No matter how Saul dies (by suicide, murder or mercy
killing – we get different accounts, after all), chapters 29-30 establish that
David was nowhere near the death scene. Under understandable pressure from his
commanders, Achish, the Philistine king, sends David and his men back to
Philistine territory in Ziklag.
It turns out that the Amalekites are back – the people
Saul was ordered to destroy back in chapter 15. After David raids their
territory in chapter 27, the Amalekites return the favor. David and his men
return to find their wives and children gone. In their grief, David’s men
briefly turn on him; “but David strengthened himself in the LORD his God”
(30:6). He inquires of the LORD and gets the message to pursue. A stray
Egyptian leads them to the Amalekite camp, where they recover everything and
everyone they lost. David then wisely
shares the spoil with all his soldiers as well as his allies in Judah.
Meanwhile, the Philistines kill three of Saul’s sons on
Mount Gilboa – including David’s best friend, Jonathan. According to I Samuel
31, a wounded Saul begs his armor bearer to kill him so the Philistines won’t
get the satisfaction. When the armor bearer refuses, Saul commits suicide by
falling on his own sword. The distraught armor bearer then kills himself. The
Philistines temporarily make trophies of the bodies of Saul and his sons, until
the men of Jabesh-Gilead (whom Saul bravely rescued from the Ammonites back in
chapter 11) bravely recover them and try to bury them properly.
We get a different version of the story in II Samuel 1.
This time, a stray Amalekite claims that he, in fact, killed Saul in order to
put him out of his misery. He then hands Saul’s crown and armlet to David,
perhaps expecting some kind of reward. David apparently takes him at his word
and promptly executes him for killing Saul. Despite his failings, Saul was
still the king – the LORD’s anointed, in David’s eyes.
David then
mourns publicly for both Saul and Jonathan, glossing over their own complicated
father-son relationship – as we are wont to do in eulogies. “In life and in
death they were not divided” (1:23). Since when? An alternate translation
sounds even more sugar-coated: “Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in
their lives, and in their death they were not divided” (King James Version). In
reality, Saul and Jonathan were most certainly divided in life, if not in
death, and mostly over David himself. Jonathan was continually torn between
loyalty to his father and love for his best friend. He was frequently forced to
choose between following Saul’s orders and sparing David’s life. It was in the
face of all this that Jonathan swore his loyalty and love to David.
So is David’s
poetic portrayal just wishful thinking, a tidy version of a much messier story
cleaned up for public consumption? In reality, it’s far too simple to paint
Saul as merely the “bad guy” in this story. For all his faults, Saul was the
one anointed by God to be the first king of Israel. In battling David, he was
trying to preserve the kingdom for Jonathan. Saul wasn’t a cardboard villain,
anymore than are the difficult people in our lives. He was tormented by fear,
jealousy, paranoia, what we’d now identify as fierce mental illness, not to
mention the deafening silence of God. Repeatedly, Saul had called out for God
and heard nothing more than the sound of his own voice. God’s favor had left
him and gone to David. His life was tragic, not evil, and here David seemingly
has the grace to recognize that.
What do you
make of the LORD’s loyalty to David and the seeming abandonment of Saul? What
do we learn of loyalty from David and Jonathan, or from the men of
Jabesh-Gilead who risk their own lives to recover Saul’s body and bury him
properly? Click on “comments” and add your thoughts!
Ever the pragmatist, in ch. 29 David humors the fearful Philistines and honors his host Achish by withdrawing from battle alongside the Philistines. But in ch.30 war pursues him; Israel’s old enemy the Amalekites raid David’s camp and David’s men turn against him. The Lord commanded David to pursue the Amalekites and rescue their captives (who included David’s two wives!). The Amalekites were hoggishly enjoying what they had taken; David recovered the captives and the loot that had been taken. In distributing the recovered loot, David dealt fairly with all his men, and sent some of the riches to the elders of Judah. He is an astute leader!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the Philistines defeat Saul’s army and kill his sons. (ch. 31) Saul falls upon his sword, and soon the Philistines desecrate his body. When David learns of Saul’s and Jonathan’s deaths he mourns them both intensely (2 Samuel 1). The man who had killed the dying, suffering Saul is executed because he lifted his “hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed.” (2 Samuel 1:14). David composes a hymn of tribute to the “mighty” Saul and the “lovely” Jonathan, “my brother.”
David seems never to have been in doubt about Saul’s murderous intent toward him, but he also was never in doubt about what custom and the Lord required of him. I think of David as the navigator par excellence.
The Lord did not want Israel to have kings, but to rely on him for guidance. We have seen Saul become wayward, substituting his own goals for those of God. But so far, we have seen David consistently following God's will as he understands it.
ReplyDeleteIs this not the weakness of the institution of the monarch--too much depends on the character of the ruler? And before long, will we see that David becomes a flawed ruler? Further--if the Lord is king, is not the divine will to be known through prophets, priests, and other diviners? Potentially, serious problems are lurking.
From Ron Spych...
ReplyDeleteLast Stands
Last stands are usually about defiance. No one likes to give up or admit defeat. Think of the 300 Spartans taking on the Persians in Thermopylae Pass, Napoleon at Waterloo or Custer and the Little Big Horn. They looked at the situation, measured the odds (not in their favor) and relied on circumstance and dogged bluster to win the day. Call it what you will, the "sun at Austerlitz" or "Custer's Luck". One key component is missing…the Will of God.
I've heard a wise man say repeatedly, "we win all of our battles by getting down on our knees in prayer to God."
Do we, as Christians, pray before we go into "the valley"? Or, if one is walking so closely with God in total trust, is the only prayer we need to say ,"Thy Will be done"?
Saul's knee remained unbent. He had his own plans throughout all of our readings, be it to show "mercy", where mercy was not to be given, or creating a legacy that was not his to give. So, on Mount Gilboa, we find Saul, overwhelmed by his enemies, seeing his sons slaughtered, his courage capricious, reduced to begging his armor bearer to kill him.
If there ever was a time to cry "GOD, HELP ME!" this is it. But does the king humble himself before the Lord? No, he does not. As a finale, Saul takes again something that is not his to take. He kills himself. So then, God says to the king, "Thy will be done" and Saul's disobedient reign ends in one last act of defiance.
Did God abandon Saul?
No, He did not.
Saul refused to surrender to God's love.=
Saul's stubbornness cost a lot of blood. God seems to require a lot of blood--and suffering and grieving. Is this a barrier to our openness to God? Is there perhaps a disconnect,or do we make a disconnect--so that we think of the God of the OT as a different God than we have come to know through later times and writings and especially through Jesus?
ReplyDelete