DID YOU KNOW?
The answer
The men of Jabesh-gilead. When the town hears what the Philistines did, "all the valiant men set out, traveled all night long, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan" (1 Samuel 31:12). They burn the bodies at Jabesh, bury the bones under a tamarisk tree, and fast seven days (31:13). David is away in Ziklag and hears of the death only from a messenger (2 Samuel 1:1-4).
Why it’s interesting
Saul's first act as king had been to rescue Jabesh-gilead from a siege (1 Samuel 11), and the town repays him at his death. Burning a body was not an Israelite custom. The town was still loyal about twenty years after that rescue, a rare sign of what people thought of Saul in his own lifetime.
Scholarly consensus
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