The Death of Saul and Its Consequences

2 Samuel 1-2

            Last week’s readings ended with Saul taking his own life on Mount Gilboa. Today, we read how David received that news. An Amalekite, that disreputable people we have been bumping into since Exodus, appears at Ziklag and tells David, “Saul asked me to finish him off and I did.” That conflicts with 1 Samuel 31. It is possible, I suppose, that Saul had mortally wounded himself and that this Amalekite administered the coup de grace. But more likely, he’s just a corpse-raider who had the good fortune to stumble upon the body of the dead king. Now he's thinking David will provide him a big reward. But David’s response is to have the man executed and to compose a lament to Saul and Jonathan.

            The lament is beautiful. David coins the phrase, “How the mighty have fallen!” He mourns that “the glory of Israel lies slain” (in the older translations; in the NIV it’s ‘a gazelle lies slain,’ not as poetic to me…). He eulogizes that they were loved and admired, that Jonathan was to him like a brother.

            Some commentators want to make this look like only so much PR, that David is not really sorry to see Saul go, because, honestly, this is good news for David. But I think that misunderstands things. First, you can recognize that someone else’s misfortune is good for you and still feel bad for the misfortune (for example, someone with seniority on you at work quits for health reasons—you’re next in line, but you still don’t wish debilitating sickness on anyone). Second, this is part of the portrayal of David as patiently waiting for the Lord to deliver the kingdom to him, genuinely loving Jonathan, and genuinely respecting Saul, or at least his position. I think in some ways we have David acting here in a genuinely Christ-like way: he is loving his enemy like himself, just as Jesus prayed for the forgiveness of those who crucified Him. This seems a particularly effective instance of loving one’s enemies. I mean Saul has now spent years chasing David around the countryside, trying really hard to kill him. If Saul isn’t David’s enemy, no one is! Yet, here he is genuinely moved at Saul’s death.

            After this moving scene, David is anointed king over Judah, which had always been the largest and the strongest of the tribes. There appears to some rivalry between Judah and the other tribes, because they unit behind Saul’s heir, Ish-bosheth., and civil war breaks out. This war will last some 7 years. (There’s a chronology question here, because 2 Samuel 2:10 says that Ish-bosheth reigned two years. Probably that means that Ish-bosheth took several years to establish himself as the legitimate successor to Saul and that his two-year reign coincides with the end of David’s reign in Hebron. The name Ish-Bosheth means, “man of shame,” so it’s just possible that he wasn’t a legitimate son, adding depth to the explanation.)

            A civil war is bad enough, but a personal vendetta between the commanders of the opposing armies always adds drama! Stay tuned for the rest of that story tomorrow!