“Thus Sha’ul, his three sons,
his armor-bearer,
and all his men died
that same day together.”
-1 Samuel 31:6
I wanna show you an example of why you should NOT always take the Bible literally…
And why you should give context its due consideration.
Take a look at verse 6 where it says that Saul, his three sons, his armor bearer, and “all his men” died that same day.
The phrase “all his men” gives the impression that pretty much all of Saul’s soldiers were killed by the Philistines.
But that’s not the case.
All we have to do is cross-reference with verse 6 in 1 Chronicles 10.
“Thus Sha’ul, his three sons and
all his household died together.”
-1 Chronicles 10:6
Hmm…interesting.
So it was just the members of Saul’s household and NOT all of his men who died on the battlefield that day.
The phrase “all of his men” metaphorically refers to those closest to Saul by position and bloodline.
The Hebrew word for “household” is BAYITH.
It means a “dwelling place” where two or more relatives or family members live together.
But in this context, it refers to Saul’s family and the men from his royal court who participated in the battle.
So not all of his men were killed.
Many Hebrew soldiers had fled and escaped the area.
Interestingly, two members of Saul’s inner circle were not present.
The first one was Avner who was Saul’s highest-ranking military commander.
The second one was Ishbosheth who was Saul’s fourth son.
We’re not told the reason, but he likely escaped with Abner.
We’ll meet these men again soon the book of 2nd Samuel.
So what’s the takeaway for today?
The lesson here is to read the Scriptures with a discerning eye when it comes to idioms, colorful expressions, metaphors, and other literary devices strewn throughout all of Holy Writ.
Ya feel me?
When Yeshua said, “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell”, you think he meant that literally?
I sure hope not.
Otherwise, there’d be a lot of handless folks walking the planet today.
See ya all next time.
Leave a Reply