15. It was a battle of arrows against swords and slings, and the archers won the victory, and after a long day’s fearful contest Saul and his three sons lay dead among the defeated thousands that covered the flanks of Gilboa.
Beth-shean was in sight eastward down the valley of Jezreel. It probably was never a Jewish but always a Canaanitish city, and here the Philistines the next day carried the headless trunk of Saul’s body and nailed it upon the outside walls with the bodies of his sons, while the salted head of the king was sent to the land of the victors to be carried around through the cities of the Philistines on exhibition.
Large numbers of the Philistines now took possession of the vacated cities, and many of the Israelites crossed the Jordan to find other homes until better times should come.
ZIKLAG AND THE SOUTH COUNTRY.
16. Among the vast numbers of the Philistine army, as they came upon the plain from Mt. Carmel,David’s royal friend, King Achish, occupied the rear, and David and his small band would be distinguished from the lack of the conventional army uniform, which could be seen at a great distance. The appearance of the Philistines in war was specially distinguishable from that of all other warriors by a peculiar head-dress and tightly-fitting tunic, leaving the arms bare.
But David’s presence formed ground for suspicion, and he was dismissed to return with his men to Ziklag. The situation of this place is not known, but from various circumstances it could not have been far off from the hill country of Judæa and in the general vicinity and south of Gath,since Achish, who gave him the place, was king of that city.[86]
17. On his return to Ziklag, finding that the Amalekites of the far south had burned his city and carried off all the families, David and his men pursued after them, recovered all, and returned to Ziklag. “The south” was a special term for that country beginning somewhere about Beersheba and reaching fifty or sixty miles south, and perhaps farther.
18. The duration of Saul’s reign was about forty years, or as the commonly received chronology presents it, from 1095 B. C. to 1056 B. C., and at thelatter date Saul and his eldest son Jonathan died upon the battlefield.
In this great battle the Philistines, as we have said, used bows and arrows, and in this respect had a great advantage over the Israelites, who were not taught the use of this instrument in war until after this battle, 2 Sam. 1:18, and in the reign of David.