Hard Truth Revealed

I Sam. 20:17-42

Welcome! Today we continue our series in I Samuel, looking at the second half of Chapter 20. We are right in the middle of the story, so let me give you some background. In I Samuel 8, the Israelites demand to the prophet Samuel that they be given a king. Samuel warns them that bad things will happen and that God is already their king, but they persist. Samuel, under God’s direction, tells them they will receive what they want. In I Samuel 9, God directs Samuel to choose Saul for this role. Saul looks the part externally, but from the beginning we see problems with his heart – Saul does not have the heart of a servant, and he likes to do things his own way, even when they disagree with God’s direction. He rebels against God’s instructions in I Samuel 13, essentially takes personal credit for Jonathan’s victory over the Philistines in I Samuel 14, and rebels even more egregiously with regards to Agag in I Samuel 15. This leads to God’s rejection of Saul and Samuel’s anointing of David as the future king, in I Samuel 16. David at the time is little more than a boy; it’s not clear when this transfer of power is to take place, and the anointing itself is kept quiet, away from Saul. He knows that the Lord has rejected him, but he doesn’t know who will replace him.

Samuel’s pronouncement that Saul is rejected by God is also private, and Saul manages to put up appearances that everything is fine. He works hard to portray himself as great despite his own flaws. One person that especially looks up to Saul is his son, Jonathan. This is nothing unusual; children generally look up to their fathers.

Meanwhile, God’s blessing upon David begins to make itself apparent. David begins serving at Saul’s court by playing an instrument to soothe Saul’s troubled soul. And in I Samuel 17, still quite young, David alone volunteers to face the Philistine giant of a man named Goliath, and does so triumphantly, leading to a military rout against Israel’s enemies and the sudden celebrity status of David. Something else happened at that point, as described in I Samuel 18: Jonathan saw in David a young man after the Lord’s own heart, and it caused him to love David as he loved himself. As Saul let David stay permanently with his household, in honor of what he had done against Goliath, Jonathan gave David his robe and sword and bow and armor, and the two of them made a covenant together. We are not given the details of this covenant in I Samuel 18, but it almost certainly was a vow of being for one another, serving one another, having one another’s back, something of this nature, forever. 

Saul sent David off to fight in later skirmishes, and David proved his character and skill so much so that Saul gave him positions of increasing responsibility, and people took notice. Women began to sing, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. This singing bothered Saul, as he remembered that Samuel had pronounced that God would take the kingdom from him and give it to another, and he began to think that this person would be David. Soon after, when David was at Saul’s residence playing his musical instrument for him, Saul twice threw his javelin at David, but David escaped from him and was wary of him after this. We aren’t told exactly what David thought, but perhaps he thought that Saul was just having an “episode” of his evil spirit-induced affliction, and this is what caused Saul to do this. Meanwhile, Saul continued to put up appearances before others that he still liked David. Perhaps David even thought he imagined everything. In any case, Saul offered his oldest daughter to David in exchange for unspecified future favors of leading in battle. It appears that Saul’s real motivation was to get David killed in battle. David responded to the offer by saying that he and his family were not deserving of such an honor. Saul then married her off to someone else.

Later, Michal, another daughter of Saul, fell in love with David, and Saul decided to try again. This time, Saul used his servants to break tradition and prevent a repeat of David’s actions by saying that he only wanted evidence brought back that David killed 100 Philistines; that would serve as the dowry. David liked this plan (and presumably also really liked Michal), and so he went with his men and brought back evidence that they killed not 100 Philistines, but 200, and then he and Michal were married.

In I Sam. 19, Saul lets his hatred for David overwhelm his desire to look good in the eyes of everyone including Jonathan and tells his servants to kill David. Jonathan hears this and confronts his father. Jonathan reminds his father of all the great things David had done for the kingdom and asks him point blank why he would want to kill an innocent man like David for no reason? Saul does not reveal the real reason – that he is fearful David will become king – and instead takes an oath to Jonathan before God: “As surely as the Lord lives, David will not be put to death.” The result is that things go back to as they were before: David continues to live in Saul’s household, and Saul goes back to hiding his hatred of David.

Now what is Jonathan’s opinion of Saul at this point? He definitely knows that his father isn’t perfect. He saw this even before David came along in an incident involving eating honey. But in general I think he still has great respect for Saul, particularly with regards to his word. He has made before Jonathan an oath before God that David will not – ever – be put to death. So in Jonathan’s mind, this issue – strange as it may have been, since Jonathan still likely has no clue why Saul wanted to kill David – has been put to rest. Jonathan is sure that, because his father made this oath, never again will David need to fear for his safety. It was unthinkable to him that his father might break such a direct oath before God.

But again, while David is playing his musical instrument, Saul tries to kill David by trying to pin him with his spear. This time David has absolutely no doubt what is going on. He flees, thanks to the warning of Michal, who learns that Saul has sent his men to capture him so that Saul can kill him. David then went to Samuel. Saul sent his men after him, but God caused them to enter into a prophesying kind of trance when they got close. Eventually Saul himself goes after him but he too begins to prophesy even before he got close.

Then, in I Sam. 20, David leaves Samuel and finds Jonathan, all the while hiding from Saul’s men. He asks him why Saul is trying to kill him. Jonathan, remembering his father’s oath, tells David he is wrong, that Jonathan tells him everything, and he hasn’t told him anything about this. David tells Jonathan the likely explanation: for the first time, his father has kept something major from him because he knows that Jonathan will be grieved if the truth comes out. David affirms via an oath that his father is really doing this. Jonathan replies by saying, “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do for you.”

This brings us to I Samuel 20:5, and although we read this portion of the passage last week, let’s look at it again now.

So David said, “Look, tomorrow is the New Moon feast, and I am supposed to dine with the king; but let me go and hide in the field until the evening of the day after tomorrow. If your father misses me at all, tell him, ‘David earnestly asked my permission to hurry to Bethlehem, his hometown, because an annual sacrifice is being made there for his whole clan.’ If he says, ‘Very well,’ then your servant is safe. But if he loses his temper, you can be sure that he is determined to harm me. – I Sam. 20:5-7

So the plan is very clever in that it lets Jonathan determine where the king is at with regards to David without the king realizing that this is Jonathan’s intention. It is true that David is asking Jonathan to lie, which is not ideal. But a direct confrontation is likely to result in the king lying to Jonathan so as to not only keep his relationship with Jonathan intact but also sour Jonathan’s relationship with David. Also, the king seems so unstable that it is possible that a direct confrontation might even threaten Jonathan’s life.

As for you, show kindness to your servant, for you have brought him into a covenant with you before the Lord. If I am guilty, then kill me yourself! Why hand me over to your father?” “Never!” Jonathan said. “If I had the least inkling that my father was determined to harm you, wouldn’t I tell you?” – I Sam. 20:8-9

David still doesn’t understand why Saul wants to kill him. He assumes either he has actually done something to deserve it or there has been some kind of misunderstanding. If it is the former, he wants to be punished, even going so far as to tell Jonathan to kill him himself. But Jonathan responds strongly against this, promising that he would have told David if there was any such cause.

David asked, “Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?” “Come,” Jonathan said, “let’s go out into the field.” So they went there together. Then Jonathan said to David, “I swear by the Lord, the God of Israel, that I will surely sound out my father by this time the day after tomorrow! If he is favorably disposed toward you, will I not send you word and let you know? But if my father intends to harm you, may the Lord deal with Jonathan, be it ever so severely, if I do not let you know and send you away in peace. – I Sam. 20:10-13a

They go out in the field for privacy where Jonathan promises, either way, to tell David the outcome of their secret test on Saul.

“May the Lord be with you as he has been with my father. But show me unfailing kindness like the Lord’s kindness as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family—not even when the Lord has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.” So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the Lord call David’s enemies to account.” And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself. – I Sam. 20:13b-17

It is poignant that Jonathan says “May the Lord be with you as he has been with my father.” He doesn’t yet understand that his father has moved deliberately away from the Lord, so that the Lord is no longer “with him.” But at the same time he asks that David would show him unfailing kindness like the Lord’s lovingkindness – what a great request and a great understanding of the Lord. The Lord is unfailingly kind to us. This is a great truth to cling on to even when your world turns upside down, even when things seem unbearably hard, or sad. This is a great truth to cling on to especially in those times. The Lord is good, and He loves me.

Jonathan asks for protection for himself and his descendants understanding that, as God is with David, those who cross David will not only be on David’s enemy list but on God’s. Perhaps even here Jonathan gets a sense that maybe someday it will be David who becomes king instead of himself, who, as oldest son, was in line to become king when Saul died. David agrees with an oath of protection and love.

Then Jonathan said to David, “Tomorrow is the New Moon feast. You will be missed, because your seat will be empty. The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go to the place where you hid when this trouble began, and wait by the stone Ezel. I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target. Then I will send a boy and say, ‘Go, find the arrows.’ If I say to him, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them here,’ then come, because, as surely as the Lord lives, you are safe; there is no danger. But if I say to the boy, ‘Look, the arrows are beyond you,’ then you must go, because the Lord has sent you away. And about the matter you and I discussed—remember, the Lord is witness between you and me forever.” – I Sam. 20:18-23

This is also a clever plan. In case servants of Saul are watching, not only will they not see David, they also won’t have any idea what is going on. It will simply look like Jonathan is practicing his archery.

So David hid in the field, and when the New Moon feast came, the king sat down to eat. He sat in his customary place by the wall, opposite Jonathan, and Abner sat next to Saul, but David’s place was empty. Saul said nothing that day, for he thought, “Something must have happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean—surely he is unclean.” But the next day, the second day of the month, David’s place was empty again. Then Saul said to his son Jonathan, “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse come to the meal, either yesterday or today?” – I Sam. 20:24-27

So the setup is now complete, and it is time for Jonathan to put his father to the test. Surely, he thinks, his father will pass; surely, he remembers his oath to never harm David. Surely, he would never break his oath before God. Surely, he isn’t holding all this from me. Perhaps Jonathan suddenly regrets that part of this plan requires that he lie to his father, but now he must go forward and complete the test.

By the way, I love the little detail about Saul sitting in his customary place by the wall. Practically, he sits in this way so that nobody can stab him from behind. His long history of harshness combined with his fears about losing the kingdom through overthrow is why he does this. Literally, he is with his “back to the wall.”

But let’s keep going. Jonathan now gets to start the test.

Jonathan answered, “David earnestly asked me for permission to go to Bethlehem. He said, ‘Let me go, because our family is observing a sacrifice in the town and my brother has ordered me to be there. If I have found favor in your eyes, let me get away to see my brothers.’ That is why he has not come to the king’s table.” – I Sam. 20:28-29

Jonathan’s explanation is even more detailed than David’s. It is a sad fact of human nature that most of us are great liars. Nobody has to go to “Liars School” to learn how to lie. Ever since Adam and Eve we have all been great at lying. But now at last the test is set. How will Saul do? Will he pass? Will he fail?

Saul’s anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you? As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. Now send someone to bring him to me, for he must die!” – I Sam. 20:30-31

Wow – there is failing and there is failing; forgive the pun, but Saul has failed, well, royally. His harshness to Jonathan is quite shocking.  

Saul is so mad that he cannot even call David by his name! He keeps calling him the “son of Jesse.” This is a put-down, reminding everyone listening of David’s humble beginnings. (Of course, Saul, as the first king of Israel, also had humble beginnings, but that is all forgotten, at least by Saul, now.)

Saul’s disparaging of David reminds me of how some early Jewish writers similarly disparaged Jesus. There are over twenty different negative names for Jesus in Jewish writing. Perhaps the worst was Yeshu ben Pandera. Ben means “son of”. Who was Pandera? They concocted a story in which Pandera was a Roman soldier who was Mary’s illicit lover. And as for Yeshu, which sounds like an affectionate shortening of Yeshua, the Jewish name for Jesus, in reality this was an acronym for y’mach sh’mo oozichro, which means “may his name/memory be obliterated forever”.   

“Why should he be put to death? What has he done?” Jonathan asked his father. But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father intended to kill David. Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger; on that second day of the feast he did not eat, because he was grieved at his father’s shameful treatment of David. – I Sam. 20:32-34

Here we have the unthinkable – Saul is so mad he actually throws his spear at his son! Forgive this last pun (I promise), but you could say that Saul threw the spear and Jonathan gets the point. He knows now that David is right, and he leaves. Note that Jonathan’s anger towards his father is not directed primarily on how Saul had treated him; true to his selfless form, Jonathan is angry that about Saul’s treatment of David.

In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for his meeting with David. He had a small boy with him, and he said to the boy, “Run and find the arrows I shoot.” As the boy ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. When the boy came to the place where Jonathan’s arrow had fallen, Jonathan called out after him, “Isn’t the arrow beyond you?” Then he shouted, “Hurry! Go quickly! Don’t stop!” The boy picked up the arrow and returned to his master. (The boy knew nothing about all this; only Jonathan and David knew.) Then Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and said, “Go, carry them back to town.” – I Sam. 20:35-40

And so Jonathan tells David through their indirect method that David was tragically right about his father.

After the boy had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone and bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground. Then they kissed each other and wept together—but David wept the most. – I Sam. 20:41

Anger has turned to sadness for Jonathan. Intense grief. And David weeps even more – because he knows how deeply this has hurt Jonathan. Now, not only David’s, but also Jonathan’s life has been turned upside down. This time, there is no “reset,” no turning back to how things were before. For both of them, their lives will never be the same again.

Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘The Lord is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.’” Then David left, and Jonathan went back to the town.  – I Sam. 20:42

I don’t know if they discussed the possibility of them leaving together; I suspect that Jonathan would have been totally willing to go, but that David did not let him do so. It was also probably safer for David to go alone. In any case, I’m not entirely sure who had the hardest task. Leaving everything behind with an absolutely uncertain future would certainly be tough, but to go back to your father’s house after everything that had happened would also be incredibly difficult. For both of them this was a life-changing moment. And on top of everything, they now had to go through whatever was to come separated from one another. Even their relationship was being torn apart by this event.

So what was God doing here? Why was He allowing this terrible tragedy to happen? Perhaps you have had the same questions at moments of crisis in your life. I remember my wife having similar questions when her older brother was suddenly struck by a brain aneurism and died a short time later. I came to this place just a few months ago. Things turned pretty quickly for me – but there was much uncertainty, as I didn’t really know what was going on. First I received news in my doctor’s office that my heart EKG was abnormal. Then I was undergoing an ultrasound of my heart and a stress test with radioactive dye put in my body to more clearly see the blood vessels of my heart. Then I was meeting with a cardiologist to discuss the results – which were abnormal but still somewhat unclear – and being scheduled for a surgical procedure in which a catheter would be stuck into the blood vessels on my heart while another dye was used for x-ray imaging. The night before the procedure I was very nervous and didn’t have much time to think. The morning of the procedure I was attended to by a nurse, and again, nothing really sank in. It was only over the next few days while I recuperated at home that I finally had the chance to begin to grieve and reflect on how my life had changed. I think David and Jonathan’s events were much more traumatic than mine, but still, I had to think about the fact that I really had something called coronary artery disease, that I really had blockages, that this was actually really serious, that my dietary changes were critical to my future. But it took even longer to really begin to understand the extent of the dietary changes. Driving around, I would look at all the restaurants I could never go to. Going to the grocery store, I would see all the foods I couldn’t eat. Even still, it isn’t until I reflect on a food that I realize that “Oh, yeah, I can’t have that either.” There was a grieving process here that I had to undergo.

The five classic stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.  It is fascinating to see Jonathan go through the majority of these. First is denial – he cannot believe that David is right about his father wanting to kill him. Then is intense anger at that dinner table with his father. The bargaining stage in Jonathan we see a hint of in when he asks his father why he should be put to death. He is hoping that there is some misunderstanding behind his father’s response – but his father makes it clear that there is no misunderstanding at all. And then when he is with David he begins to feel depression. Acceptance we don’t yet see.

I experienced all of these stages as I processed the fact that I have heart problems. Denial occurred as I was going from doctor to doctor and procedure to procedure. Each test had some uncertainty associated with it; I ignored the composite and mounting evidence that these tests were showing together. Did I feel anger? Absolutely. I was especially angry at one health provider who did not do certain things in a timely manner or in what I perceived was their lack of follow-up. Did I go through the bargaining stage? Based on the name of the stage, I didn’t think so until I read more about it. The bargaining stage does not necessarily require some kind of bargaining with God; instead, it can simply be a focus on what got you to this point. I thought a lot about how if maybe I had just eaten healthier, I could have avoided this entire situation. These thoughts moved on to depressing feelings – feelings of loss of my health, feelings of loss over all the food restrictions I was now under, and feelings about the difficulty of sharing meals with others, with grabbing a quick meal at a restaurant, with the doing any kind of travel.   

“Why was this happening to me?” was something I asked God. I saw other people eating far worse than me, far worse in their other aspects of taking care of themselves, who had no such problems. Why me, God? And beyond this was the question, wasn’t there another way? Another way to draw me to You? Another way for me to grow in faith? Another way that was easier?

I suspect David asked that question. At any time God could have just struck Saul down, as He had struck down other flagrant sinners in Israel’s past. Why was God making this so hard? If He really wanted David to be king, why didn’t He just make it so?

I believe that, because of God’s great love for us, if we are hurting we should go to Him with our questions. We should, in prayer, go to Him with whatever is bothering us. But we need to understand that He is not obligated to answer us. The specific trials of our lives serve a purpose – of that we can be sure. But the detailed answers are usually not for us to know, at least, not yet. Part of growing in faith – an essential part, in my opinion – is learning to trust God even when He doesn’t answer our questions. This is neither easy nor pleasant – far, far from it! But it something that almost all of us will experience at some point (probably multiple points) in our lives. If you haven’t experienced this yet, you probably will in the future.

I don’t say this to depress you, but to try to prepare you. Our pain and struggles in this world are real. But they are temporary. Jesus told us:

“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

I want to close today with a song by a Christian musician named Josh Garrels called Farther Along. I think it speaks powerfully of this theme – that we will experience trouble, but that it serves a purpose, and it is temporary. It also fits powerfully to today’s passage, as I picture David, depressed and filled with uncertainty, leaving to go who knows where, and I picture Jonathan, also depressed, trudging back to the one place he does not want to go.

Farther along we'll know all about it
Farther along we'll understand why
So, cheer up my brothers [and sisters], live in the sunshine
We'll understand this, all by and by