![\"1.png\"](\"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1-SKbwya5dlF2O.png\")
<\/a> <\/p>King Saul and his son Jonathan had been killed in battle on Mount Gilboa.<\/p>\n
At the time, David was still staying in Ziklag. After coming back from fighting the Amalekites, David and his men had already been there for two days.<\/p>\n
Then, on the third day, a young man suddenly showed up.<\/p>\n
The guy looked like he had just escaped from a battlefield. His clothes were torn up, his head was covered with dust, and as soon as he came in, he dropped to the ground in front of David.<\/p>\n
David quickly asked him:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere did you come from?\u201d<\/p>\n
The young man answered:<\/p>\n
\u201cI escaped from the Israelite camp.\u201d<\/p>\n
David’s heart sank a little.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened? Come on, tell me what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The young man answered:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe battle was terrible. Israel were getting beaten badly by the Philistines, and people were running everywhere. A lot of them were killed on the battlefield. King Saul and his son Jonathan are dead too.\u201d<\/p>\n
When David heard, \u201cSaul is dead,\u201d and then, \u201cJonathan is dead too,\u201d he went completely quiet.<\/p>\n
He asked:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know that Saul and Jonathan are dead?\u201d<\/p>\n
The young man began to explain:<\/p>\n
\u201cI happened to be on Mount Gilboa. I saw King Saul leaning on his spear, while the Philistine chariots and soldiers were chasing him hard. When he looked back and saw me, he called out to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked me, \u2018Who are you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019m an Amalekite.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen Saul said to me, \u2018Come over here and kill me. I\u2019m in terrible pain. I\u2019m still alive, but I just can\u2019t go on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw that he was already badly wounded, and I figured he wasn\u2019t going to survive anyway, so I killed him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I took the crown from his head and the bracelet from his arm and brought them here to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
When David heard that, his whole expression changed.<\/p>\n
He grabbed his clothes and tore them apart.<\/p>\n
Everyone with him did the same.<\/p>\n
Then they started crying.<\/p>\n
Not just a little crying either. They were hurting deep down in their hearts.<\/p>\n
They cried for Saul. They cried for Jonathan. And they cried for the people of Israel.<\/p>\n
They mourned and fasted until evening.<\/p>\n
Then David asked the young man:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere exactly are you from?\u201d<\/p>\n
The young man said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the son of an Amalekite.\u201d<\/p>\n
David looked straight at him and said:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow could you dare to raise your hand against the Lord\u2019s anointed king? Weren\u2019t you afraid?\u201d<\/p>\n
You have to remember, David had several chances to kill Saul before, but he never did it.<\/p>\n
Because David believed that even though Saul was hunting him down, Saul was still the king whom the Lord had anointed.<\/p>\n
But now this young Amalekite had come all the way to David and proudly said, \u201cI killed Saul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, David wasn\u2019t going to let that slide.<\/p>\n
He called one of his men and said:<\/p>\n
\u201cGo and kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n
So the young man was killed.<\/p>\n
David said to him:<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t blame anybody else. You yourself testified that you killed the Lord\u2019s anointed. You brought this judgment on yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
You might think the story would end right there.<\/p>\n
But David didn\u2019t celebrate.<\/p>\n
Instead, he was deeply grieved.<\/p>\n
Especially because of Jonathan.<\/p>\n
Who was Jonathan?<\/p>\n
He was David\u2019s closest friend.<\/p>\n
Even though Saul had spent years trying to kill David, Jonathan had always loved him, protected him, and stood by him.<\/p>\n
So David wrote a deeply sorrowful song of mourning and taught the people of Judah to sing it.<\/p>\n
In that song, David didn\u2019t make fun of Saul. He didn\u2019t say:<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, look at that. I finally made it!\u201d<\/p>\n
No way.<\/p>\n
David mourned for him instead.<\/p>\n
He said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe heroes of Israel have fallen on the mountains!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t let the Philistines hear about this. Don\u2019t let them celebrate. Don\u2019t let them turn this tragedy into a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then David cried out over Mount Gilboa:<\/p>\n
\u201cMount Gilboa, may you have no rain or dew, because the heroes fell there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he spoke about Saul and Jonathan.<\/p>\n
Father and son had loved each other in life, fought side by side in battle, and in the end, they fell together.<\/p>\n
David also said:<\/p>\n
\u201cDaughters of Israel, cry for Saul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because when Saul was king, he had brought honor to Israel and prosperity to the people.<\/p>\n
But the person David could not stop grieving for was Jonathan.<\/p>\n
He cried:<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brother Jonathan, I am heartbroken because of you!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour love for me was so wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was deeper than anything I had ever known.\u201d<\/p>\n
And finally, David cried out again:<\/p>\n
\u201cHow the heroes have fallen!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow the weapons of war have been lost!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sarah King Saul and his son Jonathan had been killed in battle on Mount Gilboa. At the time, David was still staying in Ziklag. After coming back from fighting the Amalekites, David and his men had already been there for two days. Then, on the third day, a young man suddenly showed up. The guy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10133,"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10132\/revisions\/10133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithloop.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}