And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth
A temple dedicated to their deities, called by this name; of which (See Gill on Judges 2:13); Nothing was more common with the Gentiles than to place in their temples the arms they took from their enemies, as is strongly expressed by Homer F9 and Virgil F11; and indeed the Jews did the same, as appears by the sword of Goliath being laid up in the tabernacle, ( 1 Samuel 21:9 ) . Here also the Heathens F12 hung up their own arms when the war was ended:
and they fastened his body to the wall of Bethshan;
which Josephus F13 says is the same which in his time was called Scythopolis, from the Scythians that possessed it, before called Nysa, according to Pliny {n}: it was given to the tribe of Manasseh, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of it, so that it was always in the possession of others, ( Joshua 17:11 ) ( Judges 1:27 ) ; where it is called Bethshean; to the wall of the city they fastened the body of Saul with nails, as it is commonly understood; but it is more likely they hung it on a gibbet without, and near the walls of the city; so the Targum, they hung his body; or, as Josephus F15, they crucified it there; and so they did also the bodies of his sons, as appears from ( 1 Samuel 31:12 ) .