Philistines victorious

31 ^1-2 The Philistines made war on Israel. The men of Israel were in full retreat from the Philistines, falling left and right, wounded on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines caught up with Saul and his sons. They killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua, Saul’s sons.

^3-4 The battle was hot and heavy around Saul. The archers got his range and wounded him badly. Saul said to his weapon bearer, “Draw your sword and put me out of my misery, lest these pagan pigs come and make a game out of killing me.”
^4-6 But his weapon bearer wouldn’t do it. He was terrified. So Saul took the sword himself and fell on it. When the weapon bearer saw that Saul was dead, he too fell on his sword and died with him. So Saul, his three sons, and his weapon bearer—the men closest to him—died together that day.
⁷ When the Israelites in the valley opposite and those on the other side of the Jordan saw that their army was in full retreat and that Saul and his sons were dead, they left their cities and ran for their lives. The Philistines moved in and occupied the sites.
^8-10 The next day, when the Philistines came to rob the dead, they found Saul and his three sons dead on Mount Gilboa. They cut off Saul’s head and stripped off his armor. Then they spread the good news all through Philistine country in the shrines of their idols and among the people. They displayed his armor in the shrine of the Ashtoreth. They nailed his corpse to the wall at Beth Shan.
^11-13 The people of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul. Their valiant men sprang into action. They traveled all night, took the corpses of Saul and his three sons from the wall at Beth Shan, and carried them back to Jabesh and burned off the flesh. They then buried the bones under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh and fasted in mourning for seven days.

God punishes Saul, as prophesied by Samuel. Israel paid the price for Saul's disobedience. Saul falls in the battle, however he did not die but was severely injured. So injured that he declared himself dead. Perhaps was that lack of will to live on. Saul was afraid of the Philistines closing upon him and told his armour bearer to kill him. But the armour bearer refused to kill him because of his reverence to God and his understanding that life and death is in the hands of God, not His. So Saul killed himself and upon seeing that, the armour bearer too killed himself out of fear and guilt. Saul commited sin and the price of the sin is death. As we have seen here clearly, Saul paid in full for his sin, not only by his death. By his family's death and Israel's occupation. Today we have Jesus who died on the cross for all our sins and through that our wrongs are righted. We do not have to fear sin, but just to love Christ. Through this we really learn to just submit to Christ and everything would fall into place. Seek him first and everything else would be added unto you.