1 Samuel 31-2 Samuel 1, How the Fallen Is Mighty, Dr. John B. Carpenter

The Fall of Saul and the Death of the First King

1 Samuel chapter 31 to 2 Samuel 1, hear the word of the Lord. Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines, and fell slain on Mount Geboa. And the Philistines overtook Saul and his sons, and the Philistines struck down Jonathan and Abed-Adab and Mount Yeshua, the sons of Saul.

The battle pressed hard against Saul, and the archers found him, and he was badly wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and mistreat me.

But his armor-bearer would not, for he feared greatly. Therefore Saul took his own sword and fell upon it. And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him.

Thus Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor-bearer, and all his men on the same day together. And when the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities and fled.

And the Philistines came and lived in them. The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Geboa. And so they cut off his head and stripped off his armor and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people.

They put his armor in the temple of Asheroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shon. But when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men arose and went all that night and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shon, and they came to Jabesh and burned them there.

And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days. After the death of Saul, when David had returned from striking down the Amalekites, David remained two days in Ziklag.

And on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul's camp with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage. And David said to him, Where do you come from?

And he said to him, I have escaped from the camp of Israel. And David said to him, How did it go? Tell me. And he answered, The people fled from the battle, and also many of the people have fallen and are dead, and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.

Then David said to the young man who told him, How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead? And the young man who told him said, By chance, I happen to be on Mount Geboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear.

And behold, the chariots and the horsemen were close upon him. And when he looked behind him, he saw me and called to me. And he answered, and I answered, Here I am. And he said to me, Who are you? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite.

And he said to me, Stand beside me and kill me, for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers. So I stood beside him and killed him because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen.

And I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, and I brought them here to my Lord. Then David took hold of the clothes and tore them, took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him.

And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel because they had fallen by the sword. And David said to the young man who told him, Where do you come from?

And he answered, I am the son of a sojourner, an Amalekite. David said to him, How is it that you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed? Then David called out to one of the young men and said, Go, execute him.

And he struck him down so that he died. And David said to him, Your blood be on your own head, for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, I have killed the Lord's anointed. And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan his son.

And he said, It should be taught to the people of Judah. Behold, it is written in the book of Jashar. He said, Your glory, O Israel, is slain on your high places. How the mighty have fallen. Tell it not in Gath.

Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult. You mountains of Goboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you here, nor fields of offerings.

For there the shield of the mighty was defiled, the shield of Saul not anointed with oil. From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.

Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely, in life and in death, they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions. You, daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.

How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle. Jonathan lies slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan. Very pleasant you have been to me. Your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women.

How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, have you ever seen someone at their height and then their decline, and you wonder how they could have fallen so far?

My grandmother was declared Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1957. My mother, who first met her just a couple of years after that, said that she was at first intimidated by her mother-in-law, such an impressive, forceful personality.

When I knew her as a child, you could still see her vigor, but she was already beginning to show signs of becoming embittered by the things that she suffered, although she hadn't really suffered that much.

She complained about having two kids by herself for a year or two when her husband was drafted into the army during World War II, and shipped off to the Pacific. I thought, okay, you can sympathize, but she shouldn't complain.

Many wives had their husbands come back in a box, if at all. She didn't. Her husband, my grandfather, didn't die until he was 65, still too young, but about 30 more years than many of the other soldiers sent to Okinawa.

He was the first, he was the fire chief of West Memphis, Arkansas, and it seemed to me as a kid of about 11 or 12 at his funeral that the whole town came out for that funeral with an enormously long procession of cars from the funeral home to the cemetery, and anyone who wasn't in the funeral procession and happened to be driving by stopped their cars or their trucks and got out as the funeral procession went by and stood on the roadside, took off their cap, put their hand over their heart, and grieved with us as we went by.

I suspect she was never the same after that and was hurt even more when her son, my father, died of cancer about 10 years later. By the 90s and the early 2000s, when I'd visit her in assisted living homes or nursing homes, she would mistake me for my father, calling me by his name, and I wouldn't correct her, thinking maybe it was good for her to let her to continue to think that her son was still alive.

Oddly enough, she always remembered Mary's name correctly. Finally, as she declined further, she was a shell of her former self and not able to communicate. I once tried to impress a nursing home doctor by telling him that this frail, elderly, wheelchair-bound, non-communicating woman had been the Arkansas Woman of the Year.

How the mighty had fallen. You see someone at the height of their powers, physically, intellectually, financially, and then they decline, and you're amazed that anyone could fall that far. Some elite athletes like Tom Brady or LeBron James are faced with the decision of whether they should retire before their decline becomes so obvious that it's kind of embarrassing to themselves.

And people watch them, and instead of being impressed with their talent, they think, how the mighty have fallen. Many people think Tom Brady went at least a year too long, although if you listen to statistics that last year, he was still a pretty good quarterback.

If it was anyone else with those statistics, you would think, yeah, he's pretty good. He's not great. He's got an average, pretty good. But of course, you compare it to what he was, and you think, how the mighty have fallen.

A month and a half ago at a presidential debate, many of us saw a man who had been fast-talking and glib, who used to be able to put on shows of passable rhetoric in debates years earlier. Saw him get embarrassed on television so badly that he eventually had to drop out of the election.

How the mighty have fallen. Of course, we all know that the body and the mind decline, but one thing we can be sure of will never fall. We're told. It's money. I got to fly to New York this past week and saw how if you have enough money, you can skip the whole long security line, go right to the head of it, pass by everyone else.

You can board the plane first. You can fly first class. You can get a driver to pick you up at the airport, stay in a nice hotel and go to expensive restaurants. Money won't let you down, so money says.

But Elizabeth Holmes had a lot of money, a net worth of $5 billion to be exact. One of the kinds of people that Tom Wolfe described as the masters of the universe. She was mighty financially. She started a blood testing company called Theranos, which was valued at $9 billion.

The problem was that the company's main product, despite getting FDA approval, didn't work. So after massive lawsuits and government fines, by 2016, Forbes magazine listed her net worth at $0. How the mighty had fallen.

Of course, we all think, well, we know better than that. Our might will be different. Our money won't fall like that, but some things are out of our personal control, like inflation. If you had $100 in 2020, just four years ago, it's now worth about $80.

To be exact, you've lost $19 .37 for every $100 that you have. Almost 20 of it, just gone. So if you think being wealthy, that will make you mighty, you too could be headed for a fall. Here we see how the mighty have fallen and how the mighty fall in two main points, easily divided.

The Tragedy of Saul’s Willfulness

First, the king is dead. Second, long live the king. Well, first, the king is dead in chapter 31, where we see the tragedy of Saul. This long anticipated battle with the Philistines is now on. We were notified that it was coming at the beginning of chapter 28, where Akish tells David to get ready for the battle.

As the armies lined up against each other, Saul is so afraid of what he sees is up against that he goes to see the witch of Endor. And then David is sent back, thwarting his plan. But it turns out the best for him, of course, because his family and the families of his men, he didn't know it at the time, had been abducted by the cursed Amalekites.

And all this is going on at the same time. Understand these last few chapters, there's a lot of activity going on simultaneously. And if this were a movie, it would be switching back and forth between the two scenes.

Saul in the north, preparing for the battle, going to see that witch. And David in the south, family abducted, and everyone's mourning and wailing and they seek the Lord. And then they go rescue the families and chase down the Amalekites.

Saul had been king for 40 years. David had been hiding in Philistine territory. This is a safe haven for 16 months. And now everything from chapter 28 to 2 Samuel chapter 1 transpires in just a few days.

The passage doesn't give us any details of the battle, only that it was fought on Mount Geboa in central Israel, a little to the east, like a central Israel, a little leaning toward the east, toward the Jordan River.

So this is far into Israelite territory. Like if it's America, this is not El Paso, Texas. OK, this is like Kansas. This is not in the middle of the country. So in other words, Israel is being overrun by the Philistines.

This is the situation they were in near the beginning of the book of Samuel in chapter 4 when they brought the Ark of the Covenant with the army to the battle. Remember that story? They're about to battle the Philistines, so they bring the Ark of the Covenant with them.

And not only were they defeated, the Ark was captured, and God makes the Philistines return the Ark. But the defeat spurs Israel. That defeat makes Israel start to demand a king. They want a king. They think, well, using the Ark as a lucky charm for its supernatural power, that couldn't save us.

So maybe a king will do it. That's what we need. We need a king like every other nation. That begins the story of the tragedy of Saul, that chain of events about Saul that leads to this. And this passage ends that story.

Now, most of the Israelite army flees in the battle or are killed on Mount Geboa. In verse 3, the battle was literally heavy. It means heavy. It is weighed down on Saul. It is heavy against Saul. They kill Jonathan and another two sons of Saul, Abinadab and Malchishua.

The archers wounded Saul. Now, imagine his torso and his head were protected by armor, but likely his arms and his legs were vulnerable and were hit by arrows. So he's in great pain, and he has seen his sons die before him.

And so he knows the end is near. He's afraid the Philistines will capture him since he's nearly incapacitated, and they'll torture him and humiliate him like they did to Samson. Remember that story? So he tells his armor bearer in verse 4, draw your sword and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised, that means they're not in the covenant with God, they're heathens with no covenant, no relationship with the Lord, lest they come and strike me through and mistreat me.

But the armor bearer won't do it because it says he's feared greatly. Either he's just frozen in fear because of the battle and everyone's around, he's being chopped up and dying, or maybe just fear striking the Lord's anointed, which Israelites should know not to do.

So he wouldn't do it. Then Saul decides to kill himself by falling on his sword, and the armor bearer followed his example. Now, Saul should know that he does not have the right to kill himself. The seventh commandment, you shall not kill, prohibits killing ourselves.

The modern idea is that, well, it's my life, it's my body, I can do with it whatever I want. If something is wrong, if it violates someone's will, then what's wrong with me killing you is that you don't want to be killed, and so I've broken your will, and that's the centrality of the will has been violated.

So that's the modern ethic. Some people say, well, you know, they think about taking their own life. I can take my life, and that's the problem. They think it's their life. It's not. You can't take your own life because it is not your life to take.

And the Christian idea, the biblical idea, is that this is God's body. Your body is God's. It's his life, and he's given it to you to steward, to make the most out of it for him. But this gets right to the heart of the tragedy of Saul.

He lived willfully. He lived his way, and so he thought he could die his way. He lived on his terms, so he thought he could die on his terms. He lived by the Frank Sinatra philosophy. He did it his way, and this is the result.

Verse 6 summarizes it all. Thus Saul died and his three sons and his armor bearer and all his men on the same day together. The king is dead because the king did it his way, and that's the tragedy. So when the people of Israel saw that their king was dead, the king that the Lord told Samuel was a sign that the people had rejected not just Samuel.

Remember that? The Lord told Samuel. They've not just rejected you, Samuel, but me. They've rejected the Lord himself. They chose to have a king because they were convinced that a king would give them security.

The king would make them mighty and safe. Like people today choose to live for making money, for getting rich, or pursuing their relationship or the marriage or the family. That will provide security.

That's what many people are after, the security that wealth or a family or a good government can give. The government, they think, will give them security. But in the end it all fails. The mighty fall.

Israel had sought a king for the purpose of avoiding a situation just like this. But now the king is dead. They've had their king for 40 years. He's dead, and the Israelites abandon their nearby towns like Besson.

They're fleeing away from the center of Israel. And again, this is not on the border of the Philistines. Besson is east of Mount Geboa, near the Jordan River. So Israel has effectively been cut in half.

Israel is getting one of the curses of the covenant. They're losing the land. And the promise of the land was not unconditional. If they break the covenant, they were told this clearly in Deuteronomy, you break the covenant, you lose the land.

But what have they done to deserve losing the land? There are no reports of widespread idolatry at this time, like there were at some points in the book of Judges. There's no report that they're worshiping Baal or the Ashtoreth or whatever pagan god has come around.

So what have they done? Well, the Lord's told them already what they've done. They chose Saul because they rejected the Lord, because they wouldn't believe that he, the Lord, would protect them and provide for them.

How are the mighty fallen? Well, the mighty fall, when they get arrogant, when they get willful, they're going to do it their way, they're going to live and die their way, no matter what God says. So then they don't fear God's judgments, his threats, his warnings.

Saul, like Israel, was willful. He thought, like them, it matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul. But the gate is straight.

The path is narrow. And if you find it, Jesus is the only way. And that truth will matter to everyone in the end. They can deny it now. They can scoff at it now. It matters not. I don't care. I'm the captain of my soul.

It will matter. The scroll, God's covenant, is charged with punishments. That is, curses, judgments, which people might mock and say, well, it matters not. It matters not to me. Well, they might not take that seriously by now, yet.

Saul, years before, was told what to do with Amalekites and thought, well, he could do it his way. I got a better idea, he thought. He was told the punishment was that he had the kingdom torn from him and given to someone else.

And he thought, well, that mattered not. Samuel told him what the punishment was. He thought, that didn't matter. He could avoid it. He could hunt down and kill the one to whom the kingdom had been given.

And that's what he spent his years doing in the latter years of his reign. Now, imagine if he hadn't been so willful, hadn't been so determined to do it his way. Well, he'd have David fighting on his side with all his men, and he would not have died here.

But he thought he could avoid God's decree. Remember, God's decree, kingdom's torn from you, it's given to someone else. Ah, that matters not. He was the master of his fate, the captain of his soul. He thought that right up until the end, where he thought he had the right to take his own life.

He thought, it's my life. No, it's not, Saul. He died like he lived. Arrogant, willful, defiant of God's word. And so his life is a tragedy. The next day, in verse 8, the Philistines come to the battleground to strip the dead and find Saul's body along with his sons.

And so they cut off his head like David had cut off Goliath's head. They stripped the armor and put it as a trophy in the temple of the pagan goddess Asterith. Asterith is Mrs. Ball. Asterith is the female consort of Ball.

And they hung his headless body on display on the wall of Beshan, which is now, again, the city in the middle of Israel, kind of toward the Jordan. Now it belongs to the Philistines. They've occupied it in the middle there, right in central Israel.

This is like enemies of the U .S. occupying St. Louis. Now remember, Israel's quest for a king began when the Ark was captured, when it was placed at a pagan temple, the temple of Dagon, as a trophy. But then God toppled Dagon, cut off his head, and the Philistine idol was decapitated and taunted.

Now Israel's idol, Saul, the one they chose over the Lord, is decapitated, and Israel is taunted with it. If you choose an idol, money, family, relationship, government, it will eventually be decapitated and put on display to be mocked, and you'll think how the mighty have fallen.

Well, to the Philistines, all this was good news. In verse 9, see the verse 9? Go tell the good news. It was a gospel. It was a message. That's what gospel means. It means good news. It was a message of great joy.

So they sent their messengers, their angels. They went out to their pagan temples in cities like Gath, Tel Aviv and Gath, declaring, I bring you good news of great joy, which shall be to all the people of Philistia.

For unto us this day in the middle of Israel was killed a Savior, the anointed of the Lord, a Christ, a king. Glory to Dagon in Asherah and whoever else is in the highest. And on earth cursed be the Lord's people.

That's their gospel. And for now, it looks triumphant and they look mighty. The only positive note, the only bit of light in that last chapter, 1 Samuel, is the gratitude and the bravery of the men of Jabesh Gilead.

Jabesh Gilead had been rescued by Saul before he started his decline, when he was at his height. In chapter 11, they were grateful and gratitude even, I should say, especially for the dead is a sign of grace.

You know you don't deserve what was done for you, that it was gracious of them to raise you or to give you or whatever they gave you or to save you. And so you're grateful. And that's a sign of God's grace to you when you realize this is grace.

I don't earn this. I don't deserve it. To honor the dead is to honor someone you know who can't pay you back. So it's never selfish to honor the dead. Some people can pay you back and so it can be selfish because they expect something in return.

When you honor the dead, you know you're not getting anything in return. So it's not selfish. And the men of Jabesh Gilead were grateful and they were indignant that the man who had saved them almost 40 years earlier was being desecrated like that.

This is horrible. They were just indignant about that. And so all their mighty men, the word there Hebrew can literally, their mighty men, they marched all that night over the Jordan. Jabesh Gilead is kind of on the other side of the Jordan from where this battle took place.

So it wasn't too far away, but they went all through the night, crossed the Jordan on this dangerous mission, raiding right into the heart of where the Philistine army had recently been and for all they knew was still there.

And they took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall and they took the bodies back to their home. They burned them, burned the bodies, partially cremating them. Cremation is okay. And then they buried the bones and they observed a week of mourning and fasting in honor of their dead hero.

They honored the dead because they were honorable. They grieved that the king is dead. But part two, long live the king. In 2 Samuel 1, which is just a continuation of the one book of Samuel. Meanwhile, David returned to his home in Ziklag when three days later a man came from Saul's camp from this very battle.

Verse 2 says his clothes were torn, there's dirt on his head. And if that sounds familiar, because in 1 Samuel 4, verse 12, when Israel had been defeated by the Philistines and the Ark of the Covenant was captured, a messenger comes from the battle with his clothes torn and dirt on his head, just like here.

And again, we're back to that time. This is bringing back our memories, alluding back to that incident, which set off the chain of events that led to Israel rejecting God, choosing a king to their own liking, a king who was like them, willful, doing it their way, captains of their own soul.

After 40 years of a willful king, Israel is back to where they started, just as defeated, just as weak. But now comes the real king, God's king. He comes in two parts. In chapter 1, the crowning of the king and the lament of the king.

And the messenger comes to David in verse 2. He pays homage because David's the king. And David asked him, where do you come from? He says he's come from Israel camp. He says he's escaped, like escaping from a siege.

In other words, he barely got out with his life. And David asked him about the battle. And he says Israel's men fled or they were killed. And then Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead. David asked for confirmation.

This is a rumor. David's smart. He knows rumors like this can get passed around unconfirmed. And so the messenger tells this story in verse 6. By chance, I happen to be on Mount Geboa, and there was Saul leaning on his spear.

And Saul loved his spear. So this may have been true, that he was clinging to that spear to the very end. Behold, the chariots and the horsemen were close upon him. Now, is he just dramatizing now or is this for real?

We don't really know. In verse 7, when he looked behind him, he saw me and called to me. Now, David is probably here thinking, what are you doing behind him? You should be in front of him, trying to defend him, protect him.

But here we know that the man is starting his self-promoting fiction. In verse 8, he said to me, who are you? And I answered, I'm an Amalekite. The man probably doesn't know what that makes David think at the moment.

But he's playing up his role here. In verse 9, Saul said to me, stand beside me. In other words, come up to where I am and kill me for anguish has seized me, and yet my life still lingers. And so then the messenger boasts in verse 10.

Now, he's probably sure that all this is going to be good news to David. He's thinking, he's assuming that David is receiving this news, that finally his nemesis, David's nemesis, the man who chased him all over southern Israel, who twice threw a spear at him, was out to kill him, who had been clinging to power and making David have to seek refuge among the Philistines, David's going to be relieved, if not jubilant, that finally Saul is dead.

So the man, assuming all this, boasts, so I stood beside him and killed him because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen, and I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, something like the biceps, triceps, upper arm, proof that it was from Saul himself, he had proof.

He has the crown and that other decoration. And I brought them here, here they are, to my Lord, to David. He has the crown to prove it. David finally, years after having been anointed, has the crown. Here is the crowning of the king.

Now the messenger was probably flabbergasted by the response of David and his men, instead of taking the crown, putting it on his head and saying, we're in business now, guys, let's go party and then let's take over Israel.

They lamented. They grieved for the dead, tearing their clothes, their mourning, their weeping. They fasted that day. They mourned for Saul and Jonathan and many of the dead of Israel because they had fallen by the sword.

And then comes David's first act as the bearer of the crown. He asked the messenger where he's from. He says, I'm a sojourner. That means a resident alien, a foreigner living in the country, an Amalekite.

Now, Amalekites, we know all about them, who is living in Israel. And that means a sojourner, long term resident. He should know Israelite ways. He should know the law. And so David said, how is it that you were not afraid to put out your hand to destroy the Lord's anointed?

It really wasn't a question. He's not seeking information. It was David's way of telling him, you should have known better. If the story is true, he should have died fighting to protect Saul. Certainly never have struck him.

And if it's false, which we know it is, then it is what the man wishes had had happened. Boy, I wish I had done that so I could boast of it. So he doesn't know any better. I'm going to say I did. Instead, he's thinking, tell David this great news.

I'm going to get a reward. He's going to love me for it. And instead, his reward is that David, now with the crown, orders him, with his first act as the crown king, to be executed. He says, your blood be on your own head.

In other words, you deserve this. Your actions make it necessary for your own mouth has testified against you saying, I have killed the Lord's anointed. David's first act as the crown king is to execute the one who boasts of killing the Lord's anointed, a Christ.

David's second act as the crown king is to lament and declare, Israel learned this lamentation. He said, Edith, you're going to learn this lament. From verse 17 is the lament of the king. It comes in three parts, each part briefer than the one before about the glory, about Jonathan and about weapons.

And verse 17, David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan. We don't know how to lament anymore in this culture. We don't make ourselves taste the bitter, always just the sweet. We don't see people stopping their cars anymore at a funeral.

As a funeral procession goes by, getting out of the roadside, putting their hands over their hearts. That used to be a common practice at a younger cousin, very undisciplined, raised on the sweet. And his life turned out to a wreck because of it.

At the funeral of my grandfather, say, are we having fun yet? Another cousin, an older cousin responded sternly. No, we're not. This is not supposed to be fun. You need to lament to go to funerals so you can enjoy wedding receptions.

You need to have Memorial Day so you can have the Fourth of July. You need to have days of fasting so you can have days of feasting. You need to lament for the dead so you can enjoy the birth of the living.

So David composes this lament and orders it in verse 18 to be taught to Israel and preserved in a book. David lamented with this lamentation and first lamented about their glory or the word could be their beauty.

That which you boast in, that which you think is glorious, is magnificent, is beautiful. Islam, they boasted in Saul. He was handsome, he was tall, he was regal looking, had that royal bearing. They were proud of Saul.

They had confidence in him. Like you might have confidence in your wealth or your family or the government to keep you safe. And he was the government. And now he was killed on a mountaintop. How the mighty have fallen.

Verse 20, tell it not in Gath. Publish it not in Ashkelon, these Philistine cities. This good news to you, anyway, good news to you of the death of the king. Don't boast and gloat because the king is alive.

And he will bring judgment on you, Gath. Tell it, your inverted gospel, not in Gath. Now, sure, the first king of Israel is dead, but God has raised up another. Long live the king. Don't celebrate while you have no covenant, you who have no covenant with God.

Because your glory, your beauty, whatever it is you think is mighty, your physique, your education, or your wealth, it will fall too. And you'll think, in the end, how the mighty are fallen. Sure, he laments, we've gotten the curses of the covenant for putting our confidence in our idol, Saul.

But may that curse land on the very place he died, in verse 21. That's where he was defiled, where his shield failed him. It was not anointed. Not that Saul and Jonathan went down without a fight. They took a lot of Philistines with them.

They caused many of their mighty to fall, and they went down together, beloved and lovely in life and death. They were not divided, swift like eagles, strong like lions. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

So David invites the women of Israel, those who celebrated their prowess in the past, who composed the Didi. Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his tens of thousands. Now weep over Saul, in verse 24.

He protected you so that you could prosper. He provided for you. He clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, put ornaments of gold on your apparel. You owe him gratitude, and so now you owe him grief. Then Jonathan, in verses 25 and 26.

How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle. The tragedy of Saul, we understand. His willfulness, his insistence that he's the captain of his soul in life and in death. That brought his disastrous end.

That makes sense. But why Jonathan? He was fateful. He was humble. He was willing to give up his claim to the throne, give it to David, the Lord's anointed. He believed in the small C, Christ. Why Jonathan?

David laments, I'm distressed for you, my brother, Jonathan. Verse 26. He had given to David that rarest of loves, philia, friendship. So why did he die? Why do the righteous suffer for the sins of the wicked?

He doesn't answer that question here. He just laments. And sometimes that's the best we can do. Respect the dead. Respect the respecting of the dead. Nearly every day I pass by the private memorial, put up about two or three miles from here on 86, at the home of Sergeant Richmond Colby, who was killed in action in Afghanistan.

I respect that. I wish we could bring back the tradition of stopping our vehicles and getting out, putting our hands over our heart. As funeral possessions go by, stop whatever we think is so important, we're in a hurry to do, and go to stop all that.