Reflections on 1 Chronicles 10

 1 Chronicles 10(Contemporary English Version)

1. The Philistines fought against Israel in a battle at Mount Gilboa. Israel's soldiers ran from the Philistines, and many of them were killed.
   
2. The Philistines closed in on Saul and his sons and killed three of them: Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua.
   
3. The fighting was fierce around Saul, and he was badly wounded by enemy arrows.
   
4. Saul told the soldier who carried his weapons, "Kill me with your sword! I don't want those godless Philistines to torture and make fun of me." But the soldier was afraid to kill him. Then Saul stuck himself in the stomach with his own sword and fell on the blade.
   
5. When the soldier realized that Saul was dead, he killed himself in the same way.
   
6. Saul, three of his sons, and all his male relatives were dead.
   
7. The Israelites who lived in Jezreel Valley learned that their army had run away and that Saul and his sons were dead. They ran away too, and the Philistines moved into the towns the Israelites left behind.
   
8. The next day the Philistines came back to the battlefield to carry away the weapons of the dead Israelite soldiers. When they found the bodies of Saul and his sons on Mount Gilboa,
   
9. they took Saul's weapons, pulled off his armor, and cut off his head. Then they sent messengers everywhere in Philistia to spread the news among their people and to thank the idols of their gods.
   
10. They put Saul's armor in the temple of their gods and hung his head in the temple of their god Dagon.
    
11. When the people who lived in Jabesh in Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,
    
12. some brave men went to get his body and the bodies of his three sons. The men brought the bodies back to Jabesh, where they buried them under an oak tree. Then for seven days, they went without eating to show their sorrow.
    
13. Saul died because he was unfaithful and disobeyed the LORD. He even asked advice from a woman who talked to spirits of the dead,
    
14. instead of asking the LORD. So the LORD had Saul killed and gave his kingdom to David, the son of Jesse.

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Chapter 10 gives a brief summary of Saul's death, but no account of his life. This account of Saul's death provides a contrast between Saul, who was prematurely chosen as king at the insistence of the people, and David, who was God's intended king for Israel all along. Though Saul had a humble beginning as king, hiding in the baggage at the time of his anointing (1Samuel 10:22), he did not have the strength of character to handle the position and demands of a king. In the end, he abandoned God and turned to a medium for spiritual counsel rather than to the Lord.

When the people had insisted on a king, against God's counsel, it was God who anointed Saul to be king and whose Spirit empowered him to be king (1 Samuel10:9-10). But when the pressure became too great, he did not trust God but turned to sources he could physically see and hear. Since God had placed Saul in the position as king, He also removed him. Unfortunately, Saul was not the only one who suffered as a result of his bad choices. As only one example of this, his sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua died with him in battle on the same day that Saul died.