Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
16. THY BLOOD BE UPON THY OWN HEAD.—That is: Impute the shedding of thy blood to thyself and thy own head, because thou hast confessed that thou didst kill King Saul: for it is right that thou shouldst pay for the blood of Saul, which thou hast shed, with thy own blood and death. For this is the law of retaliation ordained by God. Thou wilt say: No injury is done to one who is willing; but Saul was willing and asked to be killed. I answer first, that Saul could not will this, nor could he here yield his right; secondly, granting that no injury, properly speaking, was done to Saul who wished to be slain, yet an injury was done to God, who was lord of Saul’s life, and to the commonwealth of which Saul was the head. So St. Thomas, III part, Question 47, article 6, reply to 3.
Thou wilt ask whether David lawfully commanded this Amalecite to be put to death, since he was not yet king and did not have royal authority. I answer in the affirmative. For he had this power, because he knew that after Saul’s death the kingdom belonged to him by the disposition of God. For to this end he had been anointed king by Samuel, that he should succeed in the kingdom Saul, who was rejected by God, either while still living, as some will have it, or rather at his death. So Abulensis, Cajetan, Serarius and others. Add that David had been commissioned by Saul as leader of the war, to fight against the enemies of Israel and to slay them: and this Amalecite was an enemy, because he confessed that he had slain the king of Israel.
Finally, God had commanded all the Amalecites to be put to death, as we heard in chap. 15; and the man himself acknowledged David as king and judge, inasmuch as he had brought to him the diadem, the badge of royal dignity.
18. AND HE COMMANDED THEM TO TEACH THE CHILDREN OF JUDA THE USE OF THE BOW.—The Chaldee has, to shoot the bow. Hence Bede, Lyranus, Abulensis, Vatablus, Salianus and others explain thus: He commanded them to teach the children of Juda the art of war, or the art of archery, because the use of arrows was then great; and the tribe of Juda had at this time to be the defence of the whole people against the victorious Philistines. That is: He exhorted them not to lose heart in adversity, but to prepare themselves for future wars, lest, as had now happened, they should be defeated by the Philistines in the art of archery, since Saul himself was wounded by them and the whole army routed and put to flight, so it should happen in time to come.
But, more fittingly, with Serarius, Sanchez and Mariana, by “the bow” thou mayest understand the lament itself, or dirge, and the funeral song of David; for its title was “The Bow,” because in it the bow and the warlike strength of Saul and Jonathan were praised. In like manner the Psalms have their titles from which they are named. So among the Greeks a certain ode was called the Harmodium, because it celebrates the heroic deeds of Harmodius. Other odes were called Daphnis and Niobe, because they praise them. Others are called the Pipe and the Shield in Theocritus; so we commonly call the psalms and hymns usually sung in the Church: Te Deum laudamus, Magnificat, Benedictus, De profundis, Miserere, from their beginning and title or subject. That it is so is clear: first, because otherwise there is no connection here; for what would a bow have to do with David’s lament? Secondly, because in the Septuagint it is found that David uttered not simply a lament, but this lament, or, as our version has, a lament of this kind; and again, in the same there is no other word corresponding to the bow, besides the lament. Moreover it is added that David said it in order to teach the children of Juda; teach what? Evidently the very thing which alone they named, the lament. Thirdly, Josephus relates that the Jews learned those laments so diligently that they have remained in use down to his own times. Fourthly, because in like manner Jeremias, when the destruction of Jerusalem was imminent, commands them to teach their children a lament and the manner of mourning: “Teach,” he says in chap. 9, verse 20, “your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour a mournful song.” Such are the Lamentations of Jeremias. Fifthly, because it was the custom to teach and learn songs of this kind, as is clear from Deuteronomy chap. 31, and 2 Paralipomenon 35:25, where it is said that Jeremias composed laments on the death of King Josias: “Whom all the singing men and singing women repeat in their lamentations over Josias to this day.”
David, he says, spoke so that the Lord “might teach the children of Juda the bow,” that is, might teach the kings of Juda fortitude, that they might be strong and intent in the fear of the Lord and in the commandments of God, lest through disobedience the kings of Juda should depart from fortitude and the fear of the Lord, as Saul did, and perish in the manner in which he perished. For fortitude is lacking to all who yield to temptations and fall into sins; for if they resisted them bravely, they would not sin. Wherefore he who is tempted most needs fortitude, which he ought to obtain from God by prayer.
AS IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE JUST.—“The Book of the Just,” says St. Jerome, “is the book of Samuel,” where the just Prophets, namely Samuel, Gad and Nathan, are contained; in which book it is said to be written how Saul, departing from the fear of God through his disobedience, perished. But it is unfitting that the same book and author should cite itself; wherefore this seems to be another book. Who and what sort it was I have said at Josue 10:13. In this book, therefore, the whole of this lament of David and dirge for Saul was written, of which only a part is recounted here.
CONSIDER, O ISRAEL, FOR THEM THAT ARE DEAD, WOUNDED ON THY HIGH PLACES (the lofty mount Gelboe).
21. YE MOUNTAINS OF GELBOE, &c.—David speaks. The verse is the same in matter and sense as the former. Hence for these two verses there is only one in the Hebrew, the Septuagint and the Chaldee. Wherefore the double verse here has arisen from a double version of the text. The former is from the version of Aquila (which Procopius follows), and therefore some codices of the Vulgate edition, such as the royal ones, omit it; the latter is from the version of St. Jerome. The Hebrew has, word for word, the glory of Israel is wounded on thy high places; how are the heroes fallen? So Vatablus. David addresses the land of Israel, as if to say: O illustrious land of Israel, on thy mount Gelboe Saul fell wounded with Jonathan, who was thy glory, desire and renown (for all these things tsebi signifies); for these two were thy invincible heroes. The Chaldee renders: The slayers stood over Israel, over the house of your strongholds they are lifted up; how are the valiant fallen? The Roman Septuagint has: Stand, O Israel, over thy dead, wounded on the high places; how are the mighty fallen? For “stand,” the Greek has stethi, as if to say: Persist and dwell fixedly upon this consideration; Aquila has apodokimason, that is, weigh it diligently. This song was composed in a martial spirit, as being by David the soldier about the brave soldiers Saul and Jonathan.
21. YE MOUNTAINS OF GELBOE, LET NEITHER DEW NOR RAIN COME UPON YOU, NEITHER BE THEY (in you) FIELDS OF FIRSTFRUITS—from which fruits may spring, whose firstfruits are offered to God according to the law. The “mountains of Gelboe,” stretching in length from west to east for eleven leagues, lie on the border of the half-tribe of Manasses and the tribe of Issachar; their beginning is at the city of Jezrahel, and they reach almost to the Jordan. David seems to curse the mountains of “Gelboe” and to call down barrenness upon them, that is, upon an irrational creature, not as it is a creature of God, but as it was the occasion and place of so great a disaster to Saul and the Hebrews; which is not a sin. See St. Thomas, II-II, Question 76, article 2. Hear St. Ambrose, book III On Cain, chap. 8: “Nature, he says, by the condemnation of the innocent soil shows the future punishments of the guilty; therefore on account of the sins of men the very elements are also condemned. Finally David wished upon the mountains of Gelboe the punishment of perpetual barrenness.”
In like manner Job, chap. 3, cursed the day of his birth, and likewise Jeremias, chap. 20, verse 14, because it had been to him the occasion and door of so many evils: see what is said there. St. Gregory adds, book IV of the Morals, chap. 4, that by the barrenness of the mountains men—namely the Jews—are punished; for by their iniquity they deserved that their king should be slain in that place. But it is truer that David here did not truly and seriously curse the mountains of Gelboe, nor call down barrenness upon them, but spoke in a soldierly figure to express the grief of his soul, as if to say: It would be just and fitting that you, O mountains of Gelboe, in memory of so great a disaster, should always be deprived of dew and rain, since this disaster was wrought upon you. So Abulensis, Cajetan and others.