(13) A tree in Jabesh.--A tree, that is "the well-known" tamarisk (eshel). For Saul's love for trees see as an instance 1Samuel 22:6. The men of Jabesh-Gilead well remembered this peculiar fancy of their dead king, and under the waving branches of their own beautiful and famous tamarisk they tenderly laid the remains of their dead hero and his princely sons.

Evidently King David, at a subsequent period, fetched away these royal remains, and had them reverently interred in the family sepulchre of Kish, the father of Saul, in Zelah of Benjamin (2Samuel 21:12; 2Samuel 21:14).

And fasted seven days.--This was the period the sons of Israel mourned for Jacob at the threshing floor of Atad beyond Jordan (Genesis 1:10). The grateful men of Jabesh-Gilead thus paid the last honours to the fallen Saul.

It is probable that the Talmudic rule which enjoins strict mourning for seven days (fasting was mourning of the strictest kind) was originally based on these two historic periods of mourning recorded in the case of the great ancestor of the tribes, Jacob, and of the first King Saul, although the curious tradition preserved in the Babylonian Talmud gives a special reason for the period--seven days. Rav. Chisda said: The soul of the deceased mourns over him the first seven days; for it is said, Job 14:22, "and his soul shall mourn over him." Rav. Jehudah said: If there are no mourners to condole with, ten men sit down where the death took place. Such a case happened in the neighbourhood of Rav. Jehudah. After the seven days of mourning, the deceased appeared to Rav. Jehudah in a dream, and said "Mayest thou be comforted as thou hast comforted me."--Treatise Shabbath, fol. 152, Colossians 2.

To this day among the Jews ten men are hired to perform the usual daily prayers during the seven days of mourning at the house of the deceased.

On the reason for the number seven being fixed for the period of mourning, we read again in the Seder Moed of the Babylonian Talmud, "How is it proved that mourning should be kept up seven days? "It is written, Amos 8:10 : "I will turn your feasts into mourning," and these (usually) lasted seven days.--Treatise Moed Katon, fol. 20, Colossians 1.

"Again a long draught of my soul-wine! Look forth o'er the

years!

Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the

seer's!

Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb, bid

arise

A grey mountain of marble heaped four-square, till built to the

skies.

Let it mark where the great First King slumbers; whose fame

would ye know?

Up above see the rock's naked face, where the record shall go,

In great characters cut by the scribe. Such was Saul, so ne

did;

With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid--

For not half, they'll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to

amend,

In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall

spend

(See, in tablets, it is level before them) their praise, and record,

With gold of the graver, Saul's story--the statesman's great

Word

Side by side with the poet's sweet comment. The rivers

a-wave

With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet

winds rave:

So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part

In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou

art !"

BROWNING'S Saul.

31:8-13 The Scripture makes no mention what became of the souls of Saul and his sons, after they were dead; but of their bodies only: secret things belong not to us. It is of little consequence by what means we die, or what is done with our dead bodies. If our souls are saved, our bodies will be raised incorruptible and glorious; but not to fear His wrath, who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell, is the extreme of folly and wickedness. How useless is the respect of fellow-creatures to those who are suffering the wrath of God! While pompous funerals, grand monuments, and he praises of men, honour the memory of the deceased, the soul may be suffering in the regions of darkness and despair! Let us seek that honour which cometh from God only.And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at Jabesh,.... For though they burned the bodies, yet so as to preserve the bones; and these, together with the ashes of the parts burnt, they gathered up, and buried under a tree near this city; this tree is said to be an oak, 1 Chronicles 10:12; so Deborah, the nurse of Rebekah, was buried under an oak, Genesis 35:8. The Jews generally interred their dead under some oak, as aforementioned writer observes (q); pleased perchance with the parallel, as he expresses it, that as these plants, seemingly dead in winter, have every spring an annual resurrection, so men's dry bones shall have new sap put into them at the day of judgment:

and fasted seven days; not that they ate and drank nothing all that time, but they fasted every day till evening, as the Jews used to do; so long it seems a man may live without eating, but not longer; See Gill on Exodus 24:18 and see Gill on 1 Kings 19:8; this they did, as Kimchi thinks, in memory of the seven days Nahash the Ammonite gave them for their relief, in which time Saul came and saved them, 1 Samuel 11:3.

(q) Pisgah-Sight of Palestine b. 2. ch. 2. p. 82.