“Your beauty, Israel, is slaughtered on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!
Parallel translations
- WEB “Your glory, Israel, was slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!
- KJV The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!
- BSB “Your glory, O Israel, lies slain on your heights. How the mighty have fallen!
- NKJV “The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!
- NLT Your pride and joy, O Israel, lies dead on the hills! Oh, how the mighty heroes have fallen!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The lament opens by mourning Israel's slain glory and the fall of the mighty. This refrain frames the whole elegy.
Overview
The high places where Saul and Jonathan died become the stage for Israel's grief. The repeated cry How the mighty have fallen laments not only individuals but the wounding of the nation's honor. The poem teaches that earthly might is fragile, and that even the strongest fall, pointing to the need for a king whose reign cannot be cut down.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- 2 Sam 1:27How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war have perished!”
- 2 Sam 1:25How the mighty have fallen in the middle of the battle! Jonathan was slain on your high places.
- Deut 4:7–8For what great nation is there, that has a god so near to them, as Yahweh our God is whenever we call on him?
- Lam 5:16The crown is fallen from our head: Woe to us! for we have sinned.
- Lam 2:1How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of Israel, And hasn’t remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.
- Zech 11:10I took my staff Favor, and cut it apart, that I might break my covenant that I had made with all the peoples.
- 1 Sam 31:8On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.
- Zech 11:7So I fed the flock of slaughter, especially the oppressed of the flock. I took for myself two staffs. The one I called “Favor”, and the other I called “Union”, and I fed the flock.
- Isa 4:2In that day, Yahweh’s branch will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the beauty and glory of the survivors of Israel.
- 2 Sam 1:23Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives. In their death, they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions.
- Isa 53:2For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
God's covenant with David — a son whose throne and kingdom would last forever (7:12–16) — finds its yes in Jesus, the Son of David who reigns without end.
How 2 Samuel 1:19 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.