1 Samuel 31:9

Note

The Philistines turned Saul's death into a victory bulletin and sent it around their land. Here basar (בָּשַׂר) stands where the word most often stands in Israel's histories: news from the battlefield, carried home by the side that won.

On Mount Gilboa the army of Israel broke, and Saul and three of his sons died (1 Samuel 31:1–6). The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found the king's body. They "cut off Saul's head, stripped off his armor" (1 Samuel 31:9) and sent the news throughout their territory. His armor went into the temple of the Ashtoreths; his body was hung on the wall of Beth-shan (1 Samuel 31:10). The shame was ended by the men of Jabesh-gilead, whom Saul had rescued in the first victory of his reign (1 Samuel 11:1–11): they marched all night, took the bodies down, buried the bones and fasted seven days.

The verb is levaser, the piel infinitive of basar with a preposition: "to bear the news." What stands out is who receives it. The Hebrew sets two objects side by side, "the house of their idols" and "the people." The Philistines reported their victory not only to their people but to their gods, as though the news belonged first in the temple. The same event was a triumph in Philistia and a day of mourning in Israel. Even when basar means good news, the verse makes the reader ask: good for whom?

The translations handle the two objects in slightly different ways. The BSB has the messengers "proclaim the news in the temples of their idols and among their people," and the KJV has them publish it "in the house of their idols," keeping the Hebrew word house. The LSV reads to proclaim tidings in the house of their idols. In Korean, the 흠정역 keeps 집, house, while the 개역한글 says 신당, a shrine, and uses 전파하다, the verb Korean churches use for preaching the gospel. That last choice quietly shows how ordinary the word once was: the same Korean verb that later carries the gospel here carries a Philistine war report. The parallel account in Chronicles tells it again with the same Hebrew verb (1 Chronicles 10:9).

Wesley says the Philistines went to their temples "To give them the glory of this victory" Wesley, and then turns the scene on his readers: by honouring even their pretended gods, "how do they shame those, who give not the honour of their achievements to the living God?" Wesley Matthew Henry, looking at what was done to Saul's body and at how little human honour is worth, ends with a plain counsel: "Let us seek that honour which cometh from God only" Matthew Henry.

The scene is close to the world in which the New Testament took up the word gospel. In Josephus, the news that Vespasian was emperor brought sacrifices in city after city Josephus, Jewish War 4. A thousand years or so lie between Philistia and Rome, but the shape is the same: news of kings and battles went first to the houses of the gods.

The Philistines announced the death of the LORD's anointed king as a victory for their idols. The gospel also announces the death of an Anointed One, the Christ, but not as the enemy's triumph: it is the news that God has dealt with sin: "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3), and it goes on to the third day. When the Thessalonians heard it, they "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God" (1 Thessalonians 1:9). That is this scene turned the right way up.