Day 90 – 2 Samuel 1:6-10

Scripture Review

2 Samuel 1:6-10

"And the young man that told him said, As I happened by chance upon mount Gilboa, behold, Saul leaned upon his spear; and, lo, the chariots and horsemen followed hard after him." (2 Samuel 1:6)

"as I happened by chance," already sounds like a lie. It's the modern-day "see what happen was." My commentary notes the true account is 1 Samuel 31, which means this man's tale is a fiction designed to gain favor. It mentions this camp follower must often hover near battlefields to strip the slain and gather loot. The line about "chance" reads less like innocent wandering and more like the excuse of a scavenger caught. He paints Saul leaning on his spear with the Philistine force closing fast behind him, and the whole picture is drawn to make his later claim sound plausible. It is the kind of story a man tells when he has had enough time to think about how to make himself useful to the next regime.

"And when he looked behind him, he saw me, and called unto me. And I answered, Here am I." (2 Samuel 1:7)

The man keeps himself at the center of the tale. Saul sees me, calls me, and I answer. The messenger came "pleasing himself with the fancy" that he would be the first to do homage to David as the new sovereign. He is not just recounting events; he is building his own importance into the scene. To me the passage says he expected commendation and likely some visible reward, as though he wants David to admire his availability at the crucial moment. I have heard it preached, this is the sort of speech "polishing the lie while you tell it." The man is trying to make himself indispensable in the memory of a dying king and valuable in the eyes of a rising one.

"And he said unto me, Who art thou? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite." (2 Samuel 1:8)

It's funny that he says, "I am an Amalekite." David had just returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites at Ziklag, and now an Amalekite stands in front of him claiming the last act in Saul's life. Saul's downfall had long been tied to his failure with Amalek in 1 Samuel 15, and now an Amalekite arrives as the mouthpiece of Saul's final disgrace.

"He said unto me again, Stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me: for anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me." (2 Samuel 1:9)

The man tries to turn himself from scavenger into mercy killer, from opportunist into reluctant helper at a king's request. It is a neat little moral laundering job. "I did it, yes, but only because Saul begged me." Sin loves to dress itself in compassion when it wants a reward. Saul, by contrast, feared what the uncircumcised would do to him and took his own sword in 1 Samuel 31. Now this Amalekite tries to improve the story for David by inserting himself as the one who finished what David had always refused to do. The man assumes David thinks like the flesh: enemy down, problem solved, crown next.

"So I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen: and I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither unto my lord." (2 Samuel 1:10)

Here he says out loud what he really wants David to notice. The crown and the bracelet are in his possession, and he has brought them "unto my lord." He likely thought David would see the deaths of Saul and Jonathan as a great windfall and reward the man who cleared the path. I feel like the crown and bracelet are not just evidence in his hand, they are bait. He is offering David the symbols of kingship wrapped in a story of useful violence.

David is not Saul. His trust, restraint, and waiting on God are about to be set against a man who thinks ambition is all that moves the human heart. The Amalekite's account is not the true account of Saul's death but a self serving story meant to ingratiate himself with David, who is now the obvious rising power in Israel.