But when the men of Israel – who lived on the other side Jordan – saw that the men of Israel fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they also abandoned the cities and fled, and the Philistines came and lived in them.

On the next day, the Philistines were plundering the slain. They found Saul and his three sons. They cut off Saul’s head, took his armor and displayed them all around their country. Then they put his armor in the house of the Ashtaroth (which in Canaanite means the pagan deity of fertility and war). But they hung Saul’s body on the wall of Beth Shan. When the people of Jabesh in Gilead heard what the Philistines had done, all the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the bodies from the wall. And they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted for seven days.