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Context No. 1110 of 4322 · 1 Samuel

Context · Reflection

1 Samuel 31:7-13: in context

7When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and those who were beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled; and the Philistines came and lived in them. 8On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. 9They cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and sent into the land of the Philistines all around, to carry the news to the house of their idols and to the people. 10They put his armor in the house of the Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan. 11When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, 12all the valiant men arose, went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth Shan; and they came to Jabesh and burned them there. 13They took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

Saul and his sons have died on Mount Gilboa, and Israel's army has fled. The Philistines find the bodies, cut off Saul's head, strip his armor, and fasten his corpse to the wall of Beth-shan as a trophy. But when the men of Jabesh-Gilead hear of it, their bravest march all night, take down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall, bring them home, burn them, bury the bones under a tamarisk tree, and fast seven days.

This last act of loyalty to Saul is deeply moving, and it has a long root. Years earlier, at the very start of his reign, Saul's first act as king had been to rescue the people of Jabesh-Gilead from a cruel enemy who threatened to gouge out their eyes. They never forgot it. Now, when Saul is dead and disgraced, his body hung on a wall in shame, and everyone else has abandoned him, the men of Jabesh remember the king who once saved them and repay the kindness with a dangerous night march to recover his body and give it an honorable burial. Their loyalty outlasts his fall and even his failures; they honor the man who had helped them, in his lowest and most shameful hour, when there was nothing to gain by it. There is something noble in a gratitude that does not evaporate when its object is defeated and disgraced, that remembers an old kindness and repays it precisely when the one who did it can no longer help anyone. The kindness Saul showed them at the beginning came back to him, through their loyalty, at the very end.

Do I remember and repay old kindnesses even when the one who helped me has fallen and can do nothing more for me, as the men of Jabesh honored the disgraced Saul?

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