Commentary - 1 Samuel 31:7

Bird's-eye view

This single verse is the tragic capstone to the disastrous reign of King Saul. It depicts the immediate and catastrophic consequences of leadership failure. The covenant head of the nation has been struck down, and the body of the nation disintegrates into a panicked rout. This is not merely a military defeat; it is a covenantal judgment. The people's reaction, seeing, forsaking, and fleeing, is a textbook illustration of what happens when a nation's trust is in a man rather than in God. Saul was the king they had demanded in order to be "like all the nations," and here they receive the full fruit of that demand. Their king dies like the kings of the nations, and they flee like the armies of the nations. The Philistines, the perennial instrument of God's chastisement, simply walk in and occupy the inheritance. This verse serves as a dark backdrop against which the faithfulness of David, and ultimately the perfect kingship of Christ, will shine all the more brightly.

The geography mentioned is significant. The valley of Jezreel and the region beyond the Jordan were fertile, strategic parts of the promised land. Their abandonment represents a significant reversal of the conquest under Joshua. What God had given, their unbelief was now surrendering. The entire episode is a stark lesson in federal theology: as goes the king, so goes the kingdom. When the shepherd is struck, the sheep scatter. The verse is a picture of the wages of sin, which is death, disinheritance, and despair.

Outline

Context In 1 Samuel

First Samuel 31 records the final, ignominious end of Saul's reign. The chapter opens with the Philistines pressing their advantage in a fierce battle on Mount Gilboa. Saul's sons, including the noble Jonathan, are killed. Saul himself, grievously wounded and facing capture, takes his own life. This is the culmination of a long spiritual decline that began with his disobedience in chapter 15, his rejection by God, and his subsequent torment by an evil spirit and murderous jealousy toward David. The preceding chapters have detailed David's flight as a righteous fugitive while Saul devolved further into paranoia and ungodly superstition, culminating in his consultation with the witch of Endor in chapter 28. Chapter 31 is the final accounting. God's word through Samuel, that the kingdom would be torn from him, comes to its bloody and definitive fulfillment. This verse, then, describes the ripple effect of the king's demise, showing how his personal and covenantal failure translates into national disaster.

Key Issues

As Goes the King...

The principle of federal headship is written in bold letters across the entire Bible, and this verse is a particularly stark illustration of it. Adam sinned, and the entire human race fell with him. Christ obeyed, and all who are in Him are made righteous. In the Old Testament, the king functioned as a representative head for the nation. When the king was righteous and walked in faith, the nation was blessed. When the king was unfaithful, the nation suffered the consequences. This was not because God was being unfair to the people, but because the people were covenantally bound up with their leader.

Israel had demanded a king so they could be like the other nations, rejecting God's direct rule over them. God gave them their request, and Saul was the very image of the kind of king the world produces: tall, handsome, impressive on the outside, but ultimately governed by fear, pride, and disobedience. Here, at the end of his life, the people get the full package deal. Their man-centered hope collapses in a man-sized failure. They had put their trust in the visible strength of Saul and his army, and when that visible strength was broken, their faith evaporated. The lesson is clear: any hope that is not grounded in the living God is a foundation of sand, destined for a great fall.

Verse by Verse Commentary

7 Then the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, with those who were beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead.

The news of a military rout travels fast. The men of Israel here are not the soldiers on the front line, but the civilians, the families living in the towns and villages of the Jezreel Valley and across the Jordan River. Their vantage point gave them a clear view of the unfolding disaster. They saw two things that sealed their fate. First, they saw their own army in a full-blown, panicked retreat. The professional fighting force had broken. Second, they saw, or received definitive word, that their leadership was completely gone. Not just the king, but his sons, the heirs, the entire dynasty was wiped out in one day. The head was severed. For a people whose hope was in their political and military structure, this was the end of the world. Their response was dictated by sight, not by faith. They looked at the circumstances, which were admittedly grim, and drew the logical, faithless conclusion.

So they forsook the cities and fled;

This is the tragic consequence of their sight-based assessment. They did not rally, they did not look to God, they did not make a stand for their homes and their inheritance. They simply abandoned everything. The word forsook is a strong one. It implies a complete and total abandonment. These were not strategic retreats; this was a panicked exodus. They gave up the fortified towns and cities that God had given to their fathers. This is what unbelief always does. It surrenders God-given territory to the enemy. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world, and so faithlessness is the defeat that surrenders the world. They ran for their lives, but in doing so, they abandoned the life God had covenanted to give them in the land.

and the Philistines came and lived in them.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does covenantal history. The land of promise cannot remain empty. If Israel will not possess it in faith, the uncircumcised will possess it by default. The Philistines did not even have to fight for these cities. They simply walked into the vacated real estate and set up housekeeping. This is the ultimate humiliation. The sworn enemies of God's people are now living in their houses, eating from their fields, and drinking from their wells. This is a direct fulfillment of the covenant curses laid out in Deuteronomy 28, where God warns that if Israel is disobedient, "A nation which you have not known will eat the fruit of your ground and all your labors" (Deut. 28:33). The Philistines were not the ultimate cause of this disaster; they were merely the instrument of God's righteous judgment against the unbelief that Saul embodied and the people had embraced.

Application

The end of Saul's reign is a grim but necessary story. It forces us to ask where our ultimate trust is placed. It is easy for Christians, particularly conservative Christians, to place an inordinate amount of hope in political leaders, movements, or cultural victories. We can begin to think that if we just get the right man in office, or win the right court case, then the kingdom will be secure. But this is a Saul-like hope. It is a hope fixed on the arm of the flesh.

This passage shows us the bankruptcy of that kind of hope. When the man fails, and all men eventually do, the hope collapses with him, leading to panic and flight. The Israelites forsook their cities. In the same way, when our political saviors fail, the temptation is to despair, to retreat from the culture, to abandon the posts God has given us. We see the enemy advancing and we forsake our "cities," giving up on Christian education, principled business, and robust cultural engagement.

The gospel provides the only true alternative. Our King is not Saul. Our King is Jesus. He did not fail in His battle. On the cross, it looked for all the world like He had been defeated, that the head had been struck down. But His death was not a failure; it was the very means of victory. He did not take His own life to avoid capture; He laid down His life to achieve our ransom. And He did not stay dead. He rose again, securing a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Therefore, we who are His people are not governed by what we see. We are not governed by the apparent victories of the Philistines of our age. We are governed by the reality of the empty tomb. Our King lives, and because He lives, we do not forsake our cities. We build them, we strengthen them, and we hold them in His name, knowing that the gates of Hell itself cannot prevail against the advance of His kingdom.