Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Chronicles 10:12

They arose, all the valiant men, and took away the body of Saul, and the bodies of his sons, and brought them to Jabesh, and buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

12. took away ] i.e. from the walls of Beth-shan (so Pesh.).

to Jabesh ] Samuel adds “and burned them there.” The Chronicler omits this statement perhaps because the bones were not destroyed by this burning; cp. 2Sa 21:12-14 (the bones of Saul and Jonathan brought from Jabesh in David’s reign and re-interred in the family sepulchre). Burning was not a usual funeral rite among the Jews (cp. 2Ch 16:14, note), and probably the perfunctory burning carried out by the men of Jabesh was merely a ruse to give the Philistines the impression that Saul’s remains were destroyed and that therefore it was useless to disturb his grave.

under the oak ] R.V. mg., under the terebinth. Large trees, being rare in Palestine, frequently serve as landmarks; cp. Jdg 4:5; 1Sa 22:6 (“tamarisk tree” R.V.).

fasted seven days ] Fasting involved abstinence from food during daylight. David fasted “till the evening” in mourning for Saul (2Sa 1:12) and for Abner ( ib. 2Sa 3:35). The fast of Jabesh was a sevenfold fast.

13, 14 (peculiar to Chron.). The Moral of the Overthrow of the House of Saul

Such reflexions as these are characteristic of the Chronicler; cp. 2Ch 12:2 (note); 1Ch 22:7 ; 1Ch 24:24; 1Ch 25:27. They are not so frequent in Sam. and Kings.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

To wit, every day till evening, after the manner of the Jewish fasts.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

[See comments on 1Sa 31:12]

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(12) All the valiant men.Literally, every man of valour. Samuel adds, and marched all the night.

Took away.Carried off. Samuel has took, (ceperunt).

The body.A common Aramaic word, gfh, only read here in the Old Testament, for which Samuel has the pure Hebrew synonym awyah. Samuel adds, from the wall of Beth-shan.

And brought them.Samuel, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. To burn a corpse was a further degradation of executed criminals (Jos. 7:25; Lev. 20:14; Lev. 21:9), and as the Jews did not ordinarily practise cremation, it is supposed that the phrase burnt them, in 1 Samuel 31 means made a burning for them of costly spices, as was done at the funerals of kings (Jer. 34:5; 2Ch. 16:14; 2Ch. 21:19). But perhaps the bodies were burnt in this exceptional case because they had been mutilated by the enemy.

Buried their bones.Samuel, took and buried. The phrase their bones, contrasted with their corpses, certainly seems to imply that the latter had been burnt.

The oak.Heb., terebinth, or turpentine tree. Samuel, tamarisk. The difference points to another source used by Chronicles.

And fasted seven days.In token of mourning. (Comp. the friends of Job, Job. 2:11-13; and Ezekiel among the exiles at Tel-abib, Eze. 3:15.) For the behaviour of the men of Jabesh, comp. 1 Samuel 11

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

12. Buried their bones under the oak in Jabesh Samuel has, “under a tree,” or rather, under the tree, ( ), that is, some well-known tree which this writer designates as , the oak, or terebinth.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments