own hand to preserve his dignity; Jonathan, dying in the battle he was born to fight; the armor-bearer, faithful to the end; the men of Jabesh-gilead, whose loyalty outlasts the king's failure.
The book ends with Saul's suicide and burial, not David's triumph. The grief is given its full weight. Jonathan's death here will be the text David calls the most painful thing he has ever felt, in 2 Samuel 1.
Jonathan died at Gilboa without ever being king, having given that future away to his friend. The men of Jabesh-gilead walked all night to bury people the rest of the country abandoned. Both of these things are worth sitting with.
1Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa.
2And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchishua, Saul's sons.
3And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers.
4Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.
5And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him.
6So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.
7And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other side Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them.
8And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen in mount Gilboa.
9And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish it in the house of their idols, and among the people.
10And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth: and they fastened his body to the wall of Bethshan.
11And when the inhabitants of Jabeshgilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul;
12All the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bethshan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there.
13And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days.