May 28, 2024 | Be God's Light
Saul Tries to Kill David
Scripture: 1 Samuel 19 (NIV)
1 Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to kill David. But Jonathan had taken a great liking to David 2 and warned him, “My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there. 3 I will go out and stand with my father in the field where you are. I’ll speak to him about you and will tell you what I find out.”
4 Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, “Let not the king do wrong to his servant David; he has not wronged you, and what he has done has benefited you greatly. 5 He took his life in his hands when he killed the Philistine. The Lord won a great victory for all Israel, and you saw it and were glad. Why then would you do wrong to an innocent man like David by killing him for no reason?”
6 Saul listened to Jonathan and took this oath: “As surely as the Lord lives, David will not be put to death.”
7 So Jonathan called David and told him the whole conversation. He brought him to Saul, and David was with Saul as before.
8 Once more war broke out, and David went out and fought the Philistines. He struck them with such force that they fled before him.
9 But an evil spirit from the Lord came on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the lyre, 10 Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape.
11 Saul sent men to David’s house to watch it and to kill him in the morning. But Michal, David’s wife, warned him, “If you don’t run for your life tonight, tomorrow you’ll be killed.” 12 So Michal let David down through a window, and he fled and escaped. 13 Then Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed, covering it with a garment and putting some goats’ hair at the head.
14 When Saul sent the men to capture David, Michal said, “He is ill.”
15 Then Saul sent the men back to see David and told them, “Bring him up to me in his bed so that I may kill him.” 16 But when the men entered, there was the idol in the bed, and at the head was some goats’ hair.
17 Saul said to Michal, “Why did you deceive me like this and send my enemy away so that he escaped?”
Michal told him, “He said to me, ‘Let me get away. Why should I kill you?’”
18 When David had fled and made his escape, he went to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. Then he and Samuel went to Naioth and stayed there. 19 Word came to Saul: “David is in Naioth at Ramah”; 20 so he sent men to capture him. But when they saw a group of prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing there as their leader, the Spirit of God came on Saul’s men, and they also prophesied. 21 Saul was told about it, and he sent more men, and they prophesied too. Saul sent men a third time, and they also prophesied. 22 Finally, he himself left for Ramah and went to the great cistern at Seku. And he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?”
“Over in Naioth at Ramah,” they said.
23 So Saul went to Naioth at Ramah. But the Spirit of God came even on him, and he walked along prophesying until he came to Naioth. 24 He stripped off his garments, and he too prophesied in Samuel’s presence. He lay naked all that day and all that night. This is why people say, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”
Devotional
King Saul had already been told that the kingdom would be ripped away from him and given to somebody else. Even worse, 1 Samuel 16:14 says, “Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.” So, Saul enlisted his would-be successor to play music, which brought the king relief (1 Samuel 16:23).
But David’s dramatic success over Goliath certainly made Saul jealous. David also became best friends with King Saul’s son, Jonathan. Gaining a high rank in the army, David had success after success on the battlefield. People danced in the streets singing, “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands”
(1 Samuel 18:7). The next day Saul took his spear and tried to pin David to the palace wall, prior to the time mentioned in today’s reading.
David fell in love with the king’s daughter Michal. Seeing an opportunity to have the threat to his throne killed in battle, Saul offered David his daughter’s hand for one hundred Philistine foreskins. He brought back two hundred. David was now best friends with Prince Jonathan, married to Princess Michal, and anointed by Samuel to be King David after Saul’s death.
Retell the story from today’s reading from the perspectives of Saul, David, Jonathan, Michal, and Samuel, seeing what these reveal about the ways of God.
Poem
Hurt By The One You Love
What now could be more painful?
What now could be more cruel?
Than when your love turns on you
And challenges a duel
A duel you cannot fathom
A duel you can’t engage
You long for peace between you
He sits in seat of rage
How do you fight the anger?
How do you bind the wounds?
Offenses all imagined
Death curses breathing doom
Do you stand up against him?
Seek help from God above?
Where can you nurse the broken heart
Hurt by the one you love?
O Lord, I only wanted
To seek your best for him
How oft’ I went to battle
Hoping to gain a win
For all he would accomplish
For all to bring him best
To soothe his aching soul wounds
Allow his spirit rest
I’ll sacrifice my body
I’ll not raise vengeance’s sword
Instead I’ll live in exile
Until you speak the word
Which brings about true healing
Or your ordaining light
If I must die to conquer death
You resurrect all right
