Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 148
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IMMERSE
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KINGDOMS
1S
| 31:10—2S | 1:16
the land of Philistia. They placed his armor in the temple of the Ashto
reths, and they fastened his body to the wall of the city of Beth-shan.
But when the people of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had
done to Saul, all their mighty warriors traveled through the night to Beth-
shan and took the bodies of Saul and his sons down from the wall. They
brought them to Jabesh, where they burned the bodies. Then they took
their bones and buried them beneath the tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they
fasted for seven days.
After the death of Saul, David returned from his victory over the Ama
lekites and spent two days in Ziklag. On the third day a man arrived from
Saul’s army camp. He had torn his clothes and put dirt on his head to
show that he was in mourning. He fell to the ground before David in deep
respect.
“Where have you come from?” David asked.
“I escaped from the Israelite camp,” the man replied.
“What happened?” David demanded. “Tell me how the battle went.”
The man replied, “Our entire army fled from the battle. Many of the
men are dead, and Saul and his son Jonathan are also dead.”
“How do you know Saul and Jonathan are dead?” David demanded of
the young man.
The man answered, “I happened to be on Mount Gilboa, and there was
Saul leaning on his spear with the enemy chariots and charioteers closing
in on him. When he turned and saw me, he cried out for me to come to
him. ‘How can I help?’ I asked him.
“He responded, ‘Who are you?’
“‘I am an Amal ekite,’ I told him.
“Then he begged me, ‘Come over here and put me out of my misery, for
I am in terrible pain and want to die.’
“So I killed him,” the Amalekite told David, “for I knew he couldn’t live.
Then I took his crown and his armband, and I have brought them here to
you, my lord.”
David and his men tore their clothes in sorrow when they heard the
news. They mourned and wept and fasted all day for Saul and his son Jon
athan, and for the Lord’s army and the nation of Israel, because they had
died by the sword that day.
Then David said to the young man who had brought the news, “Where
are you from?”
And he replied, “I am a foreigner, an Amalekite, who lives in your land.”
“Why were you not afraid to kill the Lord’s anointed one?” David asked.
Then Dav id said to one of his men, “Kill him!” So the man thrust
his sword into the Amalekite and killed him. “You have condemned