2 Samuel 1 Introduction

Structure and Formatting

This chapter continues the story from the last section of 1 Samuel about how David became king of Israel. It tells how he learned that Saul and Jonathan had died and how he composed a song to celebrate their lives and grieve their deaths.Some translations set each line of poetry farther to the right than the rest of the text to make it easier to read. The ULT does this with the poetic song in [1:19–27](../01/19.md).

Religious and Cultural Concepts in This Chapter

Why is the young Amalekite’s account of Saul’s death different from the account in [1 Samuel 31](../../1sa/31/01.md)?

In [1 Samuel 31:4](../../1sa/31/04.md), the author says that Saul died by falling on his own sword after Philistine archers wounded him badly. In this chapter, a young Amalekite man says that he killed Saul himself when Philistine chariots and horsemen, not archers, were threatening him. The reason for the difference in the accounts is that the young man is probably lying.He is not an Israelite but an Amalekite living in Israel, as he says in [1:13](../01/13.md). He may have been working for a soldier or group of soldiers in the Israelite military camp on Mount Gilboa, or he may have been someone who followed the army at a distance, hoping to get plunder after a battle. Either way, he would not have gone into the battle with the Israelite army. He probably hid as Philistines pursued the fleeing Israelites onto Mount Gilboa, and once the battle had moved on from there, he went out to take whatever valuables he could find from the bodies of dead soldiers. (The Philistines did not return to do that themselves until the next day, according to [1 Samuel 31:8](../../1sa/31/08.md).)He recognized Saul’s body from his royal crown and armband, and he took those things for himself. He believed that David considered Saul to be his enemy and that David would reward him if he had killed Saul. (David suggests in [2 Samuel 4:10](../04/10.md) that this was the young man’s motive.) So rather than keeping the golden crown and armband for their value, he brought them to David as supposed proof that he had killed Saul. But his story is improbable. He certainly would not have been in the thick of the battle, as he claims. Moreover, Saul would not have been standing alone on the battlefield, leaning on his spear. The author says in [1 Samuel 31:6](../../1sa/31/06.md) that Saul’s entire bodyguard died with him, reflecting the way that Israelite soldiers would have surrounded and defended Saul to the last man. If the Philistines had already killed his entire bodyguard, they would have killed Saul too. So the Amalekite has made up a story in the hopes that David will think he has killed Saul and reward him. As the story describes, however, this false claim only got the Amalekite himself killed. David had no way of knowing that his story was not true, and he had him executed for killing “the anointed one of Yahweh” ([1:14](../01/14.md)).

Why was Saul’s shield still on Mount Gilboa?

1 Samuel [31:10](../31/10.md) says that when the Philistines found Saul dead on Mount Gilboa the day after their battle with the Israelites, they took Saul’s equipment and put it in one of their idol temples as a trophy of victory. But David speaks in [2 Samuel 1:21](../01/21.md) as if Saul’s shield was still on Mount Gilboa. It is possible that the Philistines simply did not consider the shield something they should put in their temple along with Saul’s armor and weapons.However, David uses a strong word for how the shield was treated. He does not say that it was simply disregarded. He says that it was “loathed.” Elsewhere in the Bible, this word describes people deliberately rejecting something or someone else with a feeling of strong antipathy. So it is possible that the Philistines intentionally left Saul’s shield behind as an insult to him. This would have been a symbolic action suggesting that the shield was worthless, since it had not protected Saul from their weapons. This would be a way of asserting their military superiority over the Israelites. You may have a term in your language that you can use to translate “loathed” that would convey this meaning.

Translation Issues in This Chapter

Parallelism

In the song that David composed as a memorial tribute to Saul and Jonathan ([1:19–27](../01/19.md)), in many cases, a phrase means basically the same thing as the phrase before it. The second phrase emphasizes the meaning of the first phrase by repeating the same idea with different words. Hebrew poetry was based on this kind of repetition, and it would be good to show this to your readers by including both phrases in your translation rather than combining them. However, it may be clearer in your language to connect the phrases with a word that shows that the second phrase is repeating the first one, not saying something additional. For example, in [1:20](../01/20.md), for “lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph,” you might say, “otherwise, the daughters of the Philistines would rejoice, yes, the daughters of the uncircumcised would triumph.” In [1:22](../01/22.md), for “the bow of Jonathan did not turn back, and the sword of Saul did not return empty,” you might say, “the bow of Jonathan did not turn back, no, the sword of Saul did not return empty.”

David’s love for Jonathan

David speaks in [1:26](../01/26.md) of the love that he and Jonathan had for each other. If your language has more than one term for “love,” be sure not to use a term that describes sexual desire. Biblical Hebrew has specific language for sexual desire, and David does not use that language here. David speaks of Jonathan as his “brother,” meaning that he is his dear friend. When David says that this love “was more wonderful to me than the love of women,” he means that a deep, abiding friendship is better than romance. If your language has a word for friendship-love, it would be appropriate to use that word here in your translation. You could also use a word for unselfish love. If you have already translated the book of 1 Samuel, see how you translated the similar expression in [1 Samuel 18:1](../../1sa/18/01.md).