THE LOVE OF JONATHAN AND THE RESENTMENT OF SAUL.
1 Samuel 17:57-58, 1 Samuel 18:1-5, 1 Samuel 18:10-16.
It was evidently quite difficult for Saul to recognise in the giant slayer the same young man who had been serving at court as his own personal music therapist (1 SAMUEL 17:57-58; cf. 1 Samuel 16:16-18). Now, however, Saul would not let David return to his family and his sheep, but detained him at court (1 SAMUEL 18:2). Perhaps either to mentor him, or to keep an eye on him.
However, Saul’s son Jonathan recognised in David a kindred spirit, and “loved him as his own soul” (1 SAMUEL 18:1). Then Jonathan and David made a covenant together, in which Jonathan seems to have done all the giving. The nature of that love appears in the fact that Prince Jonathan stripped himself of his royal regalia and gave it to David (1 SAMUEL 18:3-4).
This reminds me of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, where Jesus laid aside the insignia of His divinity and humbled Himself on our behalf (cf. Philippians 2:6-8).
When Jonathan later fell in battle, David described Jonathan’s love as ‘passing the love of women’ (cf. 2 Samuel 1:26). Significantly, in the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the word used there for ‘love’ is ‘agape.’
‘Agape’ is the same word for love as is used of God’s ‘love’ for the world in John 3:16.
For now, there was harmony at court; and between the court and the people. David was an obedient subject to King Saul, “and behaved himself wisely.” Saul set David over the men of war, and David was accepted by all the people - including Saul’s servants (1 SAMUEL 18:5).
However, when Saul heard the acclamations of the people, he became jealous of David, and ‘Saul eyed David from that day forward’ (cf. 1 Samuel 18:6-9).
All this was a spiritual battle. The LORD had sought ‘a man after His own heart’ (cf. 1 Samuel 13:14), and found one in David (cf. Psalm 89:20). After David was anointed, ‘the Spirit of the LORD’ had come upon David. ‘But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him’ (cf. 1 Samuel 16:13-14).
On one occasion, “the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied” (1 SAMUEL 18:10). Perhaps Saul was unconsciously mimicking his earlier experience when the actual holy ‘Spirit of God’ had come upon him, and he had prophesied ‘among the prophets’ (cf. 1 Samuel 10:10-11).
The faithful David was on hand to play his harp to sooth the troubled king, as he had done so often before: but this time, ominously, “there was a javelin in Saul’s hand” (1 SAMUEL 18:10).
We have an insight into Saul’s troubled mind when he said, “I will smite David even to the wall with it” (1 SAMUEL 18:11). This bout of depression was so forceful that David’s playing had failed to pacify the king, but rather inflamed his anger; and he made two failed attempts upon his faithful servant’s life.
“Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him, and was departed from Saul. Therefore…” Saul effectively banished David from the court, making him a captain over a thousand (1 SAMUEL 18:12-13). This may have been in order that David might die in action – but perhaps in his more lucid moments Saul also feared what he might personally do to David, rather than what David might do to him.
David, for his part, “behaved himself wisely” before all the people. However, Saul “was afraid of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David because he went out and came in before them” (1 SAMUEL 18:14-16). It is, in effect, as if David was already king, even while Saul was still alive: because David was doing the job that the people had expected a king to perform: ‘to go out before us, and fight our battles’ (cf. 1 Samuel 8:20).
So, Jonathan confirmed the kingship of David by clothing him in the regalia of the Crown Prince; whereas Saul confirmed the kingship of David by putting him in the forefront of the battle.
In like manner, Jesus laid aside the insignia of His divinity and became man, and was placed in the forefront of the battle against death’s destructive power. By His death and resurrection, Jesus overcame death on our behalf: that we ‘might have life, and have it more abundantly’ (cf. John 10:10).
‘Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:57).
