In this act of vengeance there was that mixture of policy and impulse which is the key to so many of David’s actions. On the one hand, David freed himself from all responsibility for the death of Saul. The blood of the king could not be required at his hand either in the form of a blood-feud with the family of Saul, or in that of the nemesis which waited on the shedder of blood. On the other hand, it could not be said that he had gained the crown through the murder of the legitimate king. Saul indeed had been slain, and David had reaped the advantage of his death, but he had in no way connived at it. In the eyes of God and man alike he was innocent of the deed.
David found an outlet for his feelings in a dirge which is one of the gems of early Hebrew poetry. Future generations knew it as the Song of the Bow; such was the name under which it was incorporated in the collection of early Hebrew poems called the book of Jasher, and under which David ordered that it should be learned in the schools.
‘Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places!
How are the mighty fallen!
Tell it not in Gath,
Publish it not in the streets of Askelon;
Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
Ye mountains of Gilboa,
Let there be no dew nor rain upon you, neither fields of offerings;