OLD TESTAMENTNEW TESTAMENT

1 Samuel 31:4

Then said Saul unto his armorbearer, Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armorbearer would not; for he was greatly afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it.

All Commentaries on 1 Samuel 31:4 Go To 1 Samuel 31

Bede

AD 735

The armor bearer of Saul represents the teachers of the law, for just as the arms and arrows of the Philistines are the deceptions of depraved people, so in contrast the arms of the Israelites cannot be understood in any other way other than to refer mystically to the words of spiritual teaching by which the people of God ought to have protected themselves from all dangers. But when Saul had been wounded by the archers and was at the point of despair, he preferred to die by the sword of his armor bearer than by the sword of the uncircumcised. The chiefs of the kingdom of the Jews, once they had spent the course of their life in their sins and being at the point of death, preferred to perish as their teachers set aside the commandments of the law and taught them to do the same rather than to perish by consorting with the Gentiles and so defiling themselves, since they called the Gentiles profane and unclean. At last they feared even to enter the governor’s residence “so that they might not be contaminated but be able to eat the Passover.” To be sure, that Passover ended up harming them by the very law which they had accepted, for they did not fear to contaminate that Passover with the blood of an innocent man.

1 min

About Privacy Policy Donate

Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20