Reading: 1 Samuel 18-20, Psalm 83

Well now, we’ve seen who the real king is now, haven’t we? Let’s review for a minute. The people of Israel ask for a king, a king like the nations around them. They get Saul, a king like the kings of the nations around them. They want someone to fight their battles for them. They get someone they must fight battle for. God, ever willing to give humans a chance, uses Saul to the extent that he is usable, but ultimately let’s Saul know that he is not who he thinks he is. He is not to be king. But Saul decides not to listen and hangs onto the kingship. I occasionally think about how Saul would come off in the story of the Bible it he had just surrendered the crown to Samuel and gone home. He would be one of the best of the judges, though hardly perfect. But that is not what happens. God appoints another king, an anointed one he has chosen, David. He does fight the people’s battles for them. Today’s reading is what happens when you have an anointed one who is doing doing his job, and another one who is not.

After the battle where David kills Goliath and pursues the Philistines back to their own cities, we get a scene where Saul calls David in and binds him to his service. We already know that David was no stranger to the court of Saul, but here he is no longer permitted to leave. Saul doesn’t want David out of his control. But something else interesting happens in this scene. Jonathan, who we have seen act more like the king of Israel than his father, makes a covenant with David. He binds himself to David and his family. What is that about? I think Jonathan gets it: David has been anointed and acted as the king should have acted. Jonathan, despite the fact that he is putting himself off the throne, recognizes the king when he sees him.

The people get it too. The next several scenes demonstrate how the people recognize David as their deliverer, and how he continues to behave like it. He goes out to war and defeats the enemies of the people of Israel while Saul stays home and plots. He offers David his elder daughter Merab to David then sends him off to battle, hoping the Philistines will kill him, and marries her to someone else. When David continues to be victorious, Saul’s younger daughter falls for him- and who can blame her? This guy is basically an old school epic hero- a slayer of giants! Saul sees his chance to put David in a deadly situation, and tells him the only string attached to marrying Michal is killing one hundred Philistines and bringing their foreskins. Ew. But the point here is that David must not only kill the Philistines, but hold the field of battle and desecrate their bodies- an act that will make the Philistines even more enraged towards him. David of course succeeds and doubles the requirement. What is this story telling us? The man is unstoppable.

Saul, who has already become a bit unhinged, goes totally paranoid. He tries to have David killed several times, takes matters into his own hands and tries to spear David to the wall himself. He attempt to enlist both his son Jonathan and his daughter Michal, who is now David’s wife, in his plot to kill him. Instead of aiding their father’s murderous plans, they warn David so he can escape.

This all comes to a head when Michal lets David escape through a window and he flees into the night. Saul sends soldiers after him, but they encounter Samuel and a company of prophets, and they are overwhelmed by the Spirit of God and join the prophesying. A second group of soldiers do the same. Finally Saul comes himself, and even he is taken by God as a prophet. We aren’t told exactly what God said through these guys, but we do know that Saul is completely out of control: he lies naked all day on the ground. What is the deal with that? We have just heard a story about David being unstoppable in battle, beloved by the people, and even by the family of Saul. Now we get a story about how Saul is wholly out of his own control. David has all the power, Saul has none.

Now we reach the really remarkable part of the story of David and Saul. David does not take advantage of the situation and take over the kingdom. He’s been set up for it. He holds all the cards. Saul is lying naked on the ground before Samuel. David knows he has been promised the kingdom. But instead of taking it, he asks Jonathan to get him back in Saul’s good graces. David will not take what God has not yet handed to him. Jonathan manages to talk his father into bringing David back into the fold, but the situation doesn’t last, and very shortly David again has to flee in a little scene with Jonathan shooting arrows to indicate whether or not it is safe for David to stay. The farewell scene of David and Jonathan is one of the great examples in all of literature of not only friendship but of fealty. Jonathan is makes a declaration of loyalty to David that costs him dearly, but he does it because he knows David is worth following.

David is now on the run from Saul. As the story goes on we will see Saul get more and more unreasonable while David gathers more and more loyalty of the nation. While his imperfections will crop up later in the story, at this point David has put himself squarely in the middle of the role of the anointed one. The book of Samuel is leaving little doubt that this is the guy we’ve been looking for.