David is still in Ziklag when a messenger comes from the battle front - Saul and his sons are dead. The man, an Amalekite, brings Saul's crown and his arm band as proof. He also claims that he in fact killed Saul, as opposed to Saul committing suicide. Other than that, his story corresponds to the events in the preceding chapter.
The man was likely looking for a reward from David for killing off his enemy. David is not happy and instead has this man executed for regicide. At this point, there is no indication that David suspects this man is lying but I think the justice is fair under the Mosaic. There actually were not many penalties for lying per se (despite it being in the 10 Commandments). There was one big one - if you lied to frame someone else for a crime, then you could be punished to the same extent for that same crime.
It's not exactly the same scenario, but I think the principal is that lying brings the amount of justice that you're lying about. So, if you lie about killing a person, it would seem that the justice of killing that person would fall on you. That's what happened here. In David's eyes, killing "God's annointed" was punishable by death and the man dies.
Afterwards, David writes a new song lamenting about the death of Saul and Jonathon. I don't think this made it into the book of Psalms although verse 18 says it is in the Book of Jashar.
The most interesting thing about the song - the love of Jonathon was more wonderful than that of women. (verse 26).
Woah!!!! That's a bit far there David. He obviously needed someone to edit his songs before they got published.
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