40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Samuel 17:52-18:9 (Episode 243)

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Saul seeks out more information about David's family. Jonathan and David's souls are knit together. Saul makes David the commander of his armies. And the women of Israel sing a song that increases Saul's suspicion of David. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Conferences 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. while you're over there make sure you register for that northwest arkansas regional event it's going to be that event going down in the ozarks in the spring april 16th and 17th in bentonville arkansas chad and i'll both be there along with a whole bunch of other people be a bunch of speakers for two days it's gonna be an andy gullihorn concert and if you never checked him out then

you're missing out big time but need to come check him out in live and in person we never done a concert before chad uh at an event but you know that's that's what we're doing in 2021 so 65 bucks for a two-day event uh there's gonna be lots of food and hanging out and it's gonna be a good time so go over to either here we still stand or you just go to the events page over at 1517.org chad what's going on man i was just thinking you know the best thing about this conference is it's in 2021 yeah yeah instead of 2020 i mean just that alone means it's going to be a success that's right i mean that's really all you need to say is it's a conference in 2021 people are like oh yeah hell i'm gonna be there oh dude have you seen every year uh you know at

the end of the year you see all these people i saw this last i saw this last year 2019 was ending and all these people were like good riddance good riddance 2019 was terrible every year people do this you'll see like your your facebook feed will just be filled up with people saying you know they have a dumpster with a fire in it and all this stuff every year is just the worst year as much as that if you have seen the past it will all dim in comparison to what you're gonna see on december 31st 2020 uh and for the first time ever because i always make fun of those people i'm like oh it wasn't that bad this is just another year every year has highs and lows this will be the first year where i'll be like i agree good riddance yeah exactly have you seen the christmas

tree at rockefeller center no picture that it's like a 2020 christmas tree it looks terrible it's like limbs missing it looks like it been through some sort of terrible storm and then they erected it as the christmas tree so it's like it's iconic of it's iconic of the year of course you know as soon as you say that sort of thing you just watch we might be like you know when june rolls around we might be like man and we thought 2020 was bad who knows who knows what's going to happen in 2021 i keep yeah yeah i don't even like don't even want to say it aloud because i keep thinking that too yeah you think that just because that calendar flips that magically everything gets better all right oh well we'll uh we'll pray that the lord has mercy on us

this next year for sure for sure well uh we left uh we left goiath dead on the ground without a head and uh david standing over him yeah we did we did uh i can't remember who that there's a famous uh painting of that particular uh particular image it's it's certainly certainly a graphic image sticks in your head not not really what i think most people picture when they picture david and goliath you know they think they picture kind of david you know he's got the sling in his hand or you know maybe something like goliath laying on the ground after he's just been struck by the stone but you know decapitated with his like bleeding head hanging from david's hand that's not really the image we associate with this cutting this like huge guy's head off david's

probably standing there just like all blood splattered all over him and stuff and like it's pretty gruesome scene yeah yeah pretty gruesome scene so uh but that's that's that's what happened verse 51 says david ran stood over the philistine and took his sword that is took goliath's sword no telling how much that thing weighed and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it and when the philistines saw that their champion was dead they headed for the hills as they uh as they rightly should have so this little shepherd boy takes down uh takes down the giant we talked about that uh that last time and the the typology the foreshadowing that's going on here with the son of David, with Christ defeating the true Goliaths that face us, whether

you want to talk about sin or death or the devil, which is, you know, really where you always want to go with this text. And we discussed this when we started this whole chapter about the typical way this is moralized into oblivion by everybody from, yes, secular speakers to Sunday school material it's all over the place you know we're be like david and uh defeat whatever goliath is facing you but you know if you're if you're going to read the scriptures the way that jesus instructed us to read them then you're going to read this as not something for you to do but rather something that christ the son of david has has accomplished as accomplished for you in another very bloody kind of defeat but in that case it was not it wasn't a giant that was bloody

But it was the son of David himself in his in his crucifixion that brought about the victory for us. Yeah. All right. So let's finish off the chapter. Then we'll get into 18. So what happens after this victory says that the Israelite soldiers, they understandably were happy. They got up, they shout, they start chasing the Philistines all the way to the gates of one of their one of the cities in their pentapolis to the gates of Ekron. And then they're killing Philistines left and right all along the way. And then they come back. And, of course, the Philistines just left their camps behind. And so they plundered their camps.

So typical soldier activity back then. Once you defeat the enemy, then you get to take the spoils of war home with you. What's interesting about this, too, is this didn't go down exactly the way that they were presenting it. They were like, okay, so we got a champion and you got a champion. and then you know they'll fight and that'll be the winner and that's just that'll just be the end of it david goes out there kills this guy and suddenly israel's like we're feeling all bets are off yeah we're feeling pretty good about our chances no like i mean so they chased them out it's i wouldn't say it was like a a breach of contract i don't know maybe israel never really

agreed to that i don't know i mean i guess they did in fact send someone out there so maybe that that is an agreement i don't know either way it wasn't as simple as just your guy beats our guy and that's the end of it they they go and start killing people all over the place i'm feeling this wasn't the first or last time that that contract was was breached you know uh it's pretty hard to hold back when uh you want to be the when you're the victor and it's pretty hard to stand there and be the servants of course when uh you are the one who's who's lost yeah i guess i guess the philistines didn't they said hey we'll be yours you know whoever loses they're going to be the servants and uh and i guess the philistines weren't really into that part of the arrangement

either so yeah absolutely all right so uh the chase takes place uh david has his own spoils of war he's got a philistine head kind of a strange verse here it says that david took the philistines head and brought it to jerusalem but he put his weapons in his tent it's strange here because this is almost like a foreshadowing because Jerusalem at this time is not in the hands of David. Jerusalem is still controlled by the Jebusites. It's not in the hands of Israel yet. I'm not exactly sure what to make of that verse, but whatever it means, I mean, it does in a sense foreshadow, I guess you could call it the conclusion of this victory. I mean, this victory is just kind of the beginning of this whole escalating series of victories that David's

going to have until finally he actually wins control of Jerusalem, establishes his capital there much, much later. This is after, of course, not just after he becomes king, but after he has established some authority and control, then he captures the city of the Jebusites. Then the chapter wraps up saying that another kind of strange part of the chapter, it says that Saul Saul sees David going to fight against Goliath, and he says to Abner, who's the commander of his army, he says, Abner, whose son is this young man? And Abner says, beats me, you know, I don't know. And the king said, well, figure it out. You inquire whose son the youth is. Now, this is weird, because as we know, David has been serving in the court of Saul for some time as a musician.

and of course he just had a conversation with Saul not very long ago saying, hey, nobody else is going, so I'll go and I'll kill this uncircumcised Philistine. But I think what's happening here is that it's not really that Saul doesn't know who David is. Notice he never says, who is he? But rather he's asking who his dad is or what family he belongs to. And I suspect the reason he wants to know is because part of the part of the deal of anyone who went out to fight against this this champion was that the family of that soldier would be free from taxation free from other financial burdens so i suspect that's what's what's happening here here even though it is still a little bit a little bit of a strange conversation anyway david gets back and abner

takes him to go see saul and he's still holding this this the head in his hand when he when he goes back to Saul. And Saul says, whose son are you? And David says, I am the son of your servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite. So presumably that's why they had this conversation so that Jesse and his family would receive the benefits of David's military labors. And that's the end of the chapter, long chapter, 58 verses, significant chapter for lots of reasons. But you kind of have three different uh three different things happening here i mean you've got the kind of the relationship between david and uh david and goliath i mean that's that's obvious but you also have kind of this give and take between david and saul because as we talked about i mean who

who's the big guy that should be going to fight the other big guy well saul i mean as far as we know he was bigger and taller than any of the Israelite soldiers, and he was their leader. So it stands to reason that if anybody should be out on the battlefield fighting Goliath, it should be Saul. But of course, he doesn't do that. And then the third contrast or comparison you have going on here is between the God of Israel and the God of Philistines. And as I mentioned, this is a theological battle as much as it is a actual physical battle that's taking place. And here, as elsewhere, God is showing his superiority over the Philistine idols. All right, well, that's chapter 17. Anything else you want to add, or are we ready to

rock and roll forward? I think we're ready. It is interesting that, you know, you had Saul deck David out in his armor, and this whole thing goes down, and David says, I can't move around in this. This is not how I'm going to do it. The time between David saying, yeah i'm gonna go do that and it's all finally letting him and david coming back with his head cannot be that much time like this they did not take david this was not a long drawn out fight no i mean you got a couple speeches in there but that's about it yeah and this thing was over quick i mean i only say that to say that i'm sure that they were expecting that maybe this battle be over quick uh in the opposite direction uh best case scenario maybe this battle is drug out

for a little while but i'm sure this was like a shocking thing that this battle was over this quick and of course i mean they pursued everyone and they went and like all that's going on but you know so i almost assume that this sort of conversation between saul trying to figure out who this guy is i'm sure the army's out there plundering stuff and being crazy and uh and he's like saul's aren't trying to figure out what just happened probably so he's still in a state of shock yeah i guarantee you everybody who watched david march out into the battlefield were thinking oh man that poor kid he's gonna eat him for breakfast yeah so both sides i think the only person who wasn't shocked was david yeah everybody else philistines were like what the israelites

were like what and david's like hey i told you yeah i come in the name of the lord of host so victory was victory was gonna be mine yeah yeah so i i sort of uh see this sort of playing out where like in the midst of them pursuing the philistines all this stuff saul trying to figure out like where who is it what who's this person's family like what just happened here that yeah this seems like this conversation with david is probably taking place while there's a bunch of chaos going on around them where suddenly the the men of israel have found their zeal uh-huh yeah he's basically telling abner hey find out more about this kid we we need uh we need to know a little bit more and the reason you know that this you would think this has happened pretty quick is

david's still toting around his head and i mean i don't think he's toting around his head for for too long no no no no telling about that thing wade jump into uh jumped into chapter 18 uh chapter 18 is a pretty fascinating chapter i remember looking at it a couple weeks ago thinking I don't know what all we're going to do with this, but the more I've studied it, there's a lot that's here. There's some pretty key themes that are here, and I'll explain these more as we go through here. One of these, one that's really actually the most blatant, is love. Love occurs in one, two, three, four, five, six verses in this chapter. Love not between the people and Yahweh or something like that,

But this is love expressed between either people toward David, an individual toward David, or a whole nation toward David, or in one case, a woman toward David. That's a lot of occurrences of this kind of horizontal love, especially in one chapter. So it's pretty hard to miss. And so it becomes a pretty major theme of this chapter that basically everybody loves David. Yeah, that's sort of the theme of this chapter, right? Everyone's real into him. Everybody loves David. We've already heard it once back in chapter 16.

It says when David came to serve Saul and attended him. It's a little ambiguous because it just says David came to Saul and attended him, and in the Hebrew it's, and he loved him greatly. Most translations say, and Saul loved him greatly. possible that the one who loves the subject there is david but chances are it's saul who's loving him so saul as we've already heard the expression in other words of saul loving david but in this chapter we have jonathan loving david we have the israelites loving david we have uh his future wife mccall loving david so he is he's a beloved character for a lot of reasons not just because

of his military exploits, but he just seems to have a charismatic personality. He's like one of these people, we all know people like that, where everybody seems to like them or to love them or to respect them because they're just that kind of person that has that kind of magnetic personality that draws people to them. That seemed to be a characteristic of David, especially in his younger years. So that's one of the themes. The other theme is a little more subdued, but I think it's still there. And that is that David is sort of like a second Joseph. Now I say that because several times in the chapter, we have a verb that's usually translated something like prospered or acted wisely. So David will prosper or he will act wisely. I think that occurs three times.

And then in conjunction with that, we have several occurrences of the phrase that the Lord was with David. Now, where have we heard that before? That somebody prospered because the Lord was with him. We heard it way back in Genesis, I think chapter 39. Yeah, chapter 39, where three times we're told that the Lord was with Joseph and Joseph prospered. So there is this kind of, again, foreshadowing or typology that takes place, except this time, David ends up being a second Joseph figure, one who is destined for the throne, just like Joseph was, but who starts out as kind of a nobody. I mean, he's at the bottom. In other words, he's not in as bad a situation that Joseph was in with regard to prison and all that. But you can see this upward momentum that David has toward the throne that God has designated for him, just like you see with Joseph as he works his way through divine providence up to the right hand of Pharaoh. Another one of these fascinating examples, fascinating to me anyway, where you have what's sometimes called intertextuality, where you have this play between two different texts.

In this case, this interaction, this intertextuality between Genesis 39 about Joseph and then 1 Samuel 18 about David. We have examples of this all over the place where an earlier biblical figure will serve as a precursor or a blueprint for a later biblical figure. And this time it's going to be Joseph and Joseph and David. And what's also going to be interesting is Saul is going to live up to sort of all the things he said he would do, right? I mean, he's going to, I mean, presumably he's going to take care of David's family. David's going to marry in, all this kind of stuff. And you have these two opposing things kind of happen where Jonathan loves David and sort of becomes David's best friend. This is where you see Saul take the turn and Saul starts becoming jealous of David.

Yeah. And you assume that these things are connected, that not just Jonathan loving David, but everybody loving David is sort of going to be the catalyst for Saul to sort of start not really loving David the way that he did before. Yeah, you know, Saul is caught in a bad place because he has a growing antagonism, growing suspicion, jealousy, and antagonism toward David, while at the same time, David is the only one who's able to give him relief when this evil spirit comes upon him. This is a bummer of a situation to be in. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Just imagine like, I don't know what the exact parallel would be, but say you've got this doctor. I mean, you cannot stand him.

He's like, he's making your life terrible. But he's at the same time, the only one who's able to make you better. You know, it's not the exact parallel, of course. But I mean, just imagine whatever the situation is where you need a person badly. and at the same time uh you think that they're going to be your undoing yeah that's kind of the situation that saul was in saul was in here so back to jonathan you brought him up that's the way we start the chapter so right after it says after he had finished speaking to saul so right after uh saul and david have this little little uh back and forth conversation about who his dad is

It says the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. And I believe, yeah, that's the way the New American Standard and ESV translate that. The verb is kashar in Hebrew, and it's often spoken of in contexts where you basically tie something up. So you could translate this as bind. So I don't know why they chose knit, but maybe it just sounds more poetic. But the soul of Jonathan and the soul of David were bound together. They were tied together like the Israelites. I think it's the same verb that's used for how the Israelites were to bind the word of God to their arms and their forehead, like in the phylacteries or whatever.

No, I haven't looked at this. I was curious about this. I actually meant to look this up, but I forgot. So I'll just ask you and maybe you know. Is this word knit, is this the same word that is used in the Psalms where it talks about that I was knit together in my mother's womb? No, I'm 95% sure. I looked at this last week, so it's not fresh on my mind. I looked at all the occurrences of this particular verb, kashar, and I don't think it's used in Psalm 139.

I think that's a different verb. i'm going to express this kind of the same idea you know of this being bound together knit together woven together uh but mostly the reason i was and the reason only reason i was asking is because it does seem like it would have been interesting if it was the same word uh maybe this point would have been better if it was the same but either way i think i think it holds that this does seem like something that god is doing like i mean like you like sure you could say that oh from that moment i knew that like i was going to be really close with this person or i really i really you know we became best we became inseparable from that moment on or whatever but there's nothing

really that here that happens between david and jonathan the interaction is between saul and jonathan apparently is just kind of there um so it's not it's not like normally like if you had a if you became best friends with somebody there would probably be a thing that you went through together and you were like and that from that moment on whatever it was like we spent that summer together or you know we whatever it was you know summer camp or or maybe you went through some traumatic thing, you know, and from that moment on, we were, you know, someone stepped in and saved you from a bully, and then you were best friends ever since, or something like that. This seems like something a little more supernatural than that. It seems like

they're in this room together, David and Saul are having this exchange, and God has sort of attached David and Jonathan at this point. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is by divine initiative, without a doubt. And there's a lot going on here. The more I've studied this, Samar realized that, uh, this is, this is, yeah, a deep, a deep and a loving friendship, but there's, there's, there's even more kind of layers to it. So it says, yeah, they were, they were, their souls were knit together. Jonathan loved him as himself. And, uh, Saul took in that day, didn't let him return to his father's house. So David is basically adopted. He becomes part of the Royal family, if you will. Jonathan makes a covenant with David

because he loved him as himself and then we have this uh pretty well-known scene where jonathan strips himself of his robe and he gives it to david and not only his robe but his armor and his sword and his bow and his belt now what's going on here well i don't think there's any way we can take this except to say that what jonathan is doing here he's not only loving david and he's pledging him his his commitment his friendship to him but he's also as it were relinquishing any claim he has to the throne yeah that's what that's what this looks like this looks like jonathan somehow knowing nothing in the text tells us that jonathan has any way of knowing this unless i mean unless we had something happen that we're not privy to uh but jonathan somehow

knows that at the end of Saul's reign, it will not be him that is taking up the reign. And this is interesting. I mean, David is sort of going to marry into the family. He is sort of, as you say, adopted in, even as he doesn't let him leave again. But yeah, this is what that looks like. And you have to think that Saul sees this happening, that Saul is able to perceive that jonathan does not expect to be king yeah yeah yeah saul is i don't think there's any way that saul could have missed the the import of things like this whether he saw this take place or not he certainly knew that jonathan david were were knit soul to soul they were close friends and so saul is perceiving more and more of the direction that things are going

well one more thing i might add here is that uh our english word love of course is capable of carrying all sorts of different connotations, you know, everything from I love ice cream to I love my wife. Well, there's a huge gap there is as far as connotation goes, but we use the same word. The Hebrew word for love is like that too. I mean, you can have it used in a kind of an emotional sense, you know, like a man might express his love for a woman. You can also, and I think this is part of what's going on here, it's also used in context where you sort of have an alliance, even sometimes a political alliance is made between a king and another king, such as we'll have as Hiram, king of Tyre. He loves Solomon, or maybe it was David, but either way, he loves him

in the sense that, at least it seems to be the sense that he has pledged himself to be an ally to that king you know what i mean so it's not i'm not anyway discounting the fact that there might be kind of this uh this brotherly fraternal love that's going on but i think there's also maybe even here this idea of jonathan is pledging himself as an ally to david no matter what so there's a there's just a lot going on here from the the removal of his weapons to clothe David with those, to the connection that they have soul to soul, and the covenant that Jonathan makes with David. So this is basically Jonathan stepping aside.

It seems like in the Old Testament that, and this is probably true even today if we're talking about actually loving people, that love and loyalty are pretty close together. It's not as though you could love someone, but also not be loyal to them, right? And that's what it seems that Jonathan is doing, that Jonathan loves David, and that he is basically saying that he's going to be loyal to him no matter what. Right, right. And we can say that because we know that that is in fact the case, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll see several instances of that over the next few verses, next few chapters. And I do think that there's something about David and Jonathan. You see this with Jesus and John as well. I don't know, depending on how masculine of a dude you are, maybe it makes you uncomfortable the way that the Scriptures talk about it. But if you look at the way that it talks about David and Jonathan or the Scriptures talk about Jesus and his relationship with John,

I think maybe guys are a little more uncomfortable telling another guy that they love them, even if it's their best friend, even if it's the person they're close to. The Scriptures don't have trouble with that, it doesn't seem. They don't see this as a chipping away at masculinity for one man to love another man, which I actually think is we're probably not better for that. Like most men might have a hard time telling another man, even if it's their best friend, that they love them, which we probably shouldn't have that problem because the scriptures certainly don't seem that they'd have that problem. No, it's very refreshing, actually. You know, this is in no way. I mean, look, come on, look at what David just did. Can anyone with a straight face tell me that there's something that's a little bit less masculine about David when he tells Jonathan he loves him? Or, you know, we've looked at the military exploits of Jonathan, too.

And Jonathan loves David. I mean, these guys were, or at least were becoming top-notch warriors. So there's nothing whatsoever that is diminishing of their masculinity that they say to another man, I love you. Quite the opposite, in fact. Yeah. So it's a refreshing, not alternative, it's a refreshing honesty about how close two men can become, especially when they're united as David and Jonathan were, not only by kind of common interest, but also by this zealous fidelity to Yahweh that goes along with that. Yeah, I think every man is better for having at least one person, if not several people, that you love and having that loyalty attached to it, too. That you know that this is a person that you will, if need be, you will be there.

And if you need them, that they'll be there. That's a huge benefit. In fact, it's a bummer if you don't have some of that in your life. Especially, and I'm speaking just as men. And I'm sure women need this too, but I can't speak to that because I'm not one. But I know you're better off if you have a couple of dudes that you love and they love you. And attached and baked into that love is that I've got your back no matter what. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, recently I watched Tombstone. And there's that great quote in there about – Doc Holliday says that he doesn't have a lot of friends. yeah yeah the guy asked him why he's doing that and he says uh because why there's my friend he's doing this crazy stuff because it's his friend right yeah yeah he says i don't yeah i don't i don't have a lot of friends i've got i've got one friend and he's and he's right there in front of me so where where why it goes i go and nothing's gonna nothing's gonna stop me so i mean it's it's a that's a great uh cinematic example of the kind of love that that exists between between men yeah Yeah, and you're better off if you got some of that.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Verse 5, let's see what happens next here. We've got a few minutes left. David went out, it says, wherever Saul sent him, and prospered. Now, this is the first occurrence of that verb, prospered, that I mentioned earlier, which can also be translated acted wisely. This is that Joseph word. So Saul sent him over the men of war, and it pleased all the people,

and it also pleased Saul's servant. So everybody's happy. He's sending David out. Yeah, he basically makes David a general, and everyone's like, yeah, the guy that killed Goliath? That seems like a good general to me. Yeah, let's just promote him up all the way. He's not going to be like,

eh, I'm going to make you a sergeant first. If you do okay at that, we'll keep raising you through the ranks. No, we're going to make you, you're the guy. You're the head guy. And yeah, of course, everybody's happy about that, At least for the moment, verse six says they were coming back when David was was returning from killing the Philistines and and women show up. Seem like every time that women show up around David, there's going to be some problems.

Sure enough, same thing we have here. So the women came out of the cities of Israel. They're singing, they're dancing, they're coming out, it says, to meet King Saul. So David's with him, of course. David's returning, but they're coming out to meet Saul. And they got their instruments. They got their tambourines and got whatever other musical instruments they have. They have with them and not just playing, but they're going to sing.

Now, here's the kind of the funny thing about the song. You're probably familiar with the song. Here's how it goes. It's real short. Two lines. Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands. All right. So you got to think about this a couple of different ways.

First of all, probably they should have reversed the order just because if they want to honor Saul, they should have put his name second. Now, I could be wrong. I honestly don't think the women who were singing this were saying to themselves, you know what? Here's an opportunity to make the king really angry. No, it doesn't seem like it. Why don't we elevate David over Saul? Yeah, that's not a very prudent move. No, really, all I think is going on here is they are they're using a typical Hebrew poetic device.

This is not unusual at all, where you start, especially if you use a numerals, you'll start out with one, one number. We'll say like, you know, so and so has his hundred donkeys, but this other guy has his thousands of donkeys. Well, all you're doing is taking the first number and you're you're doubling it. You're quadrupling it, whatever it is. This is not an unusual poetic device. But Saul does not take it well, as we see. Saul became very angry for this saying displeased him. And he said, they have ascribed to David ten thousands, but to me, they have ascribed thousands.

Now, what more can he have but the kingdom? And Saul looked at David with suspicion from that day on. Yeah, yeah. And the ESV just says, and Saul eyed David from that day on, which we know what this is like, right? Yeah, that's a pretty good translation, actually. Yeah, so what's kind of funny here is that maybe Jonathan and Saul kind of see the direction things are going. I don't know that everybody else does, but they certainly do. Saul is, Saul, as I mentioned earlier, is kind of trapped. He's trapped between this, as we'll see in the next section, he's trapped between this need of David, not only the need of him musically, but also now militarily, and the havoc that David is bringing into his life.

Yeah, I mean, and Saul has exegeted the situation correctly when he looks at what's going on. He says, OK, David basically has everything, even the hearts of the people at this point. There's really there's really only one more thing he can get, and that's everything. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He is. He's interpreted the situation with with great accuracy. Yeah. That's only the one more thing that David could get. get, you know, this is a, this introduces what we're going to see over the next, over the next few chapters, really until the death of Saul. And that is, you know, we talk about, we talk about what a huge victory it was when David took down Goliath. And I don't in any way want to diminish

that it was, I mean, it's something that is, is worthy of people singing about, right. And him being famous for it's great but that pales that particular uh struggle battle pales in comparison with what david is going to face after this you know it's one thing to be like to have a clear defined enemy on the battlefield that you can go out and kill and be done with it yeah well i mean so david does this and that's great and like it's a heroic moment it's not as though saw hasn't like gone out there and won battles i mean he's he's like i'm sure he's like what do you guys not remember like when i first showed up and i had to go out there i was like wiping out people and yeah it's not like he's a defeated coward right he's got a lot of victories that he can claim

yeah david has faced goliath he's taking him down but what david is going to face over the next few years actually is another giant that he can't just face head on and take down it's Saul because it I mean so if there's a true if there's a true adversary that David faces it's not Goliath it's going to be Saul it's going to be this guy that uh he refuses to act against because he's the Lord's anointed even though multiple times David could have easily taken out Saul Saul's going to try and impale him with a spear. Saul is going to try and set it up to where the Philistines kill David. Saul is going to do everything in his power, either directly or indirectly, to take David out, even as far as pursuing him relentlessly through the wilderness. And David won't act

against Saul. It's very difficult to fight someone that you refuse to kill. Yeah, right. It's very difficult for david like david is it engaged in a is going to be engaged in a long conflict with someone he refuses to hurt yeah yeah i just i just i think that's uh instructive for us you know because it's not always like the the huge conflict that ends up being really the the struggle for us you know it's like the it's the thing we can't get away from right it's the it's the the salt It's that ongoing thing that is a burden for us. And it was that burden that inspired a lot of David's psalms. Thank God, because now we have those.

But I think it's an instructive insight into what still happens to people today. It's not always like the huge, big Goliath conflict, but it's this long, drawn-out thing with Saul that ends up bedeviling us and driving us over and over to mercy. because we can't get away from it, right? We can't get away from Saul. And so we're just crying out. It's kind of like Paul's thorn in the flesh, right?

Lord, remove this. And he's like, no, no, no, I got you. My grace, my mercy is going to be sufficient for you. Yeah, and I do wonder if David has some degree of empathy for Saul because it does seem that David, he's not only unwilling to engage in conflict with Saul in that way, but that he would like to see him come around and not suffer the way that Saul suffers. So as much as David is going to suffer as he's being pursued and all this sort of stuff,

I do think that you can see in the text and the way that David responds that he actually believes that Saul is greatly suffering as well. Yeah. Yeah, there is this kind of odd element to their relationship where I think David would have been happy to remain Saul's commander-in-chief. Let Saul be king. I'll be the commander-in-chief.

I'll go out and fight your battles. And when you die, I'll be king. Well, it is a bummer for Saul because David isn't going to kill. What Saul's suspicious of is that David's going to take him out and become king, which, of course, David is never going to do.

He goes out of his way to prove it, right? There's no intention of doing it. We could have a beautiful relationship here. I could be this great general and you can be king and you know after you die i don't know maybe like maybe then i do become king but i'm not going to speed that process out yeah yeah yeah that's it's i mean it is it's a tragedy in many ways on saul's part well partly for david too uh i mean i guess if nothing else it's an illustration of what kind of this almost irrational jealousy yeah can can do to to destroy a person

and i think that's probably what's going on even when david even when saul hears the girl singing you know he he's going to interpret everything negatively with regard to his relationship uh his relationship with david we'll see how that pans out next week because we got a we got a spear throwing spear throwing uh episode coming up in verse 10 and following we'll find out how david's reflexes are right all right guys well that's it uh we will be back next week uh for more of that make sure you go over and register for the regional event and the and the general of the national conference in October. You can do both those things over at the site.

Chad, I will see you next week. All right. See you then.