I. THE OCCASION of this lament, threnody, elegy, or funeral dirge, was the arrival of fatal tidings from Gilboa. "There were only two in that great slaughter concerning whose fate David was eager to know the truth - his enemy and his friend. 'How knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan his son be dead?' (ver. 5). When the news was fully established, he immediately went through all the signs of Eastern grief. He and his six hundred heroes sat with their clothes rent, uttering the loud Oriental wail, observing the rigid Eastern fast until the sunset of the fatal day released them. Then David roused himself to action. The first vent to his grief was in the stern exaction of the life of the unhappy messenger, according to the hard temper of those fierce times. The second vent was in the touching dirge, which, according to the tender spirit of the sweet psalmist of Israel, he poured forth over the two departed chiefs" ('The Songs of Israel,' Good Words, 1863). It was probably accompanied by his harp, that had long been silent, but was now taken up afresh and struck to a song of sorrow which for tenderness and intensity has never been surpassed. "The genius and origin of the elegy among the Hebrews may be clearly traced to their manner of celebrating their funeral rites" (Lowth). "If you attend to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols" (Bacon).

II. THE TITLE of "The Bow" (Kesheth), which it appears to have received, may have been derived from the mention of the bow in ver. 22, as the favourite weapon of Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:4; 1 Samuel 20:20), as it was of his tribesmen (1 Chronicles 12:2); or "because it was a martial ode" (Keil). It is improbable that David introduced "the use of the bow" (Authorized Version) into the tribe of Judah, either as a tribute to the memory of his friend, or as a means of repairing the recent disaster; for that had been long familiar. But he "bade them teach the children of Judah" the song of "the bow" (possibly that his youthful warriors might sing it in their military practice with the bow) - a title given to it in the Book of Jashar (Joshua 10:13), or collection of national songs, in which it was preserved. "When the writer of 2 Samuel transferred the dirge to his own pages, he transferred it, as we might do any of the psalms, with its title, which was as follows: 'For the children of Israel to learn by heart. Kasheth from the Book of Jasher'" ('Speaker's Commentary').

III. ITS FORM is that of a lyrical composition, the oldest as well as the most common species of Hebrew poetry; and (like the rest) it is distinguished by parallelism or rhythm, "the measured rise and fall of feeling and utterance, in which the poet's effort to become fully master of his poetic inspiration finds harmonious expression, and the external rhythm of sound is properly subordinated to the rhythmic pulsation of thought" (British Quarterly Review, January, 1877). It contains a refrain or chorus, twice repeated; and falls into three strophic divisions marked by its recurrence, either at their commencement (Keil)or their close (Kitto, 'Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature'); or, according to more common arrangement, into five or six stanzas. "The putting of lamentations into poems made them the more moving and affecting, and the more lasting" (Matthew Henry).

IV. IN SUBSTANCE and general character it is an outburst of natural grief (as the song of Hannah was of spiritual gladness) over the fallen heroes, and a celebration of their worth. "We can hardly call it religious poetry. It is not a psalm or hymn. The name of God never occurs in it. It is a war song which sums up the national feelings of every age over the graves of its departed heroes" (Stanley). Yet it is instinct with most generous and devout feeling. "As in view of the remains of a friend all the pain which he caused us while living is forgotten in the remembrance of his excellences and the kindness which he showed us, so David no longer has a memory for the period of persecution now past. He is a man, and not the judge of the dead. Therefore Saul stands before him only in his virtues, and he celebrates not only Jonathan, but also Saul, as loved ones who can never be forgotten. We see in this case that anger belongs only to the accidental utterances of noble souls, whose constant motive is love" (Delitzsch, 'Old Test. Hist. of Redemption'). "Though God often reproved his ancient people for paying religious homage to the idols of the heathen, yet we never find that he reproved them for paying funeral honours to departed men of superior merit among their own nation. Their example in this respect, therefore, seems to have a Divine sanction, and plainly teaches us the propriety of lamenting the death and commemorating the virtues of those who have been eminently useful in life" (N. Emmons). - D.

2. Such outpourings of grief as are found in the dirge in this lesson, composed by David, may be "highly poetical," and betray the tense condition of the emotions; yet they are not devoid of moral teaching, and vividly depict the affectionate character of him who was a type of "the Man of sorrows."

I. DAVID'S LAMENT OVER SAUL.

1. I see in this the spirit of forgiveness. There was enough in Saul's dealings with David to have dulled the poignancy of grief, and even to have called up resentment. David's conduct seems an anticipation of the Christian precept, not only to forgive, but to love your enemies. Forgiveness of injuries, "the flower of charity," was ripened by the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, for there was little enough of it in the world before Christ came. I am not forgetting that Solomon said, "It is the glory of a man to pass by a transgression" (Proverbs 19:11). On the other hand, there is a tone of vindictiveness in parts of the Old Testament — in the Psalter, for instance — which reveals a low standard of morality in some respects. The "eye for eye" and "tooth for tooth" principle required nothing short of the Life and Death of Christ to dislodge it. Even David, on another occasion, betrayed something very much like the spirit of revenge (1 Kings 2:9). However, before us we have a beautiful instance of forgiveness, when the maxim, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum," was certainly not in the ascendant.

2. Moreover, David not only gave vent to his grief in the utterances of this elegy; but he taught it to the people. This arose from his generous desire that Israel should remember the greatness of Saul.

3. The object of teaching this dirge to the people was that they might remember it and repeat it. In the same way, the "Lamentations" of Jeremiah are repeated by the Jews at the "Wailing Place" with weeping, and thus the recollection of their sins and miseries is perpetuated. David willed that the memory of his predecessor should live in the hearts of the people.

4. David weeping over Saul is a type of Christ weeping over Jerusalem which rejected Him.

II. DAVID'S LAMENT OVER JONATHAN.

1. This was the climax of his grief, the bitterest element in the cup of sorrow.

2. David's sorrow arose from the friendship which existed between him and Jonathan (1 Samuel 18:1). Similarly, Jacob's love for Benjamin is described (Genesis 44:30). But this was outside all family ties. Strangers found in each other what they could not find in the domestic circle. This romantic form of love played a conspicuous part in the ancient world. Poets, artists, and philosophers made it their subject. Christianity has been taunted with its disregard of friendship. Yet the wider circles of love did not obliterate, in the heart of Christ, that. "love of mutual benevolence" which could delight in certain souls through an "affinity of natural qualities and feelings." Thus Lazarus was a friend of Christ, and St. John "the disciple whom Jesus loved."

3. But it may be admitted — although there are Christian friendships recorded in the history of the Church, and to be found amongst Christians, which are beautiful and separate from all that is essential or merely sentimental — that friendship has not the same conspicuous place which it had when Aristotle took two books of his "Ethics" to treat the theme; and there are reasons for this which need not now be discussed. It is sufficient to observe that its rightful value as a form of love is preserved. "What it seems to lose in importance, it gains in inward, worth by the consecration it receives from the Christian spirit" (Luthardt).

4. The description of Jonathan's love for David has ever been interpreted as a type of the love of the Christian for Christ, David's Son and Lord; and the covenant which he made with him, and the way he stripped himself of his robes and weapons (1 Samuel 18:3, 4), to be an image of the covenant with Christ, and the willingness to be stripped of all for His sake. The strong language which depicts the fervour of natural affection is a vehicle to describe the intensity and transforming character of Christian love.Lessons:

1. To try to learn the lesson — hard for flesh and blood, but possible through the grace of the Holy Spirit, not only to forgive, but to love those who have injured us. Though Saul had sought David's life, David wept over Saul's death.

2. To learn from the friendship between Jonathan and David, and the value which has been set upon friendship, how important is the choice of friends. How the influence may be powerful either for good or evil which comes from companionship: "With the holy thou shalt be holy, and with a perfect man thou shalt be perfect;" so the opposite, "With the froward thou shalt learn forwardness" (Psalm 18:25, 26).

3. All human friendship must be subordinate to the love of that Friend who laid down His life for us, and who is faithful when all others desert us.

(W. H. Hutchings, M. A.)