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Updated: June 28, 2025
"My son," she said, as they took their noon-meal in the valley at the foot of dark Mount Gilboa, "you must be more careful. Your feet might slip." "Mother," answered the Boy, "I am truly very careful. I always put my feet in the places that God has made for them on the big, strong rocks that will not roll. It is only because I am so happy that you think I am careless."
And he answered it was so by adventure that I came upon the mount of Gilboa, and Saul rested upon his spear, and the horsemen and the chariots of the Philistines approached to himward, and he looked behind him and saw me, and called me, and said to me: Who art thou? And I said I am an Amalekite, and then he said: Stand upon me and slay me, for I am full of anguish, and yet my soul is in me.
For no act can have might before it is done: if there is no right, it cannot rationally be done at all. Bernard Shaw and Mr. Rudyard Kipling. Kipling also carries on from Carlyle the concentration on the purely Hebraic parts of the Bible. The fallacy of this whole philosophy is that if God is indeed present at a modern battle, He may be present not as on Gilboa but Golgotha.
So there are always camp followers going on and after an army, as when Scott went down into Mexico, as when Napoleon marched up toward Moscow, as when Von Moltke went to Sedan. There is a similar scene in my text. Saul and his army had been horribly cut to pieces. Mount Gilboa was ghastly with the dead.
The instructions given to anoint a king of Syria and one of Israel were not fulfilled by Elijah, but by his successor; and we have to suppose that further commands were given to him on that subject. The third injunction, to anoint his successor, was obeyed at once on his journey, though Ahelmeholah, on Gilboa, was dangerously near Jezreel.
Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Melchshua, Saul's sons. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers.
Immediately he gathered an army of three hundred and thirty thousand men, and, marching rapidly up the Jordan Valley, crossed the river and attacked the Ammonites and completely routed them with great slaughter. And thus he saved the city. The men of Jabesh-gilead never forgot Saul and his kindness to them. Forty years later the disastrous battle of Gilboa was fought.
And a mile from Jezreel be the hills of Gilboa, where Saul and Jonathan, that were so fair, died; wherefore David cursed them, as holy writ saith: MONTES GILBOAE, NEC ROS NEC PLUVIA, ETC.; that is to say, 'Ye hills of Gilboa, neither dew ne rain come upon you. And a mile from the hills of Gilboa toward the east is the city of Cyropolis, that was clept before Bethshan; and upon the walls of that city was the head of Saul hanged.
And thus although Saul was sentenced to lose his kingdom, and although he was killed with his sons on Mount Gilboa, yet I do not think that we find the sentence passed upon him, "Thou shalt surely die;" and, therefore, we have no right to say that God had ceased to be his God, although be visited him with severe chastisements, and would not allow him to hand down to his sons the crown of Israel.
He never got to be a king, but he had a kingly spirit if that means something high and noble. He never deserted a cause which had a claim upon him. He was true to Saul, his father; he fell at Gilboa fighting by his side. He was true to David, his friend, unto the point of death.
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