Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 18-20.

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I like today’s story, but I find it challenging to identify a spiritual lesson for us in it.  This passage makes me really like Jonathan, and then I feel bad about what happens to him as a result of his father’s sin.  So, this is not actually a spiritual lesson, but King Saul demonstrates some behaviors of a bad leader.  When people praised David, Saul became jealous.  Rather than see David’s actions as things which strengthened his kingdom and looking for ways to benefit from David’s skills, Saul felt threatened by him.  When King Saul offered his daughter(s) in marriage to David, he saw it as a means to set David up to be killed by the Philistines.  Instead of seeing it as a way to get David to be loyal to his family, Saul saw David’s success in getting the bride price he set as a threat.  Further, Saul failed to accept his son Jonathan’s assessment of David’s character, or to recognize that the loyalty between them went both ways.  King Saul failed to recognize that his daughter, Michal, also thought highly of David, to the extent of helping him escape Saul’s assassination attempt.  King Saul refused to recognize that both his son and his daughter thought highly of David.  A good leader would have found ways to use David’s success and popularity to strengthen his kingdom.  A good leader recognizes that the success of his subordinates reflects will upon himself.  Throughout the description of King Saul’s reign we see evidence that he was a totalitarian ruler.  He viewed everyone with power which did not depend upon his power as a threat to be eliminated.  A good leader seeks to empower those under them to become as powerful as possible.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 18-20.

One of the things which always strikes me is that David turned down the opportunity to marry King Saul’s eldest daughter, but later married another of Saul’s daughters, Michal.  The passage never really tells us why, but it gives us a few hints.  First, it seems to me that David had no ambitions, other than serving the Lord (and perhaps, fighting against those who were the enemies of the Lord’s people).  Second, I think he knew that Michal was in love with him and desired to marry him, while her older sister, Merab, would only have married him because her father told her to do so.  I suspect that David returned Michal’s love (this is supported by the fact that one of his demands to make peace with Abner after King Saul’s death was her being returned to him).  All of this to say, that David did not seek the kingship of Israel.  It came to him due to the hand of God.  David did what he could to serve God in the situations he found himself in, and God raised him to be king.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 18-20.

After David defeated Goliath, as King Saul and his army, including David, returned to Gibeah, the women in the towns they passed through praised Saul, but praised David even higher.  King Saul became jealous of David.  Saul’s jealousy of David is evidence of his lack of faith in God.  If Saul had been a leader who put God first in his life, he would not have been bothered by someone else receiving greater honor from the people than he did.  A leader who is serving the Lord does not mind when others get the credit, or are seen as more important.  They are not even worried if it becomes obvious that someone else will replace them as leader.  A leader who is serving God only cares that the people they are leading also follow and worship God.   If they are the leader God desires for His people, God will keep them in that position.  If God removes them from that position of leadership, it is because God has someone better in mind for that position…and the leader who is serving God desires that the people they are leading have the best possible leader, even if it is not themselves.  On the other hand, David did not particularly seek honor, as evidenced by his unwillingness to marry King Saul’s older daughter.  It was only after Michal, Saul’s younger daughter, fell in love with David that he was willing to become King Saul’s son-in-law.  David sought to do God’s will and knew that he did not need to strive after the position God wanted him in because he knew that God would put him there when the time was right.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 18-20.

On a couple of occasions in this passage it says that an evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul.  The idea that an evil spirit might be from the Lord bothers me, so I looked at the translators notes.  They mention that the word translated as “evil” might also be translated as “harmful”.  I am much more comfortable with the idea that a harmful spirit was sent from God upon someone.  Each time this spirit came upon Saul he attempted to kill David right then and there.  The implication being that when these incidents happened, Saul’s personality changed on a dime and he acted in a way uncharacteristic for him.  It struck me today that there seems to be a relationship between the occasions when the evil, or harmful, spirit came upon Saul and the times when he prophesied along with a band of prophets.  One of those latter times happened when Saul pursued David after David fled to Samuel.  However, a similar thing had happened after the first time Saul and met with Samuel before he became king.  I was really hoping that once I wrote about these things I would have some insight into all fit together, but that did not happen.

I had always thought that David was ambitious and that his reluctance to marry Saul’s daughter (first one and then a second one was offered to him as his wife) was because he was aware of Saul’s plans to use it against him.  Today, as I read this, I felt like David’s reluctance to become Saul’s son-in-law was actually out of humility.  Yesterday, I noted that David’s comments about Goliath to members of Saul’s army were perhaps meant to encourage someone to stand up to Goliath in the name of God.  In a similar fashion, it occurred to me today that David’s reluctance to become Saul’s son-in-law was because he genuinely did not believe he was a prominent enough person for that role.  Or, perhaps the reason that David was willing to marry Michal, when he had resisted marrying her older sister Merab was because Michal actually wanted to marry him, while Merab would only have done so because she had no choice.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.