Ye mountains of Gelboe, let neither dew, nor rain come upon you, neither be they fields of firstfruits: for there was cast away the shield of the valiant, the shield of Saul as though he had not been anointed with oil.
Rashi
Mountains in Gilboa. The mountains in Gilboa.
Nor fields [yielding enough for] baking offerings. There will be no harvest among [the fields] that have the amount [that necessitates] making the baking offering.
Because there, the shield of soldiers spit out. They had shields made of skins and when they went to war, they smeared them with oil so that a weapon hitting [the shield] should slip [off of it]. As it is said [in Scriptures] "Get up officers, smear [your] shield with oil. And here this is what the Lamentation means, "There, the shield of soldiers spit out," it spit out its oil and [the oil] did not stick to it and rendered [the shield] as if it wasn't smeared with oil. All [uses of the word] הַגְעָלָה is a language of rejecting what had been put into it as [we find] "His oxen will impregnate, [the seed] will not be rejected."
Hebrew and Aramaic words are the commentator’s citations of the sacred text; the English translation that follows each is the translator’s.
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.