Saul’s suicide did not prevent the enemy from using his remains to humiliate him and to provide evidence of their astounding victory. They then sent messengers throughout to spread the good news
to their idols and to the people. Unlike the Lord, heathen gods had to be informed of the outcome of the battle by their worshippers.
1 Samuel 31:10 reads that they put his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth.
As Goliath’s sword that had been taken by David was eventually placed in the sanctuary at Nob (1 Samuel 17:54; 1 Samuel 21:9), so Saul’s armour was placed in a Philistine pagan sanctuary.1 And fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan.
The Chronicler, however, shifts the focus away from Saul’s body and notes that the Philistines hung up his head in the temple of Dagon
(1 Chronicles 10:10). In this way the Chronicler refers to David’s decapitation and public defilement of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:48–57). The contest with Goliath had already cast a shadow over Saul’s kingship by honouring David over Saul (see, for example, 1 Samuel 18:7–8). In the light of this story, however, Saul’s disgrace was intensified by the fact that the Philistines dishonoured him just as David had disgraced Goliath.2 The Chronicler seems also to be contrasting the present situation with what happened to Dagon’s head when the ark of the covenant was placed in his temple (1 Samuel 5:4).
But this act is not just a matter of dishonouring the Lord's anointed king and a plundering of their equipment and finery. It is also a dishonouring of the God of Israel. For behind the warring armies are competing gods. The defeat of the armies of Israel led by the Lord's anointed is a defeat for the Lord himself and a triumph for the gods of the Philistines.3 The Philistines celebrated their victory over Saul before their gods, because they attributed their success to the powers of their deities. Thus, it was made clear to all that God had utterly forsaken Saul to the power of foreign gods (see Deuteronomy 4:25–28; Deuteronomy 28:36–37; Jeremiah 16:13).4
The plural gods
(elohim in context refers to deities or gods; 1 Chronicles 10:10) is used here in place of the plural of Ashtoreth as found in 1 Samuel 31:10. Ashtoreth or Astarte in Greek writings was a Canaanite mother goddess of fertility and war. Often, it would seem in the Hebrew Bible, plural forms of both Baal and Ashtoreth stand for gods and goddesses in general (Judges 2:13; Judges 10:6; 1 Samuel 7:3–4; 1 Samuel 12:10; 1 Kings 11:5; 2 Kings 23:13).5
9 And they stripped him and took his head and his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to their idols and to the people.