II Samuel 1:18

David's Conduct on Hearing of Saul's Death. His Elegy upon Saul and Jonathan - 2 Samuel 1 David received the intelligence of the defeat of Israel and the death of Saul in the war with the Philistines from an Amalekite, who boasted of having slain Saul and handed over to David the crown and armlet of the fallen king, but whom David punished with death for the supposed murder of the anointed of God (vv. 1-16). David mourned for the death of Saul and Jonathan, and poured out his grief in an elegiac ode (Sa2 1:17-27). This account is closely connected with the concluding chapters of the first book of Samuel.

In the close of the foregoing book (with which this is connected as a continuation of the same history) we had Saul's exit; he went down slain to the pit, though we was the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. We are now to look towards the rising sun, and to enquire where David is, and what he is doing. In this chapter we have, I. Tidings brought him to Ziklag of the death of Saul and Jonathan, by an Amalekite, who undertook to give him a particular narrative of it (Sa2 1:1-10). II. David's sorrowful reception of these tidings, (Sa2 1:11, Sa2 1:12). III. Justice done upon the messenger, who boasted that he had helped Saul to dispatch himself (Sa2 1:13-16). IV. An elegy which David penned upon this occasion (Sa2 1:17-27). And in all this David's breast appears very happily free from the sparks both of revenge and ambition, and he observes a very suitable demeanour.

1:18 The extrabiblical Book of Jashar is no longer available. It was probably an Israelite epic poem or an anthology of poetry that covered, at minimum, Joshua’s conquest of Canaan (see Josh 10:13) and the ascension of David.