1 Samuel 31 · a question people ask

2 Samuel 1 tells Saul's death differently. Which account is right?

In the text

Here are both, as each book gives them. 1 Samuel 31 tells it in the narrator's own voice: Saul asked his armor bearer to kill him, the armor bearer would not, and Saul fell on his own sword (31:4-5). In 2 Samuel 1, while David is at Ziklag (2 Samuel 1:1), a man comes to him out of the camp from Saul (2 Samuel 1:2) and says, "I am an Amalekite" (2 Samuel 1:8). He says that he found Saul on Mount Gilboa "leaning on his spear" (2 Samuel 1:6), and "So I stood beside him and killed him, because I was sure that he could not live after he had fallen" (2 Samuel 1:10), and that he has brought David "the crown that was on his head and the bracelet that was on his arm" (2 Samuel 1:10). 2 Samuel doesn't say whether his account is true. It tells what David said to him: "Why were you not afraid to stretch out your hand to destroy the LORD’s anointed?" (2 Samuel 1:14), and "your mouth has testified against you" (2 Samuel 1:16). The two books set the accounts down without explaining how they fit together, and this answer doesn't go past them.

The verses

“Then Saul said to his armor bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and abuse me!” But his armor bearer would not, for he was terrified. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell on it. When his armor bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell on his sword, and died with him.”
1 Samuel 31:4-5 · World English Bible
“After the death of Saul, when David had returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had stayed two days in Ziklag, on the third day, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul, with his clothes torn and earth on his head. When he came to David, he fell to the earth and showed respect.”
2 Samuel 1:1-2 · World English Bible
“David said to him, “Why were you not afraid to stretch out your hand to destroy the LORD’s anointed?” David called one of the young men and said, “Go near, and cut him down!” He struck him so that he died. David said to him, “Your blood be on your head, for your mouth has testified against you, saying, ‘I have slain the LORD’s anointed.’””
2 Samuel 1:14-16 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of 1 Samuel 31

1 Samuel 31: Under the tamarisk tree

The town Saul's army rescued in chapter 11 is the town whose valiant men went all night to take his body and his sons' bodies from the wall of Beth Shan (11:9-11; 31:11-12). And his bones were buried under a tamarisk tree (31:13), a word the Hebrew Bible uses only three times, once for the tree Saul sat under in Gibeah with his spear in his hand (22:6).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions