Read 1
Samuel 19-21 & Luke
15:11-32
To discover:
As you read consider the traits that show Saul unfit to
rule.
To ponder:
Danger intensifies for David,
whilst Saul’s erratic behaviour shows he is unfit to rule. He tells his son and
attendants to kill David. But Jonathan warns David, urging him into hiding
whilst he intercedes with his father. Jonathan’s case to Saul stresses the
“wrong” in killing David, because he is innocent. On oath Saul promises not to
harm David, so David is with him once more. When war breaks out with the
Philistines again however, an “evil spirit from the LORD” again comes upon
Saul, so he tries to pin David to the wall with his spear, and then sends men
to kill him. But David’s wife (Saul’s daughter) Michal enables him to escape
and fakes his being ill in bed. It is no surprise David then went to Samuel. And
when Saul’s men and Saul himself tried to reach him, they were hindered by the
Spirit of the LORD, who made them prophesy. In reading that Saul “stripped off”
and “lay” prophesying for 24 hours, the sense is that these men were in some
way incapacitated through being caught up in the Spirit, perhaps in an ecstatic
trance-like state.
In
some sense then, the LORD lay behind both Saul’s hostility to David and David’s
protection from Saul. There is mystery here, and Saul is certainly responsible
for his actions. But it all shows God is also at work in these events.
Again
Jonathan seeks to protect David. No doubt for the sake of future descendents
(20v42), space is given to record how Jonathan gains David’s formal agreement by
covenant to show “unfailing kindness like that of the LORD” to him and his
family, even when the LORD has “cut off” all David’s enemies. So Jonathan
clearly sees David is God’s choice as king. Yet there is more here. Throughout
Jonathan and David’s love for one-another is stressed. This is a remarkable
friendship that should be a model for our own, and especially for the love that
should exist between God’s people. But as mentioned previously, it particularly
models the devotion that should be expressed to God’s anointed. And it is so intense,
that Jonathan is prepared to give him his allegiance over his father, and above
concern for his own succession to the throne. Likewise, no matter how our
family members might view it, and no matter what other implications it has for
our future, career or rule of our own lives, we are to give Christ not only our
allegiance, but our love.
Saul’s
paranoid anger flares up again on hearing David is not coming to the New Moon
festival. He accuses Jonathan of siding with David and even throws his spear at
him. Jonathan therefore tells David to flee through their agreed means.
David’s
desperation is seen in the fact that he is now alone and unarmed as he visits
the priest in Nob. Rightly or wrongly, this causes David to lie as to why he is
there, take the consecrated “bread of the presence” that had recently been
replaced in the holy place, and take Goliath’s sword too. The loaves should
have been eaten by the priests. In rebuking Pharisaic legalism by referring to
David eating them (Matt 12v4), Jesus therefore teaches that showing mercy to
the needy takes precedence over non-moral laws or requirements.
The
greatest shock, however, is that Saul ends up driving David away from the
people of Israel and to a Philistine king, who he also deceives by feigning insanity
to ensure his own safety! This is surely David’s lowest point. Like Christ
having to escape to Egypt
from Herod (Matt 2v13), God uses a means to protect his special king that only
highlights how serious his rejection by his own people is.
Praying it home:
Thank God that he governs even the
most desperate circumstances. Pray today for David-Jonathan type love between
believers.
Thinking further: Abstaining
from sex
In Exodus 19v15 the people had to
abstain from sex before hearing God speak the Ten Commandments. This was not
because sex was wrong, but stressed the people’s devotion to God, and perhaps
that nothing unfitting or implicated in the fall should be in God’s holy
presence. It would seem for this reason that Ahimelech would only give consecrated
bread that had been in the room next to the holy of holies to men who had “kept
themselves from women.” The aspect of devotion to God may also be why David
required his men not to be with women when on missions.
If you receive this post by
email, visit bible2014.blogspot.co.uk
and make a comment.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment