Explore the Bible: Faithful

• The Explore the Bible lesson for July 31 focuses on 1 Samuel 18-20.

Everybody Loves David (Except Saul)

In the aftermath of David’s defeat of Goliath and the Israelite’s repulse of the latest Philistine invasion, David son of Jesse became the most celebrated man in Israel. The narrative seems to jump in time somewhat, relating events that would have occurred first chronologically (1 Samuel 18:6-9), after establishing the new status quo in the kingdom (1 Samuel 18:5). The victory parades of the returning Israelite army were greeted with dancing and singing and the song, “Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7). Up to this point in the narrative, David has slain exactly one person (albeit a very large person), but his feat already has granted him the reputation of invincibility as a warrior. The exuberant hyperbole of the song immediately places David under Saul’s suspicious eye. In his paranoia, he sees a short jump from popularity in Israel to revolution. The irony is that his paranoia is right. Yahweh has chosen David as Israel’s king.

Saul’s response to David’s popularity is to seek to control him in various ways. Saul prevents him from returning to his father’s house (1 Samuel 18:2). David is separated from his family and tribe. His new identity is part of Saul’s entourage, a high-ranking army officer with no military experience. And the other army officers he just passed over for promotion were pleased! (1 Samuel 18:5)

Saul’s murderous rage (described in the text as ‘an evil spirit from the LORD—seemingly an ancient Israelite way of referring to mental instability) nearly results in David’s death while he served as court musician (1 Samuel 18:10-11). Saul then seeks to control his destiny by using his probably ceremonial military title and making it a “boots on the ground” reality, placing him in command of 1,000 troops. This promotion could have resulted in a thousand negative outcomes for David. We do not know how much time has passed between 1 Samuel 17 and 18, but David has no experience at all, much less experience as a military leader. His company could have mutinied at the thought of being commanded by a novice who was likely still a very young man. He could have led his troops into disaster. Either way, David’s aura of invincibility would have been tarnished, and Saul would benefit. Instead, the LORD was with him, he succeeded, and David became more beloved by the people than ever (1 Samuel 18:16).

Saul then sought to control David by further binding him to Saul’s family by marriage. David refuses (in humble terms) the first offer of marriage to Saul’s eldest daughter, but accepts the hand of Saul’s daughter Michal. She, of course, also loves David (1 Samuel 18:20). He meets and exceeds Saul’s death-trap bride price with the help of the loyal men under his command (1 Samuel 18:26-27). Saul’s efforts at controlling David continue to result in David’s success and an increasing number of people dedicated to helping him succeed.          

He Loved Him as Himself

In the midst of the David love-fest described in 1 Samuel 18, one relationship stands out from the others—David’s friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan. Seemingly before the dust has settled from the battle with the Philistines in 1 Samuel 17, Jonathan and David have forged a friendship described in very powerful terms. They were “one in spirit” and Jonathan “loved him as himself” (1 Samuel 18:1). Jonathan made a covenant with David and gave him his robe, tunic, sword, bow and belt. The scene is powerful and the action speaks to the depth of Jonathan’s commitment to David.

Jonathan is the crown prince of Israel. Whatever threat to the throne Saul fears from David is a threat not only to Saul, but also to Jonathan, and to Jonathan’s descendants. Jonathan has been Israel’s celebrated military hero, now supplanted in popularity by David. In his initial covenant with David and the action of clothing him in his own gear, he appears to be placing David alongside him as an equal, if not saying the future of the kingdom is his outright.

Every time Jonathan stands against his father and for David, he is putting himself at mortal risk. Saul has no charge of treachery to pin on David, as David and Jonathan continue to point out, but that is no guarantee to Jonathan’s safety in siding with him, just as it was no guarantee of David’s safety.

The text continues the pattern of letting us know exactly how others react to David, but giving us only David’s public speech and action to indicate his own thoughts. Jonathan, Michal, the army, the people and even Saul all are clearly defined in their feelings toward David. David is yet held at a distance.

Sworn Friendship

After multiple attempts to destroy David, personally, through the Philistines, and through his own army, Saul was thwarted in an incredible way after David met with Samuel (1 Samuel 19:18-24). Three separate hit squads—and finally Saul himself—are stopped by being taken over by a spirit of ecstatic prophecy that changes all their plans. In the wake of this incredible event, Jonathan seems to assume Saul’s plans have changed and that he will no longer be seeking David’s death. David is less convinced, and it is Jonathan who runs the immediate risk of conspiring against his own father to determine the truth. They devise a plan to keep David far from Saul and for Jonathan to communicate with him in secret.

As they part in the field to put the plan in place which will determine David’s future, they forge another covenant. As David contemplates becoming a permanent fugitive from Saul, this time Jonathan explicitly grants that David is the future of the kingdom. Walter Brueggemann points out that at this moment, the circumstances would seem to put David and David’s future at risk. Instead, Jonathan speaks as though his life and the life of his descendants are in David’s hands. Jonathan links their fates, and their family’s fates, together. He is assuming David’s ultimate victory over Saul, and asking David to remain faithful to Jonathan’s family once he is victorious.

Jonathan asks of David to reaffirm his oath of love. Throughout his speech to David, Jonathan calls upon Yahweh. Remarkably, he asks God to be with David as he has been with Saul. He asks David to show him hesed—covenant faithfulness, often translated “loving-kindness”—like he shows Yahweh.

Finally, once Saul’s intentions are clear, Jonathan reveals this David in the prearranged way, and we see in action whatever remained hidden in David’s relationship to Jonathan fall away. They wept together, “but David wept the most” (1 Samuel 20:41). Away from all public perception, at the climactic point of their friendship, we discover in David’s tears the depth of his love for Jonathan is equal to Jonathan’s love for him.

In the midst of an epic narrative of royal intrigue, warfare, romance, madness and schemes there stands a friendship based on loving someone as they loved themselves. Issues of pride, power and wealth were laid aside for the sake of loving, defending and faithfully supporting someone else’s interests before their own. Yahweh was with David in many ways, but perhaps none more dramatically powerful than in the fact that Jonathan was with David. Let us not overlook the ways that God is with us in the friendships he has blessed us with, and the way in which we can embody God with others by our faithful friendship with them.

“Blessed is the one who loves You, and his friend in You, and his enemy for Your sake.”— Augustine, Confessions