Catholic Commentary
Introduction to the Lament: The Song of the Bow
17David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son18(and he commanded them to teach the children of Judah the song of the bow; behold, it is written in the book of Jashar):
2 Samuel 1:17–18 records David composing and commanding the teaching of a formal funeral lament over Saul and Jonathan, establishing both grief and its transmission as sacred communal obligation rather than private emotion. The reference to the Book of Jashar anchors this lament in historical records, presenting David as a poet-prophet who subordinates personal vindication to liturgical duty.
David transforms personal grief into sacred command—he doesn't just mourn Saul and Jonathan; he orders the nation to learn the lament and remember it forever.
2 Samuel 1:17 — "David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son"
The Hebrew word for "lamented" (וַיְקֹנֵן, wayyəqōnēn) derives from the root qyn, the technical term for a formal funeral dirge or qinah. This is not casual weeping; it is an artistically composed, publicly performed act of mourning — the same genre used by the prophet Jeremiah over Jerusalem (Lamentations) and by Ezekiel over Tyre (Ezek 27). That David exercises this art form establishes him immediately not merely as a soldier-king but as a poet-prophet, the anointed one who gives sacred voice to communal grief.
Crucially, David mourns both Saul and Jonathan together. This is theologically and personally charged. Saul had been David's relentless persecutor, seeking his life across the wilderness of Judah. Jonathan had been the covenant-friend whose love David will later describe as surpassing the love of women (2 Sam 1:26). By placing both names side by side from the outset, David refuses to let personal injury define the scope of his mourning. He weeps for the Lord's anointed first and the covenant friend second — a deliberate ordering that prioritizes theological loyalty over personal sentiment. This is the mark of a man after God's own heart (1 Sam 13:14): one who grieves according to the shape of sacred obligation, not merely private emotion.
2 Samuel 1:18 — The Command to Teach, the Book of Jashar
The parenthetical note is dense with significance. First, David commands the children of Judah to learn the lament. The verb (lāmed, to teach/learn) places this elegy within the same pedagogical framework as Torah transmission itself. Grief, David insists, is not merely to be felt but to be handed on — a form of cultural and spiritual memory-making. In this act, David anticipates the whole Israelite tradition of liturgical lament (the Psalms, Lamentations) by which sorrow is sacramentalized into communal worship.
The phrase "Song of the Bow" (qeshet) is debated. It may be the lament's title, drawn from the reference to Jonathan's bow in the verses that follow (v. 22); it may refer to Saul and Jonathan's valor in battle; or it may allude to the bow as a symbol of covenant fidelity (cf. Gen 9:13). All three readings are compatible: the weapon of warriors becomes the instrument of memory.
The reference to the Book of Jashar (sēpher hayyāshār, "the Book of the Upright") — mentioned also in Joshua 10:13 — confirms that Israel possessed a corpus of heroic poetry outside the canonical text, a kind of national epic from which the sacred authors drew. The note grounds the lament in verifiable historical memory, assuring the reader that David's grief was real, recorded, and publicly authenticated. The inspired author cites this source not to relativize the canon but to anchor it in the lived experience of Israel's history.
Catholic tradition reads David as one of Scripture's most luminous types of Christ. The Church Fathers — Ambrose, Augustine, and John Chrysostom among them — consistently see David's composite role as king, prophet, and psalmist prefiguring the threefold office of Christ (munus triplex). Here, in his act of formal lamentation, David functions as a prophetic poet-king who gives sacred form to communal grief, anticipating the weeping Christ at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35) and, more profoundly, Christ's descent into the silence of Holy Saturday.
The act of commanding that the lament be taught resonates deeply with the Catholic theology of Tradition. The Catechism teaches that "Sacred Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God" (CCC 81). David's insistence that grief be transmitted — not merely felt — reflects an instinct that truth, including the truth of suffering and loss, belongs to the whole community and must be actively handed on. This is the logic behind the Church's own liturgical laments: the Tenebrae, the Stabat Mater, the Improperia of Good Friday. Grief is never merely private; it is always ecclesial.
Pope Benedict XVI, in Verbum Domini (§29), notes that the Psalms — David's laments included — teach the Church "to speak to God even in the darkest moments." These two verses establish the formal, intentional character of that speech: lament is a discipline, a craft, and an act of fidelity.
Contemporary Catholic culture often privatizes grief, treating it as a personal burden to be processed quickly and quietly. David's example challenges this instinct at its root. He composes his grief into art, commands it to be taught, and places it within the community's memory. For Catholics today, this passage invites a recovery of the Church's own tradition of liturgical mourning — attending the Office of the Dead, praying the De Profundis, observing the full liturgical weight of Holy Saturday rather than rushing to Easter Sunday.
More concretely, this passage speaks to those who have lost someone they had a complicated relationship with — as David did with Saul. David does not wait until Saul was a better man to mourn him. He mourns him as he was, the Lord's anointed, flawed and fallen. This is a model for the Catholic practice of praying for the dead, including those who may have wounded us. The requiem Mass does not ask whether the deceased deserved our prayers; it asks only whether they were human and baptized. David got there first.
Commentary