1 Samuel 31:7 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
1 Samuel 31:7
And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other side Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them.
a man in general (singly or collectively) · noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִ֠שְׂרָאֵלYis.ra.'el
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
side
בְּעֵ֨בֶרbe.'E.ver
H5676
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
valley
הָעֵ֜מֶקha.'E.mek
H6010
a vale (i.e. broad depression) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
side
בְּעֵ֣בֶרbe.'E.ver
H5676
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
Jordan
הַיַּרְדֵּ֗ןhai.yar.Den
H3383
Jarden · definite article + proper noun, a place name
saw
וַיִּרְא֣וּvai.yir.'U
H7200
to see · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
men
אַנְשֵׁ֣י'an.Shei
H582
a man in general (singly or collectively) · noun, common masculine plural construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵ֔לYis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
fled
נָ֙סוּ֙na.su
H5127
to flit · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
Saul
שָׁא֣וּלsha.'Ul
H7586
Shaul · proper noun, a man's name
sons
וּבָנָ֑יוu.va.Nav
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
dead
מֵ֖תוּMe.tu
H4191
to die (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
forsook
וַיַּעַזְב֤וּvai.ya.'az.Vu
H5800
to loosen · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
cities
הֶֽעָרִים֙he.'a.Rim
H5892
a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the wi… · definite article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
fled
וַיָּנֻ֔סוּvai.ya.Nu.su
H5127
to flit · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
Philistines
פְלִשְׁתִּ֔יםfe.lish.Tim
H6430
a Pelishtite or inhabitant of Pelesheth · noun, gentilic masculine plural absolute
came
וַיָּבֹ֣אוּvai.ya.Vo.'u
H935
to go or come (in a wide variety of applications) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
dwelt
וַיֵּֽשְׁב֖וּvai.ye.she.Vu
H3427
properly · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Leviticus 26:32 And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.
Leviticus 26:36 And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken…
Deuteronomy 28:33 The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway…
Judges 6:2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mo…
1 Samuel 13:6 When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and i…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 Samuel 31:1-7
The day of recompence has now come, in which Saul must account for the blood of the Amalekites which he had sinfully spared, and that of the priests which he had more sinfully spilt; that of David too, which he would have spilt, must come into the account. Now his day has come to fall, as David foresaw, when he should descend into battle and perish, Sa1 26:10. Come and see the righteous judgments of God.
I. He sees his soldiers fall about him, Sa1 31:1. Whether the Philistines were more numerous, better posted, and better led on, or what other advantages they had, we are not told; but it seems they were more vigorous, for they made the onset; they fought against Israel, and the Israelites fl…
the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley--probably the valley of Jezreel--the largest and southernmost of the valleys that run between Little Hermon and the ridges of the Gilboa range direct into the Jordan valley. It was very natural for the people in the towns and villages there to take fright and flee, for had they waited the arrival of the victors, they must, according to the war usages of the time, have been deprived either of their liberty or their lives.
Adam Clarke on 1 Samuel 31:7
The men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley - They appear to have been panic-struck, and therefore fled as far as they could out of the reach of the Philistines. As the Philistines possessed Beth-shan, situated near to Jordan, the people on the other side of that river, fearing for their safety, fled also.
John Gill on 1 Samuel 31:7
And which the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley,.... The valley of Jezreel; of which See Gill on Hosea 1:5,
and they that were on the other side Jordan; or rather "on that side"; for the phrase will bear to be rendered either way, and so may mean that side of Jordan on which the battle was fought; for as for the other side, or that beyond it, the Israelites there could not be in such fear of the Philistines, nor do we ever read of their inhabiting any cities there; though as the phrase is used of the valley, as well as of the river, it may be rendered "about the valley, and about Jordan" (g), and so describes such that dwelt near to each of them:
saw that the men of I…
The Church Fathers
But the men of Israel saw, etc. Seeing, however, certain unlearned and ignorant of the true remedies of humility and the salutary washing of baptism, the learned in Judea, their own teachers, being defeated in the spiritual contest by the triumph of sin, and also the not small multitude of the common people, who had been close to their teaching, driven by the adversary from their ancient seat of constancy, they themselves, perturbed by the fall of their elders, lost all works of virtue and defenses of spiritual knowledge that they had; and the sins of the Gentiles came and all studies of virtue in the unbelieving Jews were corrupted by perverse inhabitation; unclean spirits came, and the hearts devoid of the constancy of faith were occupied; or certainly the Gentiles came and made the once best studies of the Jews their own by believing. For even in former times, they had themselves made the divine words, which they had already partly abandoned, be interpreted for them; and now they have received the faith of Christ cast away by them, along with the divine Scriptures, and they possess them as if by inhabitation. Indeed, that which was said, beyond the valley, and beyond Jordan, should be explained more clearly mystically, the very site of the place being intimated to a few. There is a great valley around the Jordan, itself flat, extending in immense length, called in Hebrew Elon or Aulon, which is surrounded on both sides by succeeding and coherent mountains, beginning from Lebanon and reaching beyond it to the desert of Pharan; and notable cities are in that Aulon, that is, in the flat valley, Scythopolis, Tiberias, and the lake near it; but also Jericho, the Dead Sea, and the surrounding regions; through which, as we said, the Jordan flows in the middle, rising from the sources of Paneas and ending in the Dead Sea. Since, therefore, it is not hidden that the valley signifies the lowliness of humility, and Jordan, in which the Lord deigned to be baptized, signifies the waters of baptism, it is rightly embraced by the valley of Jordan, so that the very site of the place may admonish us to seek humbly the entrance into the saving fountain and to behave humbly after we have left it. Whoever, therefore, were not in the valley of Jordan, but beyond the valley and beyond Jordan, they flee; because those who either neglect to receive or to keep the remedy of…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
David — Beloved, the eighth and youngest son of Jesse, a citizen of Bethlehem. His father seems to have been a man in humble life. His mother’s name is not recorded. Some think she was the Nahash of 2 Sam.…
Gilboa — Boiling spring, a mountain range, now Jebel Fukua’, memorable as the scene of Saul’s disastrous defeat by the Philistines. Here also his three sons were slain, and he himself died by his own hand (1…
Philistines — (Gen. 10:14, R.V.; but in A.V., “Philistim”), a tribe allied to the Phoenicians. They were a branch of the primitive race which spread over the whole district of the Lebanon and the valley of the…
Cities · Often deserted on the approach of an enemy — Often deserted on the approach of an enemy
Gilboa · and died — and died
Philistines · Israel defeated by, and Saul slain — Israel defeated by, and Saul slain
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The account of the war between the Philistines and Israel, the commencement of which has already been mentioned in Sa1 28:1, Sa1 28:4., and Sa1 29:1, is resumed in Sa1 31:1 in a circumstantial clause; and to this there is attached a description of the progress and result of the battle, more especially with reference to Saul. Consequently, in Ch1 10:1, where there had been no previous allusion to the war, the participle נלחמים is changed into the perfect. The following is the way in which we should express the circumstantial clause: "Now when the Philistines were fighting against Israel, the men of Israel fled before the Philistines, and slain men fell in the mountains of Gilboa" (vid., Sa1 2…
David had once held the position of armor bearer (16:21). • kill me: This is one of many parallels between the death of Abimelech in the time of the judges (Judg 9) and Saul, Israel’s first national king (cp. Judg 9:54).
Rashi on 1 Samuel 31:1
The Philistines were battling with Yisroel. As a person saying, 'Let us go back to the earlier topic.'
