1 Samuel 31:1. Now the Philistines fought against Israel— That is, as most interpreters understand it, began to fight against, or attacked, the Israelites. The word נלחמים nilchamim, as Dr. Delaney observes, might as properly have been rendered assaulted. He is of opinion, not only that the Philistines attacked Saul in his camp, but that they did so soon after his return from Endor, and that, probably, they were encouraged to this attempt by some secret information of Saul's having stolen out of the camp the evening before with his general (for Abner is supposed to have been one of his attendants) and another person: and if this was the case, then his applying to the Pythoness was the immediate cause of his destruction; now this gives light to 1Ch 10:13 and at the same time receives light from it.

1 Samuel 31:2. And the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, &c.— Ish-bosheth probably either was not in the battle, or escaped by flight. Thus the prediction of Samuel was fulfilled. But who can forbear to drop a tear over the faithful, the amiable, the excellent Jonathan. There are few characters among men more lovely, or more extraordinary: fortitude, fidelity, magnanimity; a soul susceptible of the most refined friendship, and superior to all the temptations of ambition and vanity; and all these accomplishments crowned with the most resigned submission to the will of God.

1 Samuel 31:3. And the archers hit him— Houbigant renders this verse thus, Then the battle going hard against Saul, the archers rushed upon him, from whom he received a great wound. Saul, says he, would hardly have commanded his armour-bearer to kill him, if he had not been in a desperate state. The words, lest they thrust me through and abuse me, are not to be separated. Saul was not so much afraid of being killed, as of being abused, by these insulting enemies. Commentators observe, that there is no mention of any archers in any of the Philistine armies or battles before this. The use of the bow, however, was not unknown: Jonathan is celebrated for his skill and dexterity in it, and so were some of the worthies who resorted to David; but it seems not to have been yet brought into common practice, if, as it has been collected from 2 Samuel 1:18., David after this battle had the Israelites taught the use of it. If this was so, it seems to prove that they gained in this battle great advantage by means of their archers: for, doubtless, he would have taught it them much sooner, when he commanded the armies of Saul against the Philistines, had they then gained any advantage over the Israelites by means of these weapons. Sir Isaac Newton tells us, that those mighty numbers of men who aided the Philistines against Saul in the beginning of his reign, were the shepherds expelled from Egypt by Amasis; some of whom fled into Phoenicia, and others into Arabia Petraea. Now his son Ammon conquered Arabia. Why then may we not fairly presume, that these archers, who now aided the Philistines, were either Arabs who fled thither from Ammon, or those Egyptians who fled before to Arabia, and learned archery there from the natives, who were allowed to be the best bowmen in the world: since the time and circumstances suit, the conjecture will not, I believe, be thought ill-grounded. The Cherethites, so often mentioned in the following books, were of these archers whom David employed in his armies.

1 Samuel 31:6. So Saul died— Josephus runs out into high encomiums upon Saul, who, knowing that he was to die, thus gallantly exposed himself for his country. But, in truth, there is not the least room for panegyrick. He died, not gallantly fighting, but by his own hand. He died, not as a hero, but as a deserter. Self-murder is demonstrably the effect of cowardice, and it is as irrational and iniquitous as it is base. God, whose creatures we are, is the sole arbiter, as he is the sole author of life: our lives are his property; and he has given the world, his church, our country, our family, and our friends, a share in them: and therefore, as Plato finely observes in his Phaedo, "God is as much injured by self-murder, as I should be by having one of my slaves killed without my consent;" not to insist upon the injury done to others in a variety of relations by the same act. Much nobler than Saul's was the resolution of Darius; who, finding himself betrayed, and that he was to be either murdered by his own subjects, or delivered into the hands of Alexander, would not, however, be his own executioner: "I would rather," says he, "die by another's guilt, than by my own." Quint. Curt. lib. 5: cap. 12.