1 Samuel 19: 1 – 24
The Most Dangerous Emotion
19 Now Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and to all his servants, that they should kill David; but Jonathan, Saul’s son, delighted greatly in David. 2 So Jonathan told David, saying, “My father Saul seeks to kill you. Therefore please be on your guard until morning, and stay in a secret place and hide. 3 And I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak with my father about you. Then what I observe, I will tell you.” 4 Thus Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father, and said to him, “Let not the king sin against his servant, against David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his works have been very good toward you. 5 For he took his life in his hands and killed the Philistine, and the LORD brought about a great deliverance for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood, to kill David without a cause?” 6 So Saul heeded the voice of Jonathan, and Saul swore, “As the LORD lives, he shall not be killed.” 7 Then Jonathan called David, and Jonathan told him all these things. So Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as in times past. 8 And there was war again; and David went out and fought with the Philistines, and struck them with a mighty blow, and they fled from him. 9 Now the distressing spirit from the LORD came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand. And David was playing music with his hand. 10 Then Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away from Saul’s presence; and he drove the spear into the wall. So David fled and escaped that night. 11 Saul also sent messengers to David’s house to watch him and to kill him in the morning. And Michal, David’s wife, told him, saying, “If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.” 12 So Michal let David down through a window. And he went and fled and escaped. 13 And Michal took an image and laid it in the bed, put a cover of goats’ hair for his head, and covered it with clothes. 14 So when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.” 15 Then Saul sent the messengers back to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.” 16 And when the messengers had come in, there was the image in the bed, with a cover of goats’ hair for his head. 17 Then Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me like this, and sent my enemy away, so that he has escaped?” And Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go! Why should I kill you?’ ” 18 So David fled and escaped, and went to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and stayed in Naioth. 19 Now it was told Saul, saying, “Take note, David is at Naioth in Ramah!” 20 Then Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the group of prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. 21 And when Saul was told, he sent other messengers, and they prophesied likewise. Then Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they prophesied also. 22 Then he also went to Ramah, and came to the great well that is at Sechu. So he asked, and said, “Where are Samuel and David?” And someone said, “Indeed they are at Naioth in Ramah.” 23 So he went there to Naioth in Ramah. Then the Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on and prophesied until he came to Naioth in Ramah. 24 And he also stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”
Let me tell you this - jealousy is the most dangerous emotion on earth! Let me give you a few reasons why;
1. It is an incredibly powerful emotion that can make you a criminal.
You must be extremely careful not to let that emotion overpower you when it comes to decision making. This is because jealousy is one of the most powerful emotion that can make us lose control when you are continuously fed with the same thought about losing something.
Jealousy can make you take decisions in life that you will regret for the rest of your life. They blind you with thoughts that are self-inflicted and make you look at the world through distorted lenses. Under this influence, many people follow the wrong path in order to get what they want or take revenge. Jealousy makes you do things that you didn’t think you were capable of – from arson to murder.
A man who I worked with experienced what I have been talking about first hand. His son killed someone out of jealousy. The young man had heard that his girlfriend was out with some of her friends at a singles bar. When he came in to the bar she was quite enjoying herself with another guy. To make a long story short the guy was quite embarrassed by a confrontation scene with the guy his girlfriend was flirting with, so he waited outside until the guy with his friends left the bar. He ran the guy over with his truck and killed him.
2. It will affect your health.
Healthy jealousy drives good competition. But sometimes, things get a little too over board and you sink deeper into the nasty competitive nature of everything. A jealous person is fearful of losing out to people. Hence, they would tend to be over suspicious on many things and inflict a fair share of tension and stress to themselves to ensure they become victorious over others. This can ultimately affect their health and thus give rise to many health problems such as heart attacks, headaches, migraines and many more other physical problems.
Moreover, negative thoughts that are usually self-inflicted would develop you into an over sensitive person who is prone to depression and anxiety, making you mentally ill as well. Hence, jealousy can wear you out both mentally and physically and that is why you should try to keep it under control.
3. It can destroy relationships.
Be it friendship or relationship, jealousy can destroy all.
Getting a perfect partner in a relationship is a big challenge. If you are lucky to have gotten one, things can turn out to be slight tricky with a tinge of jealousy somewhere in the relationship. Jealousy will inculcate a fear of losing your partner and it will then start affecting the trust you have built throughout the process and gives you a negative vibe to everything. It is the grave of affection.
Jealousy can also destroy friendship, when you get jealous about things that your friends are being blessed more than you. You can feel bad about it, but never let it get the best of you as it could just ruin the friendship.
4. It can also affect your career.
Jealousy at workplace for other colleagues can affect your career in a bad way. While it gives you the drive to put in your best every single time, it can also lead to unethical acts like trying to outshine others using unscrupulous methods. Your competitive nature that is fed by jealousy would make people avoid you – for they are afraid that they would be your next victim, and you end up having no friends at work.
I was just watching this commercial where a guy is awarded the best employee and a lady looks hurt in that she should have been the one picked. Quickly, we see here walking out of her office with a box of her personal items and a lady on a bus is staring in admiration. The lady who quit then gets into her brand new Audi. My question is sure she won out on the fact that she should not have been overlooked by someone less entitled to the award but I take the commercial in how the lady now does not have a job and that her new Audi will be repossessed.
5. It leaves you alone.
If you are a jealous person, then chances are that you will be left all alone in the end because no one would be interested in your company as they do not want to be the victim of your next jealousy act.
Jealousy will take all the people who love you, away from you, leaving you alone. Thus, it is a vicious emotion that can ruin your life unknowingly.
You see all these points come to life in the downfall progress of Saul. This is what pride can do to us. We need to stop and realize that we are entitled to nothing. Confession is the path to a new beginning. Too bad Saul wouldn’t accept this fact.
While his followers did not fully appreciate how bad he was Saul was now a very sick man. He was seriously mentally unstable, an instability almost certainly brought on by his rejection as king by our Holy Yahweh. Thus his jealousy got the best of him as he brooded on what in his view David was trying to do, he made it clear to his courtiers and advisers that it was becoming necessary for David to be called to account for his treasonable attitude towards the throne. No actual order appears to have been given yet but Saul made his point clear to his son Jonathan who became greatly concerned.
Meanwhile, seemingly at a time when he was thinking straight, Jonathan appealed to Saul on behalf of David, and brought about in him a change of mind. He declared in the strongest of terms that David should not die after all. In his medical innocence Jonathan, no doubt thought that he had obtained from his father a rational decision that he would adhere to. What he, of course, did not realize was the nature of his father’s illness. He was not to know that from this time on no one could ever be sure what Saul would do next, because it all depended on his psychological state at the time, something especially affected by his excessive pride in his kingship and his paranoia about David.
19 Now Saul spoke to Jonathan his son and to all his servants, that they should kill David; but Jonathan, Saul’s son, delighted greatly in David.
We see here that Saul called a council in which he put to his close followers the reasons why David needed to be dealt with. But Jonathan greatly loved David and he really could not understand his father’s attitude towards him. He had no idea of the intricacies of a deluded mind.
2 So Jonathan told David, saying, “My father Saul seeks to kill you. Therefore, please be on your guard until morning, and stay in a secret place and hide. 3 And I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are, and I will speak with my father about you. Then what I observe, I will tell you.”
So when the opportunity came he took David on one side and warned him of what had been said. He was in fact also determined to speak to his father about it, but he wanted David to be aware of what was happening. Furthermore, he wanted him to know about the outcome of his conversation with his father. So, he told David to find somewhere where he could remain hidden, and then let him know where he was. Then he could take his father there and discuss the matter with his father and pass on the result to David.
4 Thus Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father, and said to him, “Let not the king sin against his servant, against David, because he has not sinned against you, and because his works have been very good toward you. 5 For he took his life in his hands and killed the Philistine, and the LORD brought about a great deliverance for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood, to kill David without a cause?”
Jonathan spoke with his father Saul. He pleaded David’s innocence and begged his father not to commit an offence by acting against him. He pointed out all that David had done for Saul and for the people, especially about the matter of Goliath, and how glad they had all been. Why then did his father seek to shed innocent blood without cause?
Please notice the fourfold defense spoken to Saul. The sad part in all of this was that he was not talking to a rational man.
• ‘He has not sinned against you.’
• ‘His works towards you have been very good’ (for example in his playing of music for Saul even when it grew decidedly unpleasant).
• ‘He put his life in his hand and smote Goliath the Philistine.’ No one in Israel would take on the giant.
• ‘Through him Yahweh has wrought a great victory for all Israel.’
So David has not only not done Saul any harm, or even considered it, but has rather only done good to him, both in his personal life and in enabling the fulfilling of his responsibilities, and has indeed benefited all Israel.
6 So Saul heeded the voice of Jonathan, and Saul swore, “As the LORD lives, he shall not be killed.”
On this occasion Saul took notice of Jonathan and was convinced sufficiently to swear that as Yahweh lived David would not be put to death. David was thus safe until Saul had another bout of his illness. We must note here that Saul made a vow that within a short time he will attempt to break. So much for making a vow using God’s Holy Name.
We see here a good example of what many people who say they are Christians are doing. They know how to speak ‘Christinese’. That is they know the language of speaking like the have a life completely dedicated to our Holy God but their talk in just that – all talk.
7 Then Jonathan called David, and Jonathan told him all these things. So, Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as in times past.
Jonathan then called David and let him know the result of his conversation with Saul, after which he brought him to Saul in order that they might be reconciled, and David was thus once more able to take his place in the court, enjoying the king’s presence as before.
David’s great success in the wars with the Philistines continued so that Israel continued to enjoy their freedom from oppression. But this further success would raise David’s standing even more in the eyes of all Israel and it thus appears to have brought on another bout of Saul’s illness brought on by jealousy. And the result was to be a determined and sustained attempt on David’s life.
The first attempt to kill David followed the pattern of previous wild attempts. It was probably not premeditated but occurred as passion was aroused in Saul, for as David played for him to soothe mental torture an evil spirit was hitting him with stiring his jealousy over the latest reports of David’s successes, no doubt accompanied by glowing praise of David, got the better of him. And he raised his ceremonial spear and tried to kill David with it.
8 And there was war again; and David went out and fought with the Philistines, and struck them with a mighty blow, and they fled from him.
Once again, the Philistines appear to have encroached on Israel, with the result that David went out and fought with them, and utterly routed them. You can see the insanity here of Saul’s reasoning. Here he puts David as his general to do all his fighting. Perhaps he was hoping David would be defeated and killed then the people would again sing their praises to Saul but over and over again David succeeded because he was being blessed by Yahweh. This of course increased Saul’s anger and jealousy against David.
9 Now the distressing spirit from the LORD came upon Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand. And David was playing music with his hand.
The consequence of David’s success and Saul’s bitter jealousy was that it brought on a further heightening of Saul’s illness. A harmful spirit was aroused within him, and because all things are in God’s hands it could be described as ‘from God’. So, suffering again from delusion and paranoia in being inspired in his jealousy and hatred he sat in his palace with his spear of authority in his hand, calling on David to come and play for him. And as he played Saul eyed him and saw in him the great enemy. It is always difficult to know what people with Saul’s illness will do next, but David had already had experience of what a moody Saul could do and was prepared by the Holy Spirit to be alert and was ready for what did happen next.
10 Then Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away from Saul’s presence; and he drove the spear into the wall. So, David fled and escaped that night.
Suddenly, probably with a mad and wild look in his eyes (a pattern common with such people), Saul raised his spear and threw his spear at David. He missed and hit the wall. This was no carefully planned attempt at murder by an experienced warrior but rather a blatant and crude action from a perverted mind which would have been well blinded by rage. Saul had once again decided that he wanted to see David’s blood, and he made no secret of it. And he also wanted to rid himself of this enemy. But David was able to see what was coming in plenty of time, avoid the spear and flee, thus escaping that night.
Saul has now determined that David must be got rid of. To sooth his evil mind Saul wanted others to come to his support of his decision to kill David and to show others that he was not the main culprit in killing David would show that it had to be done legally. Thus, his intention was presumably to bring him before a special court selected from David’s ill-wishers to pass sentence on him for treason in that by encouraging the people to exalt him above Saul he was fermenting a potential revolt. So, David was tried in absentia and found guilty with a death sentence for his crimes against Israel.
11 Saul also sent messengers to David’s house to watch him and to kill him in the morning. And Michal, David’s wife, told him, saying, “If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.”
Still gripped by his mania Saul continued to want David’s blood, and he sent messenger’s down to David’s house to keep watch for him and to slay him when he arose and came out next day. Michal, Saul’s daughter who was very familiar with her father’s behavior patterns, and no doubt noticed the watchers, warned David that he should escape while he could, or else he would find himself a dead man. It seemed that the plan may have been to catch a hopefully unsuspecting David alone when he left his house in the morning.
12 So Michal let David down through a window. And he went and fled and escaped
Saul’s men would not think that David suspected anything, and thus Michal was able to let David down from a window so that he could flee and escape.
13 And Michal took an image and laid it in the bed, put a cover of goats’ hair for his head, and covered it with clothes.
Then Michal took a teraphim and laid it in the bed. It must have been a pretty good size ido. A teraphim was a religious household image favoured by women and possibly associated with fertility or good luck. We learn from past history that Rachel took her father’s teraphim when she was pregnant (Genesis 31.19). It may not have been life size but needed to be sufficiently large to make an obvious lump under the bed covers. Additionally, she used a pillow of goat’s hair to give the impression of a head.
14 So when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.”
The next morning the watchers to note that David did not come out of his house, so they went in to get David. She was able to say that David was ill and even possibly let them see the figure lying in the bed under the bed clothes. Her aim was to give David as much time as possible to make his escape.
15 Then Saul sent the messengers back to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him
When the messengers reported back to Saul he immediately demanded that they go back and arrest David, and bring him as he was in his bed, so that he could be put to death.
16 And when the messengers had come in, there was the image in the bed, with a cover of goats’ hair for his head.
So, Saul’s soldiers arrived back at David’s house and demanded access to his bedroom. And once there they discovered the subterfuge perpetrated by Michal, they reported it back to Saul.
17 Then Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me like this, and sent my enemy away, so that he has escaped?” And Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go! Why should I kill you?’”
Saul then summoned his daughter and asked her why she had deceived him with the effigy in the bed and had let his enemy escape. He no doubt felt that she owed first loyalty to him as her father and king. Michal simply replied that she had had to do what she did otherwise David might have killed her. This would tie in with Saul’s own obsessive view of David and he appears to have accepted that it was true.
That Michal lied at least twice is clear, and although the Scripture does not actually specifically approve of it, it does raise the question as to when, if ever, such a lie is justified. Similar examples can be found with Rahab at Jericho (Joshua 2.4 ), Jael with Sisera (Judges 4.18) and the woman at Bahurim (2 Samuel 17.20).. However, while Scripture undoubtedly does require us to be truthful (Leviticus 19.11; Matthew 5.37) there must certainly be cases where to tell the truth would be an even greater sin than the alternative, for example in such cases as these where lives were at stake.
18 So David fled and escaped, and went to Samuel at Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and stayed in Naioth.
Recognizing that Saul was seeking his life David turned to the only one with the power to help him, Samuel, the prophet of Yahweh, who had earlier anointed him (16.13), and who was still a power in Israel. Even Saul had to have regard to Samuel. And Samuel took him to live with him and the company of prophets in Naioth in Ramah.
19 Now it was told Saul, saying, “Take note, David is at Naioth in Ramah!” 20 Then Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the group of prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as leader over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. 21 And when Saul was told, he sent other messengers, and they prophesied likewise. Then Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they prophesied also.
After some time, on learning of David’s whereabouts, Saul sent arresting parties to bring him back to Gibeah for trial. And each time the arresting parties were met by a large company of prophets worshipping and speaking out the praises of God, with the result that the Spirit of God came on them and they also began to worship and speak out the praises of God, losing any desire to fulfil the purpose for which they had been sent.
22 Then he also went to Ramah, and came to the great well that is at Sechu. So he asked, and said, “Where are Samuel and David?” And someone said, “Indeed they are at Naioth in Ramah.” 23 So he went there to Naioth in Ramah. Then the Spirit of God was upon him also, and he went on and prophesied until he came to Naioth in Ramah. 24 And he also stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”
So in the end Saul decided that he must do the job himself, but he too was met by the prophets, with the result that the Spirit of God came on him, and he too began to worship and speak out the praises of God, and in his case he divested himself of his royal garments and lay down in his undergarments all day and all night, rendered powerless by the Spirit.
In closing we can take heart that our lives are totally in the good hands of our Loving Father. No matter was schemes or plans are being devised against us nothing can harm us. I just want to leave the encouragement of this point with you that is so awesome described in Psalm 89 verse 23, “I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague those who hate him.”
