Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.

Ye mountains of Gelboe, let neither dew, nor rain come upon you, neither be they fields of firstfruits: for there was cast away the shield of the valiant, the shield of Saul as though he had not been anointed with oil.

Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, no rain upon you, nor fields of heave-offerings! For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, The shield of Saul, as not anointed with oil.

Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither rain upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.

Mountains of Gilboa! No dew nor rain be on you, And fields of heave-offerings! For there hath become loathsome The shield of the mighty, The shield of Saul, without the anointed with oil.

O mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain on you, you fields of death: for there the arms of the strong have been shamed, the arms of Saul, as if he had not been marked with the holy oil.

Ye mountains of Gilboa, Let there be no dew nor rain upon you, Neither fields of choice fruits; For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away, The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.

O mountains of Gilboa, let neither dew, nor rain fall over you, and may these not be the fields of the first-fruits. For in that place, the shield of the valiant was cast away, the shield of Saul, as if he had not been anointed with oil.

Let there be no dew - For a similar passionate form of poetical malediction, compare Job 3:3-10; Jeremiah 20:14-18.
Nor fields of offerings - He imprecates such complete barrenness on the soil of Gilboa, that not even enough may grow for an offering of first-fruits. The latter part of the verse is better rendered thus: For there the shield of the mighty was polluted, the shield of Saul was not anointed with oil, but with blood). Shields were usually anointed with oil in preparation for the battle Isaiah 21:5.

As though he had not been - In stead of בלי beli, Not, I read כלי keley, Instruments.
Anointed with oil - See the observations at the end.
2-Samuel 1:18, etc.: He bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow, קשת kasheth.
The word kasheth is to be understood of the title of the song which immediately follows, and not of the use of the bow, as our translation intimates.
Many of David's Psalm have titles prefixed to them; some are termed Shosannim, some Maschil, Nehiloth, Neginoth, etc., and this one here, Kadesh or The Bow, because it was occasioned by the Philistine archers. 1-Samuel 31:3 : "And the archers hit him."
But especially respecting the bow of Jonathan, "which returned not back from the blood of the slain," as the song itself expresses. And David could not but remember the bow of Jonathan, out of which "the arrow was shot beyond the lad," 1-Samuel 20:36. It was the time when that covenant was made, and that affection expressed between them "which was greater than the love of women."
On these accounts the song was entitled Kasheth, or The song of the Bow, and David commanded the chief musicians, Ethan, Heman, and Jeduthun, to teach the children of Judah to sing it.
"It is written in the book of Jasher." Sept., επι βιβλιου του ευθους, "in the book of the upright."
ספרא דאוריתא siphra deoraitha, "The book of the Law." - Jonathan.
The Arabic says, "Behold it is written in the book of Ashee; this is the book of Samuel;" the interpretation of which is, "book of songs or canticles."
This lamentation is justly admired as a picture of distress the most tender and the most striking; unequally divided by grief into longer and shorter breaks, as nature could pour them forth from a mind interrupted by the alternate recurrence of the most lively images of love and greatness.
His reverence for Saul and his love for Jonathan have their strongest colourings; but their greatness and bravery come full upon him, and are expressed with peculiar energy.
Being himself a warrior, it is in that character he sees their greatest excellence; and though his imagination hurries from one point of recollection to another, yet we hear him - at first, at last, everywhere - lamenting, How are the mighty fallen!
It is almost impossible to read the noble original without finding every word swollen with a sigh or broken with a sob. A heart pregnant with distress, and striving to utter expressions descriptive of its feelings, which are repeatedly interrupted by an excess of grief, is most sensibly painted throughout the whole. Even an English reader may be convinced of this, from the following specimen in European characters: -
19. Hatstsebi Yishrael al bamotheycha chalal; Eych naphelu gibborim;
20. Al taggidu begath, Al tebasseru bechutsoth Ashkelon; Pen tismachnah benoth Pelishtim, Pen taalozenah benoth haarelim.
21. Harey baggilboa al tal, Veal matar aleychem usedey terumoth; Ki sham nigal magen Gibborim. Magen Shaul keley Mashiach bashshamen!
22. Middam chalalim, mecheleb gibborim, Kesheth Yehonathan lo nashog achor; Vechereb Shaul lo thashub reykam.
23. Shaul Vihonathan, Hannee habim vehanneimim bechaiyeyhem, Ubemotham lo niphradu. Minnesharim kallu, mearayoth gaberu!
24. Benoth Yishrael el Shaul becheynah; Hammalbishchem shani im adanim, Hammaaleh adi zahab al lebushechen.
25. Eych naphelu gibborim bethoch hammilchamah! Yehonathan al bamotheycha chalal!
26. Tsar li aleycha achi Yehonathan, naamta li meod Niphleathah ahabathecha li meahabath nashim!
27. Eych naphelu gibborim, Vaiyobedu keley milchamah!
The three last verses in this sublime lamentation have sense and sound so connected as to strike every reader.
Dr. Kennicott, from whom I have taken several of the preceding remarks, gives a fine Latin version of this song, which I here subjoin: -
O decus Israelis, super excelsa tua Miles!
Quomodo ceciderunt Fortes!
Nolite indicare in Gatho,
Nolite indicare in plateis Ascalonis:
Ne laetentur filiae Philistaeorum,
Ne exultent filiae incircumcisorum.
Montes Gilboani super vos
Nec ros, nec pluvia, neque agri primitiarum;
Ibi enim abjectus fuit clypeus fortium.
Clypeus Saulis, arma inuncti olec!
Sine sanguine Militum,
Sine adipe Fortium.
Arcus Jonathanis non retrocesserat;
Gladiusque Saulis non redierat incassum.
Saul et Jonathan
Amabiles erant et jucundi in vitis suis,
Et in morte sua non separati.
Prae aquilis veloces!
Prae leonibus fortes!
Filiae Israelis deflete Saulem;
Qui coccino cum deliciis vos vestivit,
Qui vestibus vestris ornamenta imposuit aurea!
Quomodo ceciderunt Fortes, in medio belli!
O Jonathan, super excelsa tua Miles!
Versor in angustiis, tui causa, Frater mi, Jonathan!
Mihi fuisti admodum jucundus!
Mihi tuus amor admodum mirabilis,
Mulierum exuperans amorem!
Quomodo ceciderunt fortes,
Et perierunt arma belli!
Dissertation I., p. 122.
In 2-Samuel 1:21 I have inserted כלי keley for בלי beli. Dr. Delaney rightly observes that the particle בלי beli is not used in any part of the Bible in the sense of quasi non, as though not, in which sense it must be used here if it be retained as a genuine reading: The shield of Saul as though it had not been anointed with oil.
In a MS. written about the year 1200, numbered 30 in Kennicott's Bible, כלי keley is found; and also in the first edition of the whole Hebrew Bible, printed Soncini 1488. Neither the Syriac nor Arabic versions, nor the Chaldee paraphrase, acknowledge the negative particle בלי beli, which they would have done had it been in the copies from which they translated. It was easy to make the mistake, as there is such a similarity between ב beth and כ caph; the line therefore should be read thus: The shield of Saul, weapons anointed with oil.
In 2-Samuel 1:22 נשוג nashog, to obtain, attain, seems to have been written for נסוג nasog, to recede, return. The former destroys the sense, the latter, which our translation has followed, and which is supported by the authority of 30 MSS., makes it not only intelligible but beautiful.
In 2-Samuel 1:19, 2-Samuel 1:22, and 2-Samuel 1:25, חלל and חללים chalal and chalalim occur, which we translate the Slain, but which Dr. Kennicott, I think from good authority, renders soldier and soldiers; and thus the version is made more consistent and beautiful.
חלל chalal signifies to bore or pierce through; and this epithet might be well given to a soldier, q.d., the Piercer, because his business is to transfix or pierce his enemies with sword, spear, and arrows.
If it be translated soldiers in the several places of the Old Testament, where we translate it Slain or Wounded, the sense will be much mended; see Judges 20:31, Judges 20:39; Psalm 89:11; Proverbs 7:26; Jeremiah 51:4, Jeremiah 51:47, Jeremiah 51:49; Ezekiel 11:6, Ezekiel 11:7; Ezekiel 21:14. In several others it retains its radical signification of piercing, wounding, etc.
After these general observations I leave the particular beauties of this inimitable song to be sought out by the intelligent reader. Much has been written upon this, which cannot, consistently with the plan of these notes, be admitted here. See Delaney, Kennicott, Lowth, etc.; and, above all, let the reader examine the Hebrew text.

Ye mountains of Gilboa, [let there be] no dew, neither [let there be] rain, upon you, nor (i) fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, [as though he had] not [been] anointed with oil.
(i) Let their fertile fields be barren, and bring forth no fruit to offer to the Lord.

Ye mountains of Gilboa,.... On which fell Saul and his sons, and many of the people of Israel, 2-Samuel 1:6,
let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you; which is not to understood as a real imprecation; for David would never curse any part of the land of Israel, for which he had so great a regard; but only as a poetical figure, expressing his concern for, and abhorrence of what happened on those mountains; much less did this in reality take place, as some have feigned, as if never dew nor rain descended on them (t) afterwards; which has been refuted by travellers, particularly Borchard (u), who, speaking of this mountain, says, that as he was upon it, there was such a violent shower fell, that he was wet through his clothes; and in the year 1273, laying all night upon this hill, there was a great dew fell upon him:
nor fields of offerings; of heave offerings; the meaning is, that he could wish almost that those hills were not fruitful, and that they brought no fruit to perfection, so much as that heave offerings for the service of the sanctuary might be taken; which is expressive of great sterility and scarcity, see Joel 1:13,
for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away; mighty men were obliged to cast away their shields and flee, which were greatly to their reproach and scandal, and to that of the whole nation: it was always reckoned very scandalous, and a great crime, even punishable with death, to cast away a shield, both with the Greeks and others (w): yea, also
the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil; as if he was not the anointed king of Israel, but a common soldier: or else this respects his shield, as if that was not anointed, as shields used to be, that they might be smooth and glib, and missile weapons, as arrows and others, might not pass through them, but slide off, see Isaiah 21:5; though Gersom gives a different turn, that Saul's shield being in continual use, needed not to be anointed, as those did which for a time had been laid aside. Abarbinel interprets these words thus, that he, who was the shield of the mighty, even Saul himself, was vilely cast away, or become loathsome; and that his shield was anointed, not with oil, but with the blood of the slain, and the fat of the mighty, connecting them with the words following.
(t) Cippi Hebrews. p. 34. (u) Apud Hottinger not. in ib. see Bunting's Travels, p, 131. (w) Isocrates de Pace, p. 364. Horat. Carmin. l. 2. Ode 7. Tacitus de Mor. German. c. 6. Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 2. c. 13.

let there be no dew, neither let there be rain--To be deprived of the genial atmospheric influences which, in those anciently cultivated hills, seem to have reared plenty of first-fruits in the corn harvests, was specified as the greatest calamity the lacerated feelings of the poet could imagine. The curse seems still to lie upon them; for the mountains of Gilboa are naked and sterile.
the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away--To cast away the shield was counted a national disgrace. Yet, on that fatal battle of Gilboa, many of the Jewish soldiers, who had displayed unflinching valor in former battles, forgetful of their own reputation and their country's honor, threw away their shields and fled from the field. This dishonorable and cowardly conduct is alluded to with exquisitely touching pathos.

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.

Let there be, &c. - This is no proper imprecation; but a passionate representation of the horror which he conceived at this publick loss; which was such, as if he thought every person or thing which contributed to it, were fit to bear the tokens of divine displeasure, such as this is, when the earth wants the necessary influences of dew and rain. Fields of offerings - That is, fruitful fields, which may produce fair and goodly fruits fit to be offered to God. Vilely - Dishonourably: for it was a great reproach to any soldier, to cast away or lose his shield. Cast away - By themselves, that they might flee more swiftly as the Israelites did, and Saul with the rest. As though, &c. - As if he had been no more, than a common soldier: he was exposed to the same kind of death and reproach as they were.