1 Samuel 31

Well, good morning. Lee, will you open us up with a word of prayer, please, sir?

As we consider your word this morning, we ask ears to hear, Lord, and hearts to believe, and wills to obey, in Jesus' name, and for his sake, amen.

Saul’s Death at Endor and the Fall of Israel

Second Samuel, I mean, first Samuel, and then I'm going to start back, y 'all don't have to start there, but that's where I'm going to start, because I'm going to begin in 29, I'm sorry, 28, in verse 15, and Samuel said to Saul, why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?

And Saul answered and said, I am greatly distressed, for the Philistines are waging war against me, God has departed from me and no longer answers me, either through the prophets or by dreams, therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do, and Samuel said, why then do you ask me, since the Lord has departed from you and you have become his enemy?

The Lord has done according as he has spoke through me, for the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and he has given it to your neighbor David, as you did not obey the Lord to execute his fierce wrath against Amalek, so the Lord has done this to you this day, moreover the Lord will also give over Israel into the hands of the Philistines, and therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me, and indeed the Lord will give over the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines, and then Saul immediately fell full length on the ground, and he was very afraid because of the words of Samuel, also there was no strength in him, for he had not eaten food all day nor all night, and the woman came to Saul and saw that he was terrified, and said to him, behold, your maidservant has obeyed you, and I have taken my life into my own hands and have listened to your words which you have spoken to me, so now also please listen to the voice of your maidservant and let me set a piece of bread before you, that you may eat and have strength when you go on your way, but he refused and said I will not eat, however his servants together with the woman urged him, he listened to them, so he arose from the ground, he sat on the bed, and the woman had a fattened calf in the house, and she quickly slaughtered it, she took flour, kneaded it, baked unleavened bread from it, and she brought it before Saul and his servants, and they ate, and they arose and went away all night.

Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines and they fell slain on Mount Gilboa, the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons, the Philistines killed Jonathan of Benidab, Malchishua, the sons of Saul, the battle went heavily against Saul, and the archers hit him, he was badly wounded by the archers, and Saul said to his armor bearer, draw your sword, pierce me through with it, otherwise these uncircumcised will come and pierce me through and make sport of me, but his armor bearer would not, for he was greatly afraid, so Saul took his sword and he fell on it, and his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, and he also fell on his sword and died with him, and Saul died on that day, him and his three sons, his armor bearer and all the men on that day together, and the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley with those who were beyond the Jordan saw the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and they fled, the Philistines came and they lived in them, and it came about the next day when the Philistines came to strip this land that they found Saul and his three sons fallen at Mount Gilboa, they cut off his head, stripped him of his weapons, and sent them throughout all the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people, and they put his weapons in the temple of the Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body on the wall at Beshan.

Now when the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard that the Philistines, what they had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose and they walked all night and they took the body of Saul and the body of his sons from the wall at Beshan, and they brought them back to Jabesh, and they burned them there, then they took their bones and they buried them under the tamarisk tree at Jabesh and fasted for seven days.

Hannah’s Prayer and the Rise and Fall of Saul

When we finish 2 Samuel, this is actually where we're going to stop, and the reason being is that will be the end of David's life, that's the only reason why. So this is where we've been, and we'll close up 1 Samuel, according to our English translations, it was the rise of Samuel.

Now, you know, you want to go back and you want to read Hannah's prayer, you would see just how the narrator has set up this book perfectly through the prayer of her, and if you go back and it says that in chapter 2, verse 1, it says, My heart extols in the Lord and my horn is exalted in the Lord.

My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies because I rejoice in your salvation. There is no one holy like the Lord. Indeed, there is no one like him or besides him. There is, I'm sorry, nor is there any rock like our God.

Boast no more so very proudly, and do not let the arrogance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and with him actions are weighed. The bows of the mighty are shattered, but the feeble gird on strength.

Those who were full hire themselves out for bread, but those who are hungry cease to hunger. Even the barren gives birth to seven, but she who has many children languishes. The Lord kills and makes alive.

He brings down to shield and he raises up. The Lord makes poor and rich. He brings low and he exalts. He raises the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with the nobles and inherit the seat of honor.

For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he set the world on them. He keeps the feet of his godly ones, but the wicked ones are silenced in darkness, for not one might shall man prevail. Those who contend with the Lord, they will be shattered.

Against them he will thunder in the heavens. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth, and he will give strength to his king, and he will exalt the horn of his anointed. It's interesting that her prayer of adoration for having going to have a son, she's already speaking how God's going to exalt his own king, and that there's one that's going to be anointed that will carry out his purposes, and that in her prayer she continually reminds us that God will shatter his enemies, and that's exactly what took place in chapter 31.

You go back to chapter 31, and I'll be honest, it was if I would have not have overshot my mouth a few weeks ago, I would have done an exposition of chapter 31 verses 1 through 13. I started putting it together.

It's going to take two weeks. I said I'm not going to back up on my word, but we see the rise of Saul, and he looked like he was going to be a great guy in chapter 11. Did he not? Humble man in chapter 9.

He goes, and he delivers them to Jabesh Gilead, and he looks like, hey, this is the guy. So from the beginning, I mean, we know what happens at the end of the story, but if you're following the narrative, and you're seeing this play out, you're like, this is the man, and we quickly see that he becomes self-serving.

He cares about nothing but himself, and he becomes very disobedient. What do we know about Saul? So far, what do we know about Saul? As far as the military is concerned. Yeah. Do you remember what we started at the beginning?

You remember there was two words. Success. Yep. Success and faithfulness are not the same. Well, was he a successful deliverer? Was he? Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's what it says. This text clearly says, remember, there was a book end that says, and Saul delivered them from the hands of the Philistine all the days of his life.

Now, sometimes Saul had his hand forced into that when he heard that, hey, they're going to hit the threshing floors of some place, and what did it do? Actually, it turned him from chasing David to, hey, I'm going to go kill some Philistines that I know I can actually kill.

I can't get a hold of David, but I know I can kill these guys. So what did he do? He goes, and he delivers those people, and he constantly made war. Were there times where he became cowardice in some way?

Yes. Yeah. We can even say even when Goliath stood out there, and he challenged someone to fight, who should have went and fought? Saul should have. Remember, the word champion doesn't mean, hey, I'm the heavyweight champion of the world with a belt.

It means the one who stands in between, the gap. That's actually what the word means. The Hebrew word stands in the gap. And he was to be the one that was supposed to be the representative for his people against the enemies of God, and he failed to do so.

Now, I think we talked about maybe him knowing that he was already condemned. He could be looking at Goliath and say, God has taken the kingdom from me. This guy over here could be the means by which I'm removed from my kingship.

So what did he do? He didn't go. And then because of his failure to obey Samuel and waiting for the sacrifice at Gilgal, what was taken away first? The dynasty. He said, hey, there's nobody going to sit on your throne forever if you just waited.

You just waited. Then the kingdom was taken from him, the kingdom itself, and he was rejected by God for what? For specifically failure to carry out to the fullest extent the commission to Amalek, which was to slaughter every man, woman, boy, girl, donkey, whatever, and Agag.

He failed to do so. And then who wind up having to complete what Saul didn't do? Yeah, 80 something year old man hacks a man to death as an act of worship. I mean, we think about that and go, man, that's pretty brutal as an act of worship before.

Do you remember what it says? And he hacked Agag into pieces before the Lord. That's tough. I ain't talking about just sticking him. It says hacked him to pieces. And then we see Saul from that point forward.

Everything he does is self-centered. He knows that David's going to be king. He doesn't admit that till later on, but he sees that the Lord's with him. And his hatred and vile discontent towards David is because the Lord is with David.

And he knows that the Lord's with David. Remember, it says that. Why did he hate him? It says his anger burned against him because the Lord was with David. And he chased him. Like I said, depending on what your time frame is, I'm on the 15-year side.

So for 15 years, he chased David with every intent of killing him. David twice had the opportunity to kill Saul. And what did he do? He spared him. And what was the reason? Will not lift his hand against the Lord's anointed.

Now, do we understand that as being him as being in right standing with God? How should we understand the Lord's anointed? He belongs to the Lord in the sense that the Lord commissioned Saul for one specific purpose.

To deliver his people from the hands of the Philistines. That's it. That's it. Was this the people's choice or God's choice? How's the people's choice?

Yep, good. Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. They said, nay, but we will have a king over us that we also may be like all the nations. And that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.

And did he fight their battles? By and large, he did.

But there was times when he did not. And then who had to come in and fight? Once David came along, who was fighting the king's battles? David was. And the people knew that. And Jonathan, yeah, the actual first great.

The great first great slaughter. Who did it? Jonathan, because yeah, because Saul was going, I'm the man. I'm gonna sit up here and give you up under this tamarisk tree with my spear. And somebody else wind up going and doing the job for him.

It said, we'll pick up now and and verse one. Now the Philistines were fighting against Israel and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines and fell slain at Mount Gilboa. Remember, he went up to indoor and then he had to come back down here.

And they're at the right here is the Jezreel Valley. Where am I? Jezreel Valley right here. So he is back down here where he came back from indoor with the indoor and came back here. Remember, that's a good little trek overnight.

Because what did Samuel say? He saw him. And what did Samuel say? You're going to die tomorrow. And this was at night. So that means they got on their horse and donkeys, everyone. And they went all night and got back.

I do wonder and we don't know what was going on in Saul's mind. Do I need to tell my sons? I don't know about y 'all. But when I read through the narrative, I'm going, where's Abner? Where's Abner? Where's his armor bearer?

Do these men know what Samuel told him just hours before? And to that we don't know. But something that is somewhat bothersome is we saw back in 1st Chronicles chapter 10. What was the reasoning for Saul being slain on Mount Gilboa?

It said that God killed him. I think it was in verse 13. I think it was verse 13. Chapter 10, verse 13, that God killed him because he sought the witch of Endor. Well, not particularly the witch. He sought a medium.

And God struck him down for that purpose. But you go, wait a minute. He's standing there. He's talking to Samuel. He's letting him know, hey, you're going to die in the morning. Well, man, why Jonathan?

Why Jonathan? Was Jonathan not a faithful man? We know that Jonathan was a man of faith. As a matter of fact, who strengthened? Who was the one that came and strengthened David in the Lord? Jonathan. Who was the one that said, hey, we're going to go down here.

We're going to holler at these cats. If they holler back, the Lord's going to give them into our hands. And he took that as, hey, they hollered at the Philistines. He said, yeah, come on up. And what did he do?

Him and his armor bearer and one acre killed like 30, a half acre killed 30. And then they had a great slaughter. He trusted in Yahweh. And you go. Scripture is very clear that men are not punished for the sins of their father.

But man, it's very that's hard to understand that from this perspective, is it not? Why did God slay his three sons and Jonathan down with him? I have no idea. The text doesn't say, was Jonathan guilty of the sin of his father of going to a medium to seek out to raise some else, someone from the dead, so seeking the Lord.

Was Jonathan guilty of that? No. But for whatever reason, God and his sovereign purposes had Jonathan killed along with Mount Cashew and Abinadab. It says in verse three that the battle went heavily against Saul and the archers hit him.

And he was badly wounded by the by the archers. This is why I think of where's Abner. Three, two times up until this point, God has delivered Saul into David's hand, right? One time in the cave when he went to relieve himself, who was supposed to protect Abner?

Then God called him all to fall into a deep sleep. David tiptoes in there with Abishai. Who was who was supposed to protect the king from being killed? Abner. And did Abner protect him? No. Matter of fact, David hollers across and somewhat in a mocking fashion.

Yeah. He says, hey, check this out, man. You need to be put to death. And what David was saying was true. Abner should have been put to death because what was his job? His first and foremost job is protect the king.

And he did not. He said, why? Here's his jug. Here's a spear. If I could have taken the jug that was beside his head and the spear that was beside his head, I could have taken that spear and run it right through his head.

And that's actually what Abishai wanted to do.

I wanted to kill you, but I wouldn't do it. Yeah. And once again, what did he say?

Would not put my hand against the Lord's anointed. The Lord will take care of you. And if you remember when he was in that rant, when they had him in the middle and all those people, those 3000 men around him, him and Abishai are kind of having this conversation.

That's just weird, too. They're having this conversation about not killing him. And hey, look, don't touch him and hear this and that and this. And he's arguing with Abishai about not striking him down.

Just once. Yeah, just once. I'll pin him right to the earth. And then they get their stuff and they tiptoe out. But what does he tell Abishai in there? Don't touch him. God will take care of him. He's been an enemy to me.

I'm not an enemy to Saul. He was constantly looking out for Saul's best interest. Hey, and from what we do know, from the time of here until 2 Samuel chapter 2, we don't see one time, and this would be 15 years, 16 years.

We don't see one time where David at one time has killed one person connected to Saul. Not once. Not one time. He's not laid a hand on his anointed. He's had the opportunity to kill any of his men, and they did not.

What did they consistently do? They consistently fleed. Now, you say David had the opportunity to take the throne by God putting him into his hand, and he did not. And each time that David, like in this time, David was supposed to be going out to battle against them at this very battle.

Remember 29 and 30, all this is happening at the same time. If we put it on a line, they're happening all at consecutive, okay? Yeah, so that's one thing about Hebrew literature. It's not linear, and that bothers me, man.

I want things chronologically in order, and it's not always that way. So as he was coming up this way, David got to be trying to figure out, how am I going to get myself out of this predicament, and what does the Lord do?

Hit his ashes, send him back. God delivers David from his enemies, by his enemies, and then what does he do with Saul? He delivers Saul into the hands of his enemies. Man, if that's not the providence of God, if David would have went to this battle, and the archers would have hit him, David would have been there.

Who could the finger have been pointed at? Could have been pointed at David. Could have been pointed at David. You're going to even see later in 2 Samuel, when Abner and the civil war that breaks out, God removes David from the scene once again when Abner is killed, so that David can't be the one guilty for the overthrowing of the house of Saul.

God did everything in David's place where David's hands were never guilty of any wrong doing towards Saul. And why? Because David was God's chosen man. Saul was not. Doomed from the womb, you could say.

Dude, he was the people's choice. That's what the people wanted, and that's what the people got. And he took, took, took, took, took. And we see the beginnings of David fixing to be king last week when he gets all of his great spoils and he brings in all of those things.

What did he begin to do as he began to slaughter those people and bring in the spoil? He sent it out. He sent it out. He did. Instead of take, he was given. He was given. He was given. I was asked two weeks ago, hey, how come we've not talked about David and his kingship like Christ?

Because David ain't king yet. We fail to remember that David's not king. Who's the king? Saul's the king. Now, the people's king spits in the fall, and he's going to fall on his own sword. And Saul said to his armor bearer, draw, this is in verse four, draw your sword, pierce me through with it.

Otherwise, these uncircumcised men will come pierce me through and make sport of me. But his armor bearer would not, for he was greatly afraid. I can't help but think in my mind. Twice that man had heard, do not put your hand against the Lord's anointed.

David said that twice in the hearing of those people. Don't put your hand against the Lord's anointed. And in this man probably would have said, man, I if I do that, I am guilty. And you do understand why he's wanting to be put to death.

Y 'all do understand why he's wanting him to. Saul obviously knows he's dying. He has to hear the echoes of the old man in his ear. Hey, today you're going to die. And in order to keep him from being abused, it was the common thing.

And I honestly, in literature shows that was an honorable thing. I've heard men say this is another evidence of Saul being an unconverted person because he committed suicide. I'm going to tell you, that's hogwash.

OK, we don't look at that and say, hey, because this man fell on his own sword, that that was the reason that we could say he's unconverted. We can look from from chapter 13 on to chapter 31 and say, now we know why he's unconverted.

One saw Samuel tells Saul that he's what to God. He's an enemy. He says you're an enemy of God. So when Samuel says, hey, you'll be with me tomorrow, he's not talking about an Abraham's bosom. He's talking about the grave.

And we need to understand that that sound if you even go back. That's why I read parts of of Hannah's prayer. She talks about the shield. God's going to bring every man down to his grave or he can raise them up.

But God's the one that's going to do that. And God's the one that brings down Saul because of his disobedience and because of his hit. Ultimately, this action is because he he sought the witch of Indore.

He says when his armor bear saw that Saul was dead. I'm sorry, I'm back up. He was greatly afraid. So Saul took his own sword and he fell on it. When his armor bear saw that Saul was dead, he also fell on his sword and died with him.

Thus, Saul died with his three sons, his armor bear and all his men on that day. This is funny how last week we were waiting for people to come over for Easter dinner and flipping through the TV and on the History Channel was the Bible.

Obviously, they trying to get to resurrection. And it's what was on was the battle at Gilboa. I was like, let me see how jacked up this is. Saul doesn't get hit by an archer. He's walking around and he's seeing all of his his his dead men.

And he says, you know what? I might as well just go ahead and die myself. And he takes a sword and he falls on his sword. And as he falls on his sword, his crown falls off and it rolls down a hill. And then this some guy just had to be riding on a horse.

It was, oh, check that out. A crown and pick it up. It's like, man, you've already got the script. It's right here. You don't need to rewrite it. But he fell on his own sword because he was dying. And he in order to.

Yes, ma 'am. No, ma 'am. It's just not when we look at. In this case, we could say somewhat of a mercy killing. I mean, he's trying. He's bleeding out, obviously. And he sees it as it's better for me to go this way.

Um, anytime you hear of someone dying of suicide, you should probably look at the context of which they did. I mean, we all probably could all have different opinions on hospice, how they do care and what they I mean, we will talk about that.

You could also talk about got men that were godly men in the past that have actually killed himself, you know, for whatever reason. I know he's going through his mind, I'm dying, and I don't want these people to come and drag me around with hooks trying to prolong my life because he says they're going to make sport of me.

And sometimes you understand sports boarding. Tell my playing badminton with him, OK? So he understands that when they come and get him, they're going to do. They're going to do him harm. And we're going to see that actually what they do do do what they do do to him here in just a minute.

It says so he fell that day, all of him and all of his men with him on that day. Once again, man, where's Abner? Where's Abner? Where's Ishmael? Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Yeah, Abner, the kingmaker.

Remember that Abner, the kingmaker. Remember, Abner, Abner, try to usurp his position that was never intended and causes great bloodshed.

You should wonder if Abner deserted him.

My I guess I don't I don't have. I don't know, but I have to understand. Abner is going, OK, if we know what Abner's been very calculated. Now, as we get into second, Sam, you're going to he's very calculated, man.

Even when he tries to make a covenant with David, it's very calculated on how he's doing it. David calls his bluff a little bit on bringing back me call his wife after 15 years. You know, so it's very calculated.

But you go, yeah, if he was with him the night he would have been his bodyguard, the one that would have took him to Indore. If he would have heard that, he's like, hey, man, you were told to die, not me.

I'm going to head on to the other side of Jezreel and get away from that. Wherever you're at, I'm not going to be because if I'm near you, you're going to die. And that, by extension, I'm going to die.

Very well could be the case. We don't know. You know, we don't. We know this. He wasn't there. He didn't get killed, which did. And then raises up the question of, did Adner think he was going to be king?

And we're going to get into all that whenever we get to that. Did Adner, was Adner's intention to try to usurp the throne because he was a Benjamite? Remember, he was Saul's cousin. Okay, he was Saul's cousin.

And now that Jonathan was dead, Jonathan was the one that was supposed to keep the crown prince. And Ishbosheth gets pushed out there like a puppet. You know, so it says in verse seven, and when the men of Israel who were on the on the other side on that valley with those who were beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled, that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled.

And the Philistines came and lived in him. Now, once again, we see this is this is not linear. They had a fight with the Philistines. They fled. And it says the Philistines came and lived. That doesn't mean, hey, this happened overnight.

There's time. Remember, they're going to have from the time that this took place here to the time that there's an actual king established to the monarchy is going to be anywhere between two and four years.

You know, two years for sure we know. And what did the Philistines do in that civil war? They began to move into the land where the people fled because they see their king dead. Where do they go? They run.

Yeah, they run. They don't have any leader anymore. And it came about on the next day that the Philistines came and they stripped the slain. So the next morning, just like in every other battle, they would do it after a big battle where there's archers shooting from distance.

They wait to see who dies. They walk through whoever's still half alive. They thrust them through, make sure they're dead. They strip them of their weaponry, whatever, whatever armor, money, whatever.

And they get it. So it says they're there to strip the slain. And they see that the sons of Saul had fallen. Three sons had fallen in Mount Geboa. They cut off his head. They stripped off his weapons.

And they sent them throughout the land to carry the good news to the house of their idols to the people. This is theological for the Philistines. If you go to Chronicles 10, it actually talks about them putting his head and stuff into the temple of Dagon.

I can't help but think there's still a little hind hurt from 40 years earlier of when they brought the ark. Remember, it was captured back here before Dirtbag 1, Dirtbag 2 got killed, or right when they did get killed.

They carried the around. It was fastened around like a hot potato. They got hemorrhoids, all kinds of stuff. They put it into the temple of Dagon. And what happened? He broke his neck. Yeah, he fell down.

Then they put him up again. And what happened? They cut off his hands and his head. So now what do they do to Saul? They do that very thing. Hey, Dagon's alive. Dagon's alive and he's well. And how do we know?

Because we dropped Saul today. We've put your king under submission to Dagon. And then it says they carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people. I looked up, and I usually do read through the Septuagint to see kind of what it says.

The word that they use for good news is ungilead idzu, which means to evangelize. That's the word that's used. Does anybody translate anything other than good news? Anything other than good news? Publish.

Or it says carry the good news. Yours is publish the good news. And it says it's to mean to evangelize in the Septuagint. So they begin to go out and proclaim the good news of Dagon that Dagon has won.

That Dagon has laid waste to the 40 years that Saul had been fighting against them. Remember, man, 40 years. That probably puts Saul somewhere around 72 years old. So think about this. Saul was around 70 to 72 years old.

Abner would have been his cousin. He'd have been about... Man, them are some old fighting dudes, man. You know, some old guys that like to throw down. It says that they put in the temple of the Astaroth.

They fastened his body on the wall at Bashan. Why do they fasten their bodies on the wall? What was the reasoning? Anybody know? Trophy. Yeah, trophy. What's that? Display. Yep, trophy. Look, as they come into the city...

Remember, the wall's on the outside of the city. I would imagine they didn't put it on the backside. They wanted... As people walk in, they can see, oh, wow, here's the king of Israel. Here's his three offsprings that would have had the opportunity to take the throne.

I mean, they don't even know who Ishmael is, okay? And there's no king anymore. The king's dead. And they put him on display. And then in verse 11, it says,. Now when the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard that when the Philistines had...

What they had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose, and they walked all night, and they took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Bashan. And they came to Jabesh, and they burned them there.

Jabesh-Gilead Honors Saul’s Burial

Jabesh-Gilead remembers the deliverance from Nahash when he's gonna pop out their right eye, remember? Early on, what made Saul notoriety? He had already been anointed king. What did he go back to do in Gibeah?

He went back and just went plowing back in the land. He went home, already been anointed king. He saw the men with the jugs and the goats and the loaves, and the men prophesying. He knew he was the king, and he went back home, and in humility, went to back working in the field.

And then it says that when Nahash... Nahash was gonna come from the land of the Ammonites, okay? He came over here, and he surrounded this city and says, hey, I'll make an agreement with y 'all. I won't kill anybody, but you're gonna be my slave, and I'll pop out your right eye.

They were like, okay, well, can you give us a little time? Can you give us seven days to see if we can find somebody to deliver us? And when they sent messengers, when it came to Saul, Saul said, no, no, no, no, this ain't happening.

And what did Saul do? He goes up, and he delivers them. Interesting, he doesn't kill Nahash, and we'll see that when we get into 2 Samuel, because David actually befriends Nahash. It's weird, man. It's just weird.

We'll talk about it when we get, it's weird. But there was obviously a relationship between Nahash and Nahash's son and David. Anyway, it's weird. But Nahash wasn't killed, but he did get pushed back.

He got defeated, and those people remember 40 years ago, we had a man, that man came and delivered us, and we want to show him honor. And what did they do? They went and got his body in the middle of the night.

The valiant men took it off. You say, okay, well, why did they burn his body? That's not common for Jewish, is it? Jewish culture was the person dies, they got 24 hours to get their body wrapped, cleaned, wrapped, and put in a tomb.

Now, they could come back, if it was on Sabbath, like they did Jesus, to anoint the body, their type of embalming, which was spices and all that, to keep the decomposition from stinking and all that, as an honor to the body.

But the body was to be put in a tomb within 24 hours from the time of its being deceased. This is not what happened here. I mean, it's decomposed, yeah. So you're talking about an arid area out in the sun.

I'm sure they didn't put it, hey, let's find a tree that's over the wall so we can put him out there in the, I mean, you got birds, beast of the field, whatever that he was on, and his body was decomposed, bloated, and just mangled.

So in order to deal with a traditional type burial, what did they do? They burned the decomposition. Then what was that? Notice this, they didn't burn him to dust. They burned that which was decomposed off, and it says, and then they took his bones, and they buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and then they fasted for seven days, which was seven days was a typical time for mourning over someone that was for a king or someone in high esteem.

It's interesting, too, that it was under a tamarisk tree just a few chapters back that Saul was whining and crying because nobody would tell him where David was at, and it was under a tamarisk tree where he was having his little temper tantrum.

It was under a tamarisk tree where he was sitting there with his spear and said, man, I sure wish somebody would quit being a conspirator with David and with my son Jonathan. And you remember who stepped forward?

Doeg, and it was at that tamarisk tree where he commissioned for those 85 priests to come to him and were slaughtered. So here it is, he has 85 priests killed under a tamarisk tree, and now it's Saul who has the only thing that's left of him under a tamarisk tree.

Tragic, tragic end to a story of a life of a man that looked from back here, man, this is gonna be good. If we wouldn't have known the farewell speech and the warning from Samuel, when we got to here, we'd have thought this is the guy.