Deeper ReflectionIN VERSES 1 TO 10, the narrator uses nine verbs specially to tell “a tale of brutal disaster”
9 in the battle between Israel and the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. The nine action words, with some repeated, are:
flee (three times) – “the men of Israel fled” (vv.1, 7);
fall/fallen (four times) – Israel “fell slain” (v.1), Saul and his armour-bearer “fell” on their own swords (vv.4, 5) and “Saul and his three sons fallen” (v.8); “the Philistines
killed Jonathan” (v.2); Saul “was badly
wounded” (v.3); Saul asked his armour-bearer to “
pierce me
through” with his sword (twice – v.4); the Philistines “
stripped” the slain Israelites (twice – vv.8, 9); Saul’s head was “
cut off ” (v.9); Saul’s dead body was “
fastened” to the wall (v.10); and Saul, his armour-bearer and his three sons “
died” (four times – vv.5-7). What “a dark time for the kingdom of God”
10, not just Israel! But we must know how to look at this very dark scene. What had happened was but
God fulfilling His Word spoken to Saul through the “disturbed” Samuel: “the LORD will give you and Israel into the hands of the Philistines” (1 Sam 28:19). Saul and Israel may fall, but the Word of God will not fall. The Word of God will and has surely come to pass. The Scripture is the “completely reliable prophetic word” that we “do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place” (2 Pet 1:19-21). “In darkness or in light what matters is having a God who speaks a true and faithful word.”
11
9 Dale Ralph Davis, 325
10 Dale Ralph Davis, 325
11 Dale Ralph Davis, 325
