Note 453 — Chapter VI · THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MONARCHY (continued 2)

Criticism has seen in the story told by the Amalekite a second version of the death of Saul inconsistent with that which precedes it. The inconsistency certainly exists, but that is because the Amalekite’s story was a fabrication, the object of which was to gain a reward from David. There was this much truth in it, that Saul had been wounded and had desired death; the Amalekite could easily have learned this from those who had witnessed the last scene of Saul’s life. But the fact that he had robbed Saul’s corpse shows that he must have come to the ground after the flight of the Israelitish soldiers; he was, in fact, one of those Bedâwin thieves who, in Oriental warfare, still hang on the skirts of the battle in the hope of murdering the wounded and plundering the dead when it is over and the victors are pursuing the vanquished.