29 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places,.... The high mountains of Gilboa, where Saul their king, and Jonathan his son, a prince of the blood, and natural heir to the crown, and multitudes of young men, the flower of the nation, were wounded and slain. Here begins the lamentation, or the elegiac song: how are the mighty fallen! mighty...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Tell [it] not in Gath,.... One of the five principalities of the Philistines, and the chief of them, being raised to a kingdom, and whose king was at the head of the armies of the Philistines that engaged with Saul. This is not to be understood of a command of David, who could not hinder the victory the Philistines had got over Israel being known...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Ye mountains of Gilboa,.... On which fell Saul and his sons, and many of the people of Israel, 2 Samuel 1:6; [let there be] no dew, neither [let there be] rain upon you; which is not to understood as a real imprecation; for David would never curse any part of the land of Israel, for which he had so great a regard; but only as a poetical figure,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back,.... That is, it always did execution, the arrows shot frown it pierced into men, shed their blood, and slew them; even they entered into the fat of the mighty, or mighty ones, that were fat, and brought them down; so the arrows of the Medes and Persians,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Saul and Jonathan [were] lovely and pleasant in their lives,.... To one another, had no quarrel or difference with each other, only on the account of David; otherwise they agreed together in the court, and in the camp, in their councils, and in their conduct: and in their death they were not divided; neither from the people, nor from one another;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,.... In their mournful elegies; who clothed you with scarlet, with [other] delights; not only with scarlet, but with other fine and delightful apparel, such as were very pleasing to the female sex, especially young people, who are delighted with gay apparel; this Saul was the means of, through the spoil he...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!.... The mighty and valiant men of war, the common soldiers as well as their general officers, whose loss David mourns, and the repetition of shows how much it affected him: O Jonathan, [thou wast] slain in thine high places; in the high places of the land of Israel, the mountains of Gilboa,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan,.... So he was, not only by nation and religion, but by affinity, having married the sister of Jonathan; and still more so by affection and friendship, he being a friend of David's, that stuck closer to him than a brother, and who loved him as his own soul; he was distressed for him, not on account of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
How are the mighty fallen,.... This is the burden of this elegiac song, being the third time it is mentioned: and the weapons of war perished! not only the valiant soldiers were killed, but their arms were lost; and particularly he may mean Saul and Jonathan, who as they were the shields of the people, so they were the true weapons and instruments...