How are the mighty fallen,.... This is the burden of this elegiac song, being the third time it is mentioned:
and the weapons of war perished! not only the valiant soldiers were killed, but their arms were lost; and particularly he may mean Saul and Jonathan, who as they were the shields of the people, so they were the true weapons and instruments of war, and with them all military glory perished; which must be understood as a poetical figure, exaggerating their military characters; otherwise David, and many mighty men with him, remained, and who revived and increased the military glory of Israel, as the following history shows.

The third strophe (2-Samuel 1:27) contains simply a brief aftertone of sorrow, in which the ode does away:
Oh how are the mighty fallen,
The instruments of war perished!
"The instruments of war" are not the weapons; but the expression is a figurative one, referring to the heroes by whom war was carried on (vid., Isaiah 13:5). Luther has adopted this rendering (die Streitbaren).