1 Samuel 31:7 Commentary and Bible Study

The army fled, and so the Israelites in the nearby cities fled. Courage failed all around. Their king was dead; the Philistines had overrun the land; all they could do was flee in terror. It was a great humiliation for the whole nation. God had not defended them, because they failed to walk in his ways, as they were forced to admit before Samuel on one occasion (1 Samuel 12:19), and their king was not a man of faith and had set them such a terrible example. They just gave up cities and territory to the Philistines who gradually came in and took them. ‘And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen.’ The day after the battle the Philistines came to strip the slain, and then they found Saul and his three sons fallen in Mount Gilboa. ‘And 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.’ The Philistines were triumphant, and credited their gods with the victory. Part of his body was hung on a wall at Bethshan, his armour in the house of the goddess Ashtaroth, his head in the shrine of Dagon, we are told in 1 Chronicles 10:10. This was done to mock him, and to demonstrate the superiority of their gods over the God of Israel who they believed had failed to save his people from defeat. They could explain Israel’s defeat in no other way than that the Lord had been unable to protect them. The fact that he was disciplining his own people never occurred to them.Saul by his foolishness had brought death to himself and his children, and shame on the nation which he had weakened by his relentless pursuit of David when he should have been building up its defences. As a result the Philistines had swept in and taken possession of large swathes of territory, and they would need to be driven out by a more decisive and courageous leader, who looked to God for the deliverance of his people.