2 Samuel 1:17

David lamented with this lamentation. The Hebrew word for "lamentation" is kinah, a technical term for an elegy or poem commemorative of the dead. Thus Jeremiah wrote a kinah in memory of King Josiah ( 2 Chronicles 35:25 ); and there is little doubt that the "lamentations" there spoken of were a collection of dirges, in which probably this ode written by David held an honoured place. In 2 Samuel 3:33 , 2 Samuel 3:34 we have a short kinah in Abner's honour, which possibly formed part of a longer poem, of which those two verses only are quoted as sufficing to prove, not only David's innocence, but also his indignation at Joab's foul deed. In both these places we have remains of David's secular poetry, and find it marked by the same strong emotion and the same sublimity of thought as distinguish his psalms. We observe also the nobleness of David's nature in his total silence concerning himself, and his generous eulogy, not of Jonathan only, but also of Saul. The mean envy and the implacable jealousy of the latter are no more remembered, and he sees in him, not the personal foe, but the brave king who has fallen in his country's cause.