After Action Review - 1st Samuel 18:1-9

The unfortunate part about the sectioning of scripture into chapters and verses is that it was done… not as precisely as we would have hoped, at least in English. TB says that chapter 18 should really start in chapter 17 verse 55 which is where Saul, Abner, and David discuss who David’s father is so that he can be given the rewards of not having to pay taxes or have his family serve in the military because of David’s victory over Goliath. Apparently, Jonathan must have been in the room for that conversation because during this discussion “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his won soul.” I always took this to mean that Jonathan fell in love with David, whether or not it was mutual, I couldn’t say. TB vehemently disagrees and disparages that belief for sone time, yeah maybe. He also says that the Hebrew word for love used here was “ahab” which he says, “carries a sort of political or even mystical context to it, or even better it denotes a sense of partisanship or dedication or loyalty.” This explanation makes sense, and I’m happy to admit that I could be wrong here, that is just how I’ve always read it, that Jonathan fell in love with David. I think it’s unreasonable to think that there are no people in scripture who are gay, just statistically, and it’s a topic that we deal with today so it’s reasonable to assume that it was relevant anciently as well and I think to disregard that fact dismisses any insight that we can gain from the scriptures. Regardless, however, Jonathan instantly clicks with David and shows him that. There have been people in my life who I just instantly click with as well, so I recognize that that could be the case here too. I’m not invested in either outcome.

Jonathan takes off his robe, which I assume was his royal robe denoting his status in the king’s household, and gave that to David along with his armor, sword, and bow and they made a covenant together. TB notes that it’s important that Jonathan was the one who instigated this covenant of friendship because David did not have the status to do so, he was a shepherd and Jonathan was the son of the king, so it had to come from Jonathan to David, not the other way around. TB notes that by giving David his robes, that Jonathan “put himself on an equal (if not to some degree lesser) political level with David… Saul’s eldest son Jonathan was by custom the natural heir to the throne. Royalty wore distinctive clothing to separate themselves from commoners and visibly announce their status. When Jonathan took his garment of royalty off and put it onto David, it was well understood by the King, his court, and all who knew about it what that gesture meant.” Additionally, “Saul took (David) that day, and would let him go no more home to his father’s house.” TB recalled that this was a fulfillment of Samuel’s prophecy that if Israel insisted on a king, then the king would not only tax them terribly, but he would also take their children and force them to serve in his court. Even if David would have chosen to serve in Saul’s court of his own free will if given the opportunity, the point is that Saul didn’t give David or Jesse the choice and essentially kidnapped David.

Saul put David in charge of his armies, even though he didn’t have other military experience, I think even Saul recognized that David’s victory over Goliath was the result of God’s help, and why wouldn’t you put a man in charge of your armies who was given victory by God. Saul put David in charge of the military and sent him on various expeditions. The New Jewish Bible translation gives more information in verse 5 which says, “David would go out, and no matter where Saul sent him he was successful.” This is in line with what so many other scripture accounts of military victories shows, God can and does deliver his righteous people in battle and gives them victory from Moses, Joshua, the judges, Ammon, Alma, Zeniff and Limhi, tons of times throughout the scriptures, God gives his people victory. The fact that David was always successful regardless of the mission reminds me of when Laban kept changing Jacob’s wages and whatever kind of markings on the sheep Laban designated as Jacobs, those were the ones who were born most that year, so Jacob’s wealth grew in a manner that was literally not physically possible for Jacob to have intervened in that, the only explanation was God’s intervention. Similar here, there’s no reason a smaller group of famers and shepherd should have been able to defeat the larger, better trained, better equipped, professional Philistine army, but they did, many times, and God’s intervention was the only reason that that was possible.

When returning from one of these victories, Saul overhead a group of women singing “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands” and Saul takes that personally. I don’t know why someone would hear that and have hurt feelings over it, it doesn’t make any sense to me, maybe it’s a man thing, I don’t know, but Saul is furious that he is compared to being less of a military leader than David and is only being attributed with a few thousand kills, but he gets really angry about that and feels like David is better than him, all he needs now is the kingdom to overthrow Saul, “and Saul eyed David from that day forward.” He definitely doesn’t like that David is more popular with the people than he is, and starts plotting on David at this point.