Lamenting the Fallen
The first funeral I ever preached was my twin sister’s. The first time I ever remember truly grieving, though, was when my grandfather died when I was in the eighth grade. He came to every one of my baseball games even though he had to drive over an hour away. I had a dream he hugged me and told me he loved me and was woken up by my mom telling me he passed away. In different ways, I’m still lamenting these two deaths in my life. That’s what we’re going to see today as David faces the death of Saul and Jonathan.
Eugene Peterson says, “We’re now at the midpoint in the David story. David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan functions as a pivot: David’s lament keeps everything in the first half of the story working in the second half. Lament is the bridge from life to death to life.”[1]
God alone must be on the throne of our life. (1-16)
Verse 1 says, “After the death of Saul…” This should make David very happy, right? He has been running from Saul maybe around ten years. David doesn’t know yet that Saul has died. He’s about to find out. But the previous chapter has showed us how he died.
When Samuel was written, it was written as one continual book. It wasn’t divided into two books of 1 and 2 Samuel. So, 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel 1 flow right into each other. There’s no diving chapter marker here. In 1 Samuel 31:4-6 we see how Saul died.
“4 Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and mistreat me.” But his armor-bearer would not, for he feared greatly. Therefore Saul took his own sword and fell upon it. 5 And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him. 6 Thus Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor-bearer, and all his men, on the same day together.”
That’s how he died. But it gets worse after he died. Look at verses 8-13.
“8 The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. 9 So they cut off his head and stripped off his armor and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines, to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people. 10 They put his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. 11 But when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, 12 all the valiant men arose and 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. 13 And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted seven days.”
Why did Saul die in such a way? It wasn’t because the Philistines were such great warriors. It wasn’t because their gods had won the victory, even though they were going through the land proclaiming that. 1 Chronicles 10:13-14 shows us the real reason Saul died in such a way:
13 So Saul died for his breach of faith. He broke faith with the Lord in that he did not keep the command of the Lord, and also consulted a medium, seeking guidance. 14 He did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David the son of Jesse.
Saul was king, but God wasn’t on the throne of his life. He was. He followed his own way. He sought guidance outside of God and the ways of God. He didn’t live by faith. David, on the other hand, is a different story. Of anything that could follow the words, “After the death of Saul…” for David, imagine what it could be. After the death of Saul…David threw a big party because he was finally free! After the death of Saul…David immediately took the throne that was always rightfully his by God. After the death of Saul…David held a big parade in grand celebration. You could go on and on. But that’s not what we see. Let’s read the rest of verse 1-16.
So, what’s happening here is this Amalekite has traveled around 100 miles from mount Gilboa. He intends to acknowledge David as Saul’s successor—which he is. And he likely wants to be rewarded. I think that because his story doesn’t line up with what we read in 1 Samuel 31. He’s presenting himself as performing a mercy killing on Saul. He took his crown and his armlet, and he brought it to David. Really, it was loot, or spoil like we talked about last week.
But think about this. Think about how God works in his sovereignty, in His providence. David receives the crown without having to take it for himself. God provides for us according to His perfect plan and in His perfect timing. Twice in this passage David mentions this man killing “the Lord’s anointed.” If you remember back, David had two chances to kill Saul. But what would he not do? I will give you his direct quotes, straight from his heart…a man after God’s own heart.
1 Samuel 24:6, 10 – 6 He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the Lord's anointed.” … 10 Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, ‘I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord's anointed.’
1 Samuel 26:16, 23 – 16 This thing that you have done is not good. As the Lord lives, you deserve to die, because you have not kept watch over your lord, the Lord's anointed. And now see where the king's spear is and the jar of water that was at his head.” … 23 The Lord rewards every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness, for the Lord gave you into my hand today, and I would not put out my hand against the Lord's anointed.
This is from David’s own heart and conviction, even though the throne was his by God. Even though God had rejected Saul as king. What would David not do even though he had the chance twice? He could not harm or kill “the Lord’s anointed.” So, he had this messenger who really was after his own reward be put to death. This Amalekite really was responsible for his own death. And in so doing, David honored “the Lord’s anointed” even in his death. Y’all, what we see here and by what follows in David’s lamenting is that “David didn’t kill Saul with a sword or in his heart.”[2] Oh would we have such a heart. We only can if God alone is on the throne of our heart.
We need to learn how to lament. (17-18)
Verses 17-18 say, “17 And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan his son, 18 and he said it should be taught to the people of Judah; behold, it is written in the Book of Jashar.”
Majority of the Psalms are psalms of lament. 70% of the Psalms.[3] Of the 150 Psalms, David wrote 73 of them. Of the 73 Psalms that David wrote, I say that there’s 42 that are laments of some kind.[4] You know what that means? We need to learn how to lament.
We know how to complain, but we don’t know how to lament. We know how to be sad, but we don’t know how to lament. We know how to throw pity parties, but we don’t know how to lament. This is a shameless plug, but in my book, Battles in the Promised Land, the book is divided into four sections. The second section is focused on King David. But specifically, it is focused on laments. That is one central component of how he did battles in the promised land. He called out to God the entire time. Here is how I teach on laments. I say these are the four components that make up laments. I will just tell you briefly. If you want more in-depth, you will have to buy the book. (I’m just kidding.) Laments are:
Confessional: either admitting personal failures that have led to our peril (sin) or telling God that we don’t have the strength or power to continue on our own.[5]
Directional: vertically directed towards God.[6]
Actional: Complaining voices our suffering without regards to action. Lamenting voices our suffering by begging for action. Complaining is resting in your suffering. Lamenting is calling for help out of your suffering. Laments are actional, on our behalf and God’s, because we are crying out for God to help us in our suffering and despair. It is beseeching God to act on our behalf.[7]
Hopeful: Because laments are directed toward God, and because God is the only one who can do something about our helpless state, we always have a reason to hope.[8]
So, let’s look at David’s lament and see how to lament in the process.
We don’t lament because we don’t take truth and love seriously.[9] (19-27)
We have to be taught how to do this because it doesn’t come naturally to us. Eugene Peterson says we need to, “Teach one another how to take seriously these great cadences of pain, some coming from hate, some coming from love, so that we’re not diminished but are deepened by them—find God in them, and beauty.”[10]
There’s a refrain that is repeated three times throughout David’s lament: “How the mighty have fallen!” (19, 25, 27). David genuinely sees both Saul and Jonathan truthfully and with love. That’s something that we can’t genuinely say about most people. We are biased about most people, either one way or another. We either are holding a grudge of some kind, so we look at them with a stink face in our heart, or we look at someone with rose-colored glasses, and they can do no harm. David is saying “How the mighty have fallen!” neither with celebration nor with sarcasm. It is with genuine grief and lament. We need to learn to do the same if we want to be men and women after God’s own heart.
We must see the truth about people and situations.
That means we must see the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are good things worth celebrating about our enemies. About people we don’t like. And there are negatives about everyone, even that person you have put upon the highest pedestal. But we tend to look at everyone through extremes, especially in today’s culture.
David starts off his lament by saying the glory of Israel has been slain (vs. 19). And though this is an enemy of David, he is crying out, in verse 20, that it not be told in Gath or published in the streets of Ashkelon. These are enemy towns nearest and farthest from Israel that, in a sense, represents all of Philistia. Though Saul is his enemy, he is wishing there be no enemies rejoice over this great loss.
He saw the good in Saul and Jonathan. And that’s what he points out in this song of lament. He curses the mountain they died on in verse 21. He remembers their skills as fighters in verse 22. Jonathan was a great archer.[11] Saul was an expert swordsman. They died doing what they were supposed to be doing. They were defending their kingdom. The king was out there fighting for his people. And he did just that. He did fight for the people. Look at 1 Samuel 14:47-52:
47 When Saul had taken the kingship over Israel, he fought against all his enemies on every side, against Moab, against the Ammonites, against Edom, against the kings of Zobah, and against the Philistines. Wherever he turned he routed them. 48 And he did valiantly and struck the Amalekites and delivered Israel out of the hands of those who plundered them.
49 Now the sons of Saul were Jonathan, Ishvi, and Malchi-shua. And the names of his two daughters were these: the name of the firstborn was Merab, and the name of the younger Michal. 50 And the name of Saul's wife was Ahinoam the daughter of Ahimaaz. And the name of the commander of his army was Abner the son of Ner, Saul's uncle. 51 Kish was the father of Saul, and Ner the father of Abner was the son of Abiel.
52 There was hard fighting against the Philistines all the days of Saul. And when Saul saw any strong man, or any valiant man, he attached him to himself.
Now, back to verse 23, David states that not only Jonathan, but Saul AND Jonathan are beloved and lovely. We’ll get to that in the next point. But look at what he says about them. “In life and in death they were not divided.” Jonathan had made a covenant with David. He had given up his rights to the throne to David. His heart was with David, not his father. But he honored his father, and he died fighting beside him. There is honor in that. And David sees that and honors that as well.
In verse 24, David tells the daughters of Israel to “weep over Saul, who clothed you luxuriously in scarlet, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel.” David is highlighting the monetary good that Saul brought Israel. Again, David is choosing to see the good. That is what people do in eulogies. That is how funerals are. Think about all the funerals you have been to. I doubt, no matter how bad the person was, that a single one of the funerals was a roast of how bad the person was. You remember the good things about them, even if they were rotten in life.
But I want you to notice something important here. Notice that God is never mentioned. Now I want you to think about this: How do you want to be remembered when you die? I want to be remembered for the Lord. I want to be remembered for how I loved.
We must love others more than we love ourselves.
Look back again at verse 23. We see David say, “Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely!” David genuinely loves them. He loves not just Jonathan, but also Saul. That is why he is lamenting in such a way after finding out he has died. It’s not just because he sees the truth about him. It’s because he loved him. Grief is love persevering. You don’t have grief if you don’t have love.
We see that love that David had for Jonathan in verse 26. “Jonathan lies slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women.” Y’all, this isn’t homosexual love as some have made this seem.[12] Don’t allow Satan to pervert biblical brotherly love.
He wasn’t as close to me as David and Jonathan, but I had a dear friend die just a few months ago. He was just 51 years old. Me, him, and another youth pastor friend at the time would meet together every week and read books together and strengthen each other and pray for each other for several years. And we genuinely loved each other. And he died of cancer. And when I saw he passed away, even though I knew it was coming, my soul was distressed. I couldn’t hide it from the kids. They had to see their dad in a mess of grief that I couldn’t contain.
We must let people into our lives. We must love people and let people love us. Remember back to the covenant David and Jonathan made with each other. 1 Samuel 18:3 says, “Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.” We are told to love others like this. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves according to Jesus.[13] Actually, we are not just to love one another as our own souls. We are to go above and beyond that. Romans 12:10 says this: “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.” We must love one another more than we love ourselves.
You might keep people at a distance so that you never get hurt. If you never love, you’ll never grieve, you’ll never hurt, right? But that’s no way to live. That’s not how Christ lived. That’s not how David lived.
David rules and grieves with righteousness and justice.
Think about David. In his ruling and in his grieving, he’s not swayed by puffed-up and prideful people.[14] He becomes the standard to measure other kings by in this way in the future.[15] He does it imperfectly, though. As righteous as he rules, he is a sinful man. He falls into sin and adultery and murder. As much as they look to David as the ideal king to measure all kings by, they know he’s not the perfect standard. But there’s one, Immanuel, who will perfectly rule when He occupies the throne of David.[16] And He’s a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.[17] He will weep over the death of a friend.[18] And He’ll weep over Jerusalem who has gone astray and rejects Him who comes to bring them true peace and true righteousness and true justice and true life.[19]
Oh, would Jesus not weep over you except for tears of joy as you repent and follow Him. I must ask you today, have you believed in the Truth? Jesus is the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him.[20] Have you received the free gift of His love?[21] God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997), 123.
[2]https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/2-samuel-1
[3] Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, 115.
[4]Psalms 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 17, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 69, 70, 86, 109, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144
[5] Jacob Haywood, Battles in the Promised Land: Suffering, Hope, and the Abundant Christian Life (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2023), 42.
[6] Haywood, Battles in the Promised Land, 45.
[7] Haywood, Battles in the Promised Land, 46.
[8] Haywood, Battles in the Promised Land, 47.
[9] Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, 116.
[10] Peterson, Leap Over a Wall, 119.
[12]https://www.gotquestions.org/David-and-Jonathan.html; https://answersingenesis.org/family/homosexuality/david-jonathan-were-they-just-friends; https://apologeticspress.org/david-jonathan-homosexuals
[15] See 1 Kings 14:8; 2 Kings 18:3
[16]Isaiah 9:7; 11:2-5; Hebrews 1:8-9
