CHAPTER SUMMARY

After David finishes speaking with Shaul, the navi tells us that Yehonatan became entranced with David, loving him as his own soul. Shaul, at this point, no longer allows David to return home; there were, apparently, limits to the monarch’s need to accommodate a servant’s home responsibilities. Yehonatan enters a pact with David, out of his great love for him, giving David the coat he was wearing, his armor, sword, bow, and belt. At the same time, David was winning favor among the people and Shaul’s servants, by his success at all the tasks upon which Shaul sent him.

Upon his return from these tasks, the women who composed victory songs composed one that they sang in Shaul’s hearing, praising Shaul for having killed thousands, and David for having killed tens of thousands. Hearing this, Shaul was angered, noting David’s superiority in their eyes, leaving only the kingship for him to conquer. This incident, the navi notes, led to Shaul’s lifelong obsession with David, leading him to always check David’s whereabouts and actions, to track how much of a athreat David was to him or his family’s rule of the Jewish people.

The next day, a ruah ra`ah hits Shaul, so David comes to play for him, as was his job. This time, Shaul’s rage gets the better of him, and he twice throws his spear at David, who turns away each time. Seeing David escape death, Shaul realizes that God is with David, and begins to fear him. To get rid of David, Shaul turns him into a public officer, which only makes him more popular, since people were now seeing him work for them. Of course, this only increases Shaul’s fear and hatred of David.

His next plan was to offer David his older daughter, but to condition it upon David’s fighting the Plishtim (thinking that David would get killed in battle). David resists, a little, and Shaul gives her to someone else at the last minute. Shaul’s younger daughter Michal, however, falls in love with David, and Shaul sees that, too, as an opportunity to lure David into being killed by Plishtim.

To facilitate the plan, he has his servants broach the idea wuith David, who again resists, based on his lack of worthiness and wealth. Shaul then has his servants tell David that Michal will not be won with money but with battle-prowess, proof of having killed 100 Plishtim. David, happy about the arrangement, goes with his men and brings 200 foreskins (like scalps for the Indians, proof of a kill). Shaul then gives Michal to David, knowing that God is with him (and therefore fearing and loathing him all his days). In the continuing wars with Plishtim, David is particularly successful, and becomes highly famous.

SHAUL’S FAMILY AND THEIR REACTION TO DAVID

One of the saddest ironies of Shaul’s life will be his having to face his family’s embrace of David. Even before we see the switch in Shaul’s attitude, we already find out that Yehonatan adopts David as a close friend, creating a pact with him. Several points are worth mentioning here: First, note that verse 1 tells us of Yehonatan’s feelings for David, verse 2 that Shaul no longer lets him go home, and verses 3-4 of the pact Yehonatan develops. Why not tell us all about Yehonatan and David’s friendship pact before (or after) telling us that Shaul no longer let him shuttle home? Perhaps the navi wishes to indicate that, at this point, Shaul was still happy with David, that he shared Yehonatan’s admiration for David, so that his keeping David with him was of a piece with Yehonatan’s love of David.

Radak notes that Shaul’s son’s name has changed. Whereas earlier in the book, he was generally called Yonatan, from now on, he is generally called Yehonatan. While he does not offer a reason, we might speculate that Yehonatan’s reaction to David earns him the added letter hay (in other situations, a sign of God’s being with a person—Avram becomes Avraham, Sarai becomes Sarah). Where Yonatan might have been jealous of his position as a leading general and the heir to the throne, he instead happily welcomes a competitor into the leadership of the people. Malbim suggests that Yonatan simply loved truth, and the truth was that David was the perfect leader for the people; certainly we can imagine God adding a letter to someone’s name because of that person’s love of truth.

Third, I would note the specific pact that the two forge, since it seems largely one-sided. Although David, at least at this point, has relatively little, Yonatan gives him his clothing and weapons. Malbim sees this as an admission that David would rule over Yonatan (and the people), which only highlights the one-sidedness of the relationship here—it is Yonatan declaring his fealty to the man who will take the job intended for him. The ability to watch that happen and be honestly happy about it is one that Rashi notes regarding Aharon’s seeing Moshe take the leadership of the people, and one that we should pause to admire in Yonatan as well.

SHAUL FLIPS OUT

David now goes on various errands for Shaul, at least some of them military, and finds success in them all (both in the actual tasks and in the hearts of the people, which do not necessarily go together). All might have continued to go smoothly had the women who compose the anthems for the people not insisted on placing David at a higher level of prowess than Shaul. It is when Shaul hears them praising David’s killing of ten thousands that Shaul snaps, and sees David as a threat to him and his monarchy (or at least his descendants’).

Even before we discuss Shaul’s attempts to rid himself of David, it is worth pausing to mourn the changes we can already see in him. The man whose modesty was his biggest challenge in leading the people, indeed whose unwillingness to force the people to follow God’s command in the battle against Amalek led to his disqualification from the monarchy, is now so concerned with his prestige and power that David’s success threatens him deeply. Yonatan celebrated David’s success, although he had the most to lose; Shaul attempts to stop it, although he already knows that God will take away the monarchy from him at some point.

Shaul’s reaction to the song he hears leads to an obsession with David. By the end of the chapter, those feelings change to hatred or enmity, offering a lesson about how our obsessions warp us. In the Hebrew, the two feelings are clearly connected, since the two notations of Shaul’s feelings are expressed with the same phrase, vqyehi Shaul ____ et David kol hayamim, and Shaul was ____ David all the days. Here, the word that fills in the blank is oyen, later in the chapter it is oyev, emphasizing how small is the jump from obsession to enmity.

SHAUL TRIES TO GET RID OF DAVID

The next day, having been stricken by one of his foul moods, David sat to play for the king. Note how David seems not to have been changed by his elevated social and political status. He (as we had earlier noted about Shaul) still engages in the tasks of service that he had done before becoming an important warrior. Later in the chapter, he resists becoming Shaul’s son-in-law, at least ostensibly because he feels unworthy. It will be worth our while to track how David relates to Shaul, as it will let us see when and whether David begins to assume that magi`a li, that he deserves the good that is coming his way.

In the specific incident, Shaul tosses a spear at David twice, apparently actually seeking to kill him. In the navi, David simply turns away, which is odd (wouldn’t he run away if Shaul were trying to kill him?). Malbim suggests that David happened to turn away each time, so that he did not even know that Shaul was trying to kill him, which would nicely explain why Shaul realizes from this incident that God is with David and no longer with Shaul, and thus strike fear in his heart.

As an alternative, I might suggest that this is another example of David sensitively handling Shaul’s mental illness. Certainly while he is in the throes of a ruah ra`ah, I could imagine that David would feel that Shaul could not be held fully responsible for his actions. Just as hospital workers might simply restrain a drug addict who grabbed a knife and held people hostage, David might believe that his job is simply to avoid being harmed by Shaul in these instances, but otherwise to treat him with all the honor due a king.

PERHAPS BY INDIRECT MEANS

Foiled in his direct attempts to get rid of David, Shaul tries to be more subtle, first banishing David from his inner circle. Of course, this backfires, since it allows David more of a public role, increasing his popularity with the people, fueling Shaul’s great fear even further.

Shaul now tries holding out his daughters (successively) as the lure to get David to go into battle and be killed there (this incident might have planted the seeds for David’s later misdeed with Uriah, Batsheva’s husband). In the first instance, he approaches David directly, but David resists, seeing himself as unworthy (although, if my theory about Shaul’s mental state is correct, perhaps also because David did not trust Shaul’s claims, never knowing whether it was the sane Shaul or not). Too, David had been promised one of the king’s daughters as a reward for killing Golyat originally; having seen that promise go by the wayside, he may have learned that the king’s word was not always an ironclad matter. If David did not trust Shaul, we can understand why he does not react badly to Merav’s being given to others at the last moment.

Michal, however, falls in love with David, providing Shaul with another opportunity. This time, he has his servants speak to David (perhaps giving it greater credibility, since Shaul cannot as shamelessly back out of the agreement), who again resists because of his lack of wealth (note that becoming a famous general did not automatically lead to wealth). When David finds out that the bride-price was a hundred dead Plishtim, he promptly agrees and produces double that, only further fueling Shaul’s fear and hatred. Nonetheless, David gets the girl, and ends the chapter with his star very much in the ascent, and his popularity ratings astronomically high.

A subissue in this chapter is how Shaul, David, and others understood God’s hashgahah. To what extent did David not fear Shaul because he had been promised he would be king? Later on in the book, David will flee and hide from Shaul; apparently, he could not simply ignore the threat as counter to the Divine Will. Yet, as I have already suggested, he does seem willing to let events take their course generally. I do not propose answers to this question, just to note that they are worth keeping in mind throughout these chapters. Shabbat Shalom.