David's Conduct on Hearing of Saul's Death. His Elegy upon Saul and Jonathan - 2 Samuel 1 David received the intelligence of the defeat of Israel and the death of Saul in the war with the Philistines from an Amalekite, who boasted of having slain Saul and handed over to David the crown and armlet of the fallen king, but whom David punished with death for the supposed murder of the anointed of God (vv. 1-16). David mourned for the death of Saul and Jonathan, and poured out his grief in an elegiac ode (Sa2 1:17-27). This account is closely connected with the concluding chapters of the first book of Samuel.