1 Now the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down wounded in mount Gelboe.
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VERS. 1.-- *Philisthiim,* etc. Many things being passed over which the history relates in the book of Samuel concerning Samuel and Saul, he records the fall of Saul and of his household. Hinting mystically that it is not needful to describe the life of one whose impious manner of living deserved to receive a swift end, and figuratively he shows the end of the kingdom of the Jews and of the old priesthood. He passed over to David, whose deeds and the ordering of whose kingdom he weaves together, who holds the type of the true David, possessing the kingdom of heaven and of earth. While he is at hand the Philisthiim after their manner fight against Israel and conquer, because, as grace drew near, the gentiles, as before, were assailing the chastity of the Israelite faith, showing now evil works, now the worship of idolatry, as Balaam taught Balaac to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat and to commit fornication. *And the men fled.* They who seemed strong in the contemplation of God, while they incautiously follow the works and the teaching of the gentiles; and secular learning has helped not a little the ruin of heretics also. Whence a certain one says: The philosophers, patriarchs of the heretics, have stained the purity of the Church with perverse doctrine.
2 And the Philistines drew near pursuing after Saul, and his sons, and they killed Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchisua the sons of Saul.
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VERS. 2.-- *And when they had drawn near.* The gentiles rushed in from every side upon the kingdom of Juda and its sons, and corrupted the priests, the scribes and the Pharisees, the sons, that is, and seducers of that kingdom, and the heretics also they forbade, that they should not simply preach or worship the grace of the Holy Spirit. *Abinadab.* That we should not praise with worthy confession the Father who adopted us to himself by a spiritual gift, which the slaying signifies, Abinadab, that is, of my willing father. *Melchisua.* That we should not believe salvation to come in the kingdom of Christ. For Melchisua is interpreted *my king is salvation.* The philosopher who seduced Arius slew, as it were, Melchisua: he who seduced Macedonius, Jonathan; he who seduced Manichaeus, Abinadab. Because the master of corruption taught this one to deny the omnipotence of the true King, Christ, that one to detract from the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the other to blaspheme the goodness of the most high Father.
3 And the battle grew hard against Saul and the archers reached him, and wounded him with arrows.
4 And Saul said to his armourbearer: Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and mock me. But his armourbearer would not, for he was struck with fear: so Saul took his sword, and fell upon it.
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VERS. 4.-- *And Saul said to,* etc. The Hebrews say that this was Doeg the Idumaean, who, seeing that Saul was dead, and fearing David, killed himself. But the young man (because he brought Saul's diadem and bracelet to David) was the son of Doeg, and Doeg himself was the young man with whom Saul was seeking his father's asses. *To his armour-bearer.* The teachers of the law. For as the arms and the arrows of the Philisthiim, etc., *as far as* that they might not be defiled, but that they might eat the pasch. *But his armour-bearer would not.* It is not to be doubted that among the reprobate teachers of the law there were some who would not pervert the edge of the word to the slaying of their hearers, and that nevertheless those same hearers, who had received things rightly said by their masters, by despising or by blaspheming turned them to their own destruction: and that, their death being seen, that is, their obstinacy in sinning, the ministers of the word themselves also, grown worse with the times, made the testimonies of the law, which they had feared to interpret ill, an occasion of ruin to themselves. Heretics too, bloodied with the darts of their own sins, when they drag the divine words into an argument for their error, turn their own arms against their own breast, about to die. Any catholic also, when he defiles with the contagion of pride, of vainglory, of the love of money, or of any vice whatsoever, the art which he learned for the common profit, pierces himself with his own sword, because that whereby he ought to have been defended from the enemy rushes upon him.
5 And when his armourbearer saw it, to wit, that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died.
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VERS. 5.-- *And when his armour-bearer had seen this.* The unlearned, ignorant of the medicines of true humility and of the laver of baptism, seeing in Judaea their own masters overcome in spiritual contest, and no small multitude, nearest to their hearing, driven from the ancient seat of constancy while the adversary pursued, troubled by the ruin of their elders, lost the works of the virtues and the defences of spiritual knowledge which they had had. And the sins of the gentiles came, and by a perverse habitation corrupted all the pursuits of the virtues for the unbelieving Jews. The unclean spirits came, and seized upon the hearts which the constancy of faith had forsaken. The nations came, and by believing made their own the once most excellent pursuits of the Jews. Whence: *The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruit thereof*.
6 So Saul died, and his three sons, and all his house fell together.
7 And when the men of Israel, that dwelt in the plains, saw this, they fled: and Saul and his sons being dead, they forsook their cities, and were scattered up and down: and the Philistines came, and dwelt in them.
8 And the next day the Philistines taking away the spoils of them that were slain, found Saul and his sons lying on mount Gelboe.
9 And when they had stripped him, and out off his head, and taken away his armour, they sent it into their land, to be carried about, and shewn in the temples of the idols and to the people.
10 And his armour they dedicated in the temple of their god, and his head they fastened up in the temple of Dagon.
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VERS. 10.-- *And the head.* The Philistines fastened the head of Saul in the temple of Dagon, etc., *as far as* for there is another Bethsan in Judges and in Josue, which is interpreted *the house of security.*
11 And when the men of Jabes Galaad had heard this, to wit, all that the Philistines had done to Saul,
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VERS. 11.-- *And when the men of Jabes had heard this.* The men, that is, of the Church, etc., *as far as* this is the city which Saul, at the first auspices of his reign, delivered from the siege of the enemy.
12 All the valiant men of them arose, and took the bodies of Saul and of his sons, and brought them to Jabes, and buried their bones under the oak that was in Jabes, and they fasted seven days.
v.12
VERS. 12.-- *Let him seek the oak in Jabes, and they fasted seven days,* etc. That they may come to rest. For after the six ages of this world in which we labour in the flesh, there follows the seventh, of the rest of souls. Mystically, over the blindness of the Jews carnally observing the sabbath, their fellow tribesmen, that is the faithful, grieve continually, and as it were fast seven days. But when the mystery of the eighth day of the resurrection has been received, both shall rejoice in a perpetual festival. Morally, however, holy men detest the death of the impious, and consign their examples to the burial of oblivion. They fast seven days, that is, they lead in continence all the time of this life, which rolls round in the septenary number of days, and they abstain from every evil, lest they die in like manner.
13 So Saul died for his iniquities, because he transgressed the commandment of the Lord, which he had commanded, and kept it not: and moreover consulted also a witch,
14 And trusted not in the Lord: therefore he slew him, and transferred his kingdom to David the son of Isai.