David’s Lament: David’s grief over the deaths of Saul, who had once been like a father to him, and of his friend Jonathan, was heartfelt. He found an outlet for that grief in writing poetry, and this lament is the result.

1:17–18 The insistence that all the men of Judah learn the lament is likely to have been politically motivated. If the Judeans could be shown as paying proper respect to Saul’s memory, there was a much greater likelihood of the northern tribes transferring their loyalty to David, who was Judean. The poem thus serves the dual purpose of paying homage to the dead king and introducing David as the obvious successor. The lament was officially recorded in the Book of Jashar, some kind of national record, perhaps of official poems.

1:19–22 There is no underlying irony in David’s …