try their fortune in the plains. Under the leadership of Achish, king of Gath, they marched northward, round the promontory of Carmel, and took up their position at Shunem, under "Little Hermon."[1] Saul was posted on Mount Gilboa, but had no confidence in his strength. In his distress, indeed, he actually paid a night visit to the witch of Endor, although Endor was north of "Little Hermon," and he had to go past the Philistine camp to reach it. The next morning the battle went against him: the Israelites were positively driven up the slope of Gilboa and slaughtered on the heights, which should have been their natural battle-ground. David, when he heard of it, felt the humiliation of it, or at least the depth of the misfortune, and his dirge for Saul and his son opens with the words, "Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places! How are the mighty fallen! Tell it not in Gath" (2 Sam. i.).
The head of Saul was sent round to Ashdod, to the temple of Dagon, the Philistine Fish-god. The armour of Saul was dedicated to the goddess Ashtoreth, in the city of Bethshan, not very far from the scene of the battle. We may judge that Bethshan was still in possession of the Canaanites. The bodies of Saul and his sons were fastened to the wall of Bethshan. But the men of Jabesh Gilead, east of Jordan, a city which Saul had once befriended (1 Sam. xi.), came across in the night and took them away. After burning them in Jabesh, they buried the bones under a tamarisk tree; and thence, at a later opportunity, David fetched them away and buried them in the family tomb in Benjamin.
We read in Scripture of "Bethshan and her daughter
- ↑ Little Hermon is really a misnomer for the conical hill of Duhy just north of the Valley of Jezreel. The mention of Tabor and Hermon together in Psalm lxxxix. 12, has misled those who did not realize that Tabor would be in the same line of vision with Mount Hermon, for many observers in the south.
