1 Samuel, Chapter 31 - A King Falls | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Fellow friends, welcome back to the Prophets of Israel Daily. This is First Samuel chapter 31, [music] the very end of the book, broadcasting from the road in Jerusalem. I'm Jeremy Gampel here with Ari Abramowitz, and this series is brought to you by the Land of Israel Network at the landofisrael.com. Ari, how you doing? >> Good, Jeremy. I'm excited. This is it, Samuel 1 coming to an end. >> Coming to an end. So, before we open up the text, I just want to take a moment and celebrate together. I mean, because today it's not that we're just finishing another chapter, today we complete another book of the Tanakh, Shmuel Aleph, First Samuel. And it's like from the very beginning, the barren prayer of Hannah whispering in Shiloh to the boy who heard God's voice calling him in the night time who to become like the greatest judge in Israel's history, then the people demand a king to Saul, the tall, the humble farmer lifted to the throne, the shepherd boy out with a slingshot who took the giant. Like we've lived through all of it. And now we've come to the final moment. It's like a sorrowful mountain, alone Saul is going to leave us. And we walked every step of it, one chapter a day, one day at a time. It's like pretty remarkable. And so, mazel tov, friends, what an accomplishment. I mean, to be learning the Prophets of Israel in the Land of Israel in these historic times. I mean, I have some friends that say it's the best 15 minutes of their day, and they wait every day for the newest chapter to come out. And there's nothing that makes me happier than when I hear that. So, mazel tov to all of us for showing up and finishing another book. >> Yeah, Jeremy, I've had people say that to me also, and I actually believe it because for me personally, I feel the same way. It's a lot to do these, but I'm so strengthened, and it's changed the entire prism through which I experience my own personal life and struggles with Hashem, where we are as a nation. So, I I really believe what they're saying to me and and we really appreciate the encouragement, too. So, anyways, before we go any further, I think it's just important to talk for a second about a question I had in my own mind. Why is it 1 Samuel and not just Samuel? And the whole thing is just Samuel. Why Samuel 1 and 2? Um and it's a it's an interesting story, you know, in the original Hebrew, there's no 1 Samuel or 2 Samuel. It's one book, one continuous soul, Sefer Shmuel, right, the Book of Samuel. The split into two came centuries later when the Tanakh was translated into Greek called the Septuagint. And the reason was sort of it was just a practical reason. Greek spells out its vowels and Hebrew doesn't. So, the Greek text simply ran too long to fit on a single scroll. And so, the scribes cut it into two. Um but but look at where they cut it, Jeremy. Not at David's coronation, not at some triumphant high note. They cut it right here at Shaul's death on Mount Gilboa, which means the dividing line of the entire book falls exactly between a king who falls and a king who rises. The death of Saul closes one scroll and the reign of David opens the next. Uh and it may maybe it's an accident of scroll length that's precisely on the deepest spiritual seam of the whole story. And maybe it's more than an accident. But in the end of the day, it is it's the end of the king people wanted and the beginning of the king that Hashem chose. >> Yeah, thank you, Ari. That makes a lot of sense and I'm glad that you kind of explained that cuz I think a lot of people don't know why there's 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. So, that was really interesting. Um all right. Well, listen, if they had to make a divide, the Greeks love tragedy at the ending. So, ending with Saul's death, um it makes total sense. But in truth, what that means the chapter we're reading today isn't just an ending, it's the hinge. It's the door between two eras. The book of Shmuel, at its heart, is the story of how Israel transitioned from the chaos of the judges, where everyone did what was right in their own eyes, into a unified kingdom. And the kingship had to be learned. Saul was I don't know, like the first draft. He was Shaul, he was only borrowed. And David is the masterpiece. And you can't fully appreciate the glory of David in the next book without standing today at the grave of the king who came before him. So, let's start the chapter, and I'll warn you, it's pretty heavy. This is verse one. Now, the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines and fell down slain on Mount Gilboa. I mean, Israel now is in full retreat. And then, the Philistines close in on the royal family. They strike down Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua, Saul's sons. Jonathan, the truest friend David ever had, the crown prince who loved David more than his own claim to the throne, is gone in a single verse. And for me, that's the hardest part of the whole story. Jonathan was so good and so righteous, so loyal to David, and good with God. I mean, he was just the best, and it breaks my heart that he had to die. And so, verse three, the battle pressed hard against Saul. The archers found him, and he was badly wounded by the archers. And then, Saul turns to his armor-bearer and says, "Draw your sword and run me through before these uncircumcised men come and abuse me." But, the armor-bearer is too afraid to actually kill the king of Israel, and so Saul takes his own sword and falls on it. And his armor bearer, seeing his king dead, falls on his sword beside him. Verse 6. So, Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor bearer, and all his men that same day together. That same day together, the house of Saul is like just swept off the board in an afternoon. >> Yeah, Jeremy, I can't read this without thinking how backwards it all is from where Saul began. Remember chapter 15, the sin that cost Saul the kingdom in the first place? God commanded him to wipe out Amalek completely, and Saul spared what he was told to destroy. He couldn't finish the one word God demanded. Like, in some ways, like, you know, they say, "He had one job." One job. And here's the tragedy of Saul's sword. It was always pointed the wrong way. He spared the enemy that he was commanded to strike, Amalek. Then in chapter two, he turned and slaughtered the Kohanim, the priests of the city of Nov, 85 innocent men, women, children, sucklings, the very people he was never supposed to touch. Right? He's soft where God wanted strength, and ruthless where God wanted mercy. And now, at the very end, that misaimed sword turns one final time inwards. And he falls on it. The one violent act he never fully completes is against the one person he had no right to harm. Himself. Now, compare that to David. Just two chapters ago, in chapter 29, we watched David gain the kingdom through restraint. Through what he didn't do. He was held back from the battlefield by the hand of Hashem. The whole book has been building to this contrast, and I think the the prophets place it right here at the seam on purpose. The throne is not won by the sword, it's won by the soul. Saul had the sword his whole life and he never quite had the soul for it. And that's the entire difference between the king who closes the book of Samuel 1 and the king who opens the next book of Samuel 2. >> Yeah, that's really right, Ari, and I just think it's such a midah keneged midah that Saul was supposed to go and kill Amalek with his sword, and in the end it's the sword that kills himself just in perfect poetry. And I mean, notice the Tanakh refuses to airbrush this. I mean, every other ancient nation buries its king in glory, carved out the victories in their stone memories forever, and like the Bible gives us the fall in its first king, and it's kind of like Who got it not glory, what's the word? Gory. >> [laughter] >> It's like getting the gory details. This is in the mountain alone in defeat, committing suicide, attempting to fall on his sword. I mean, the Bible was not written for the glory of kings, not even for the glory of God, but as prophecy, as timeless wisdom for every generation. And it's painful and it's hard, but the mistakes and faults of our greatest leaders, they're sometimes the greatest lessons we can learn. And so, the book of Samuel is the story of Hashem working through deeply human and flawed people. That's what makes it so honest and so relatable. But friends, the chapter doesn't end at the grave. If only the story ended with a tragic death. Listen to what happens next. This is verses 8 and 10. The next day the Philistines find the bodies. They cut off Saul's head. They strip his armor and send it through their land as good news to their people and their idols. They take Saul's dead body and fasten it to the wall at Beth Shan, a public humiliation, a trophy nailed up for the whole region to gloat over. I mean, this is the lowest in Saul's life, even though he's not even alive anymore. I mean, the king of Israel is displayed headless in shame, defeat on an enemy's wall. I mean, we know Samuel told Saul that today he would be right next to him in the world to come. We know that Saul made it to heaven, but it seems as though he needed to go through one more nisayon, one more challenge. It's like the one thing Saul cared about more than anything else was his perception in the eyes of the nation. That was the source of almost all of his mistakes in one way or another. This ending, he loses that honor in the most horrific and public way possible. I mean, there he is, no armor, no royal garb, no head, fastened to an enemy wall as a monument of Israel's defeat. I don't think Saul could have chosen a harder way to go, for him personally to go. It seems as though Saul had a lesson to learn in his death that he just couldn't learn in his lifetime. But as the saying goes, better to suffer in this world than in the next. But now, after all that drama that was the life of Saul, Saul is in paradise by Samuel. And then the people of Israel, they take back their king as they try to regain their fallen honor. Verse 11. And when the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard that the Philistines had done to Saul, the men of Jabesh Gilead, all their valiant men, they rise up, they march all night, they take the bodies of Saul and his sons down off the wall, carry them home, and give them an honored burial under the terebinth tree, and they fast for 7 days. >> Yeah, Jeremy, I just for a second, you know, Jabesh-Gilead. People might rush right past that name. Sometimes you just list names of cities and and you you if you miss it, it's such a beautiful thread in the whole chapter because if you go all the way back to chapter 11, to Saul's very first act as king, the moment he proved himself, it was the rescue of Jabesh-Gilead, right from Nahash the Ammonite who wanted to gouge out the right eye of every man in the city. And Saul saved them at the dawn of his reign. And now at the very end, when his own army has fled, when the rest of Israel has abandoned their towns and run, it's Jabesh-Gilead. And Jabesh-Gilead alone that remembers. Their bravest men cross enemy ground through the night to take their king down off that wall and carry him home with dignity. A lifetime later, and everyone else has already really given up on him. And it's just moves me, you know, this gratitude that they refused to let go. I mean, I can imagine if I were one of them, I'm walking around this right eye that I have, it's because of Saul. There's a loyalty there. There's a gratitude there. It shows a healthy soul on their part. It's hesed, you know, loyal covenant kindness outliving the worst possible ending. The whole nation forgot what Saul once did for them. One small town remembered and that memory was strong enough to send them into the dark, into danger for a corpse, for honor, right? And for for a debt of love. It tells you that no act of goodness is ever truly lost. You plant kindness and years later, it can rise up and walk through the night to carry you home, even when everything else has collapsed. >> Yeah. And friends, that is how the book of 1 Samuel ends, with an act of loyalty and love from faithful people who love their king and who refuse to forget. That is so deeply Jewish and it's so deeply Israel and it speaks straight into our generation because we are right now living the transition the book of Samuel's all about the long painful glorious road from the era of the judges to the era of King David. I mean we've watched modern Israel produce its share of Sauls. Leaders of real promise they just couldn't really finish the job. They always feared the nations. They feared the wrong things. I mean they looked over their shoulder at what the world would say, what would our nation say, what are their polls going to show instead of looking upward to heaven. And the great yearning of our times is the same yearning that closes the book. The yearning for the king who is coming. For Mashiach ben David whose dynasty is being born as we end this scroll. And so friends, we did it. We finished another book of the prophets together. And tomorrow is Hashem we don't stop. We turn the scroll and open to 2 Samuel, the book of King David. The king rises. The kingdom begins. The line that leads all the way to redemption starts to unfold before our eyes. Hazak Hazak u'Nit'chazek. Be strong. Be strong and let us strengthen one another. And as we start the newest book, I would love for you to come to landofisrael.com, sponsor a chapter or an episode, sponsor an entire book. It gives us the strength and the [music] wind in our sails to keep this ship sailing. So click on the link below and join us [music] in spreading these prophetic words from Israel to the world. Shalom from the mountains of Jerusalem and we'll see you tomorrow >> [music] >> as we begin the book of King David.