Even nature is to join in the mourning. May God withdraw His blessing from the mountains upon which the heroes have fallen, that they may not be moistened by the dew and rain of heaven, but, remaining in eternal barrenness, be memorials of the horrible occurrence that has taken place upon them. בגּלבּע הרי is an address to them; and the preposition בּ with the construct state is poetical: "mountains in Gilboa" (vid., Ewald, 289, b.). In עליכם ... אל the verb יהי is wanting. The following words, תרוּמות וּשׂדי, are in apposition to the foregoing: "and let not fields of first-fruit offerings be upon you," i.e., fields producing fruit, from which offerings of first-fruits were presented. This is the simplest and most appropriate explanation of the words, which have been very differently, and in some respects very marvellously rendered. The reason for this cursing of the mountains of Gilboa was, that there the shield of the heroes, particularly of Saul, had been defiled with blood, namely the blood of those whom the shield ought to defend. גּעל does not mean to throw away (Dietrich. ), but to soil or defile (as in the Chaldee), then to abhor. "Not anointed with oil," i.e., not cleansed and polished with oil, so that the marks of Saul's blood still adhered to it. בּלי poetical for לא. The interpolation of the words "as though" (quasi non esset unctus oleo, Vulgate) cannot be sustained.

2 Samuel 1:27 Parallel Commentaries

How are

2 Samuel 1:19,25 The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places: how are the mighty fallen!...

weapons

2 Kings 2:12 And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more...

2 Kings 13:14 Now Elisha was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died. And Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over his face...

Psalm 46:9 He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and cuts the spear in sunder; he burns the chariot in the fire.

Ezekiel 39:9,10 And they that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and the bucklers...