Reading: 1 Samuel 15-17, Psalm 82
Well, Saul didn’t work out. We still need a worthy messiah in the book of Samuel, since we’ve done all this setup. Back to the hunt, yes? Well, not quite. Despite his mess ups, Saul is still the anointed one for the moment, and God still has business for him to attend to. God is nothing if not willing to give second chances (or third or fourth chances, in this case.) I’ll spoil it just a little bit, though: Saul isn’t going to get any better. Today we will be moving on to another messiah, one who actually does what Saul is supposed to do and fights the battles of Israel for them.
We start with one more message for Saul via Samuel. God wants him to smite the Amalekites. They’ve had it coming for a while, and they are pretty bad guys. Saul says okay, and he rallies the people. But look at the numbers. Only a fraction of the people who came out to rescue Jabesh-Gilead are turning out to fight Amalek. The people are losing faith in Saul. Enough turn up to do a job on the Amalekites, though, and Saul obediently destroys them. Sort of. He keeps the king and a bunch of loot.
Samuel, who is not enjoying his retirement after all, hears from God that Saul has done this, and he turns up with some unpleasant news: God is done with your disobedience, and you are no longer to be king. Saul makes excuses, and blames the people for his own disobedient actions. Not only is he not fighting their battles for them, he is blaming them for his mistakes. Samuel is not amused, and turns to go in a huff. And right here, Saul makes his final mistake. He refuses to accept he is no longer king. In fact, he insists Samuel come and validate his repentance before the people. Samuel eventually agrees, but God has officially removed the position of messiah from Saul. He just doesn’t accept it. Samuel closes the scene by carrying out the obedience that Saul would not by putting Agag, the Amalekite king, to death.
The next scene introduces the hero of the books of Samuel, and the most important character of the Hebrew Scriptures since Moses. The introduction of David stands in great contrast to the introduction of Saul. Samuel has to go through seven impressive looking sons of Jesse in Bethlehem before David is called in from the fields, where he is watching sheep. David is described as “ruddy and handsome.” The language suggests he is young and sort of cute, in contrast to the tall and impressive looking Saul, son of a wealthy man. Samuel anoints him prince over Israel, just like he did Saul. Then he leaves. Sort of anticlimactic.
But God’s plan for replacing Saul becomes clear over the next couple of scenes. First, Saul comes unhinged. He has refused to relinquish the anointing as king, but God has removed his favor and given him torment instead. His servants go out and find a skilled musician to help him calm down. A young man from Bethlehem named David. So now David is in the royal court, and is becoming known. David is quite impressive, and Saul makes David his armor-bearer, basically a personal guard.
The next scene is one of the most famous in the Bible, and one of my favorite Bible stories. Almost everyone knows the story of David and Goliath. However, I’m going to argue that is the wrong pairing. While David is the hero who takes Goliath down, that isn’t the real competition- this is the contest of David and Saul.
The scene is set up like this: Israel and the Philistines are at an impasse. Israel has the high ground, the Philistines have numerical advantage. Neither can break the other. In such situations in the ancient world, and particularly among the Greek culture the Philistines descended from, it was not uncommon to settle the dispute in personal combat. The Philistines send up their champion, Goliath of Gath, a huge super strong dude. Now, it has become fashionable to say Goliath was actually semi-disabled, and put up to the battle by some terrible Philistines. I implore you: don’t get taken in by popular re-telling of a story without looking carefully at the original. Goliath is described as hurling challenges and insults at the army of Israel, and as well being prepared for a nasty fight. He’s not a gentle dumb guy manipulated into fighting. The story is telling us he is a really bad dude.
Now, right here, lets think about who should fight this battle. Israel is not a Greek-descended culture, and they have already declared who their champion should be: give us a king to go before us and to fight our battles for us. By looking at the book of Samuel, we know that the role of the king was to fight these battles. Saul was supposed to take on Goliath. If he was unable, it should have been the heir, Jonathan. One can imagine from what he know about Jonathan he would have jumped at the chance, but either he wasn’t there or Saul wouldn’t allow it.
Enter David, who was travelling back and forth between the service of Saul and the service of his family in Bethlehem. He hears Goliath making light of the God of Israel, and can’t believe no one has taken him on. He hears that Saul is basically offering massive bribes to the man who kills Goliath, including marriage into the royal family via his younger daughter Michal. David is incredulous that the whole army has been standing here quaking in their boots for forty days. So he basically says, “I’ll do it, you bunch of cowards.” His brothers are not pleased, but Saul hears about it and calls David into his tent.
Saul questions David’s involvement, but eventually relents when David tells some sweet stories about smiting lions and bears. Then he does something rather odd- he tries to put David in his own personal armor. I have heard a variety of reasons for this, and some interesting interpretations about not fighting Goliath with the expected weapons, but I suspect there is a simple reason: Saul wanted the Philistines, and perhaps as many Isrealites as possible, to think it was Saul fighting Goliath. David is having none of it, and goes out to battle with his trusty sling, staff, and five smooth stones.
Goliath hurls verbal jabs at David and curses him. David declares that through him God is going to butcher Goliath and the whole army of the Philistines, for the purpose of glorifying himself. David makes a rather more aggressive version of the declaration of dependence we have been hearing throughout the story so far from a number of characters. He specifically calls out he is depending not on weapons or strength, but on the favor of the God of Israel.
The battle itself is a hilarious anticlimax. David KOs Goliath with a slung stone, then runs up, steals his sword, and cuts his head off. The Philistines flee, the Israelites charge, and chase the Philistines all the way back to their cities. David, not Saul, has fought the battles of Israel for them. He, not Saul, has achieved victory through his reliance on the God of Israel. Goliath stymied Saul for forty day. To David he was barely a speed bump.
At this point, Saul starts caring about who exactly his musician and armor bearer is, and where his family comes from. We aren’t told his motives, but pretty soon here we will see that the people of Israel, and even Jonathan, understand who is acting like the king, and who isn’t.