General Comments on 1 Samuel 18-24 These chapters follow closely on the subject of the preceding chapters of the preceding lesson. In all likelihood, it will be best to briefly review and summarize last week's material so as to better put this into context. Comments on 1 Samuel 18 v1-4 Jonathan, Saul's son, and David become close friends. A friendship that later becomes instrumental in saving David's life from Saul. v2 Here we learn David is no longer shuttling back and forth between home in Bethlehem and Saul (cp. 17:15), but goes into Saul's service full-time taking up residency there. v4 Jonathan, previously the military leader in Israel (cf. ch. 13-14), abdicates to David in the wake of this great victory over the Philistines (cf. ch. 17). Jonathan ceremonially gives him his armor, weapons, and his robes (ostensibly the robes of nobility). v5-9 David takes over military command of Israel, and prospers in this role, so the people acknowledge him as such and rejoice over their deliverance (v. 5-6). The women sing a song that characterizes David as having more military might than Saul (v. 7), and this drives Saul to become jealous, angry, and suspicious. As discussed in the material for the last installment of LDSS, Saul at this point is probably mentally ill, so paranoia may well be an issue here. Recall that Saul is still in denial over Samuel's pronouncement of the Lord's rejection of him as king of Israel, and Saul is using any means possible to maintain his kingship. v6 "to meet king Saul", the Septuagint has "to meet David" where the Masorah "to meet Saul". v10-30 Saul turns on David and tries to have him killed numerous ways. v10-11 Seems like a very strange situation. We have Saul apparently throwing spears at David twice and David dodging him. This seems very strange as wouldn't it them be immediately apparent to David that Saul was trying to kill him? However, in the rest of the chapter, David does not seem to be entirely aware that Saul wants him disposed of. A close look at the Hebrew sheds some possible light on the situation. In v. 11 for "Saul cast the javelin", a change in vocalization of the Hebrew for "cast" yields "Saul raised the javelin". Thus, Saul may only have been looking for opportunities to kill him, and didn't actually go through with throwing the javelin since the situation didn't present itself. And, apparently, Saul tried this twice and on both occasions did not have the opportunity so David was spared. How exactly David was spared at this point is not recorded, but it may have simply been coincidence that there were servants always around or some more miraculous means where David was simply prompted to leave not knowing why. It is possible that Saul actually did try to kill David at this point, and that David was simply ascribing it to Saul's mania rather than any real attempt at homicide. This seems unlikely to me though as in 19:9-10 we have a similar sort of event where Saul clearly tries to kill David and this time David completely avoids Saul afterwards. This suggests to me that in the present scene we have only intent and not action, with the action appearing in 19:9-10. v12-16 Saul tries to just get David out of his sight probably hoping that out of sight is out of mind. Unfortunately, in doing so David ends up more popular and successful than ever as a military leader, and it makes Saul dread him. v17-19 Saul's next plot is to have him marry his own daughter, promote him in the military as a result of it, and then send him into battle with the Philistines where he will hopefully be killed. This doesn't work though as David feels he is too lowly to marry into nobility, and we find out later in v. 23-25 that David doesn't have any money for bride-price. So, they pull a fast one on Saul and the daughter ends up marrying someone else. v20-30 Saul attempts the same ploy as in v. 17-19 only he finds out that Michal and David love each other, so to make the ploy work this time he exempts David from the usual bride-price. Instead, he sends David into battle to get 100 Philistine foreskins as the bride-price, hoping that David will be killed in action. However, David ends up twice as successful, delivering 200 and then going on to be a great military leader against the Philistines. All of this just makes Saul even more afraid of David, as opposed to making him humble and penitent. The irony here is David ends up doing the same kind of thing to Uriah when he gets Bathsheba pregnant. Only David is succesful in having Uriah killed. v28-30 David is already acting the part of king of Israel. The only one fighting it anymore is Saul. Copyright © 2002 by S. Kurt Neumiller . All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form or by any means for commercial gain without the express written consent of the author. Digital or printed copies may be freely made and distributed for personal and public non-commercial use.