1 Samuel 31 · a question people ask
2 Samuel 1 tells Saul's death differently. Which account is right?
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.”
“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.”
“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.’””