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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Samuel 1:21 - 1:21
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Even nature is to join in the mourning. May God withdraw His blessing from the mountains upon which the heroes have fallen, that they may not be moistened by the dew and rain of heaven, but, remaining in eternal barrenness, be memorials of the horrible occurrence that has taken place upon them. בַגִּלְבִּעַ הָרֵי is an address to them; and the preposition בְּ with the construct state is poetical: “mountains in Gilboa” (vid., Ewald, §289, b.). In עֲלֵיכֶם ... אַל the verb יְהִי is wanting. The following words, תְרוּמֹות וּשְׂדֵי, are in apposition to the foregoing: “and let not fields of first-fruit offerings be upon you,” i.e., fields producing fruit, from which offerings of first-fruits were presented. This is the simplest and most appropriate explanation of the words, which have been very differently, and in some respects very marvellously rendered. The reason for this cursing of the mountains of Gilboa was, that there the shield of the heroes, particularly of Saul, had been defiled with blood, namely the blood of those whom the shield ought to defend. גָּעַל does not mean to throw away (Dietrich. ), but to soil or defile (as in the Chaldee), then to abhor. “Not anointed with oil,” i.e., not cleansed and polished with oil, so that the marks of Saul's blood still adhered to it. בְּלִי poetical for לֹא. The interpolation of the words “as though” (quasi non esset unctus oleo, Vulgate) cannot be sustained.