40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Samuel 24:1-22 (Episode 250)

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

David has a chance to kill Saul in a cave but cuts off the corner of his robe instead. David's conscience is struck and gives his longest recorded speech as he tries to make peace with the mad king. And Saul has a few moments of clarity. Chad and Daniel discuss these things in this episode. 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. And while you're over there, check out the events page. Next event coming up is in Bentonville, Arkansas. Beautiful Ozarks. Northwest Arkansas, April 16th and 17th.

You want to come and hang out with Chad and I and a whole bunch of other people. We're going to be there for two days. It's only $65 to come to this particular event. So a two-day event. It's going to be a good time of hanging out, teaching, music, fellowship. Andy Gullahorn is going to be performing an actual concert on Friday night. It's going to be a good time. if you don't know who that is and you've been missing out your whole life until right now when

you go check them out and you can make your 2021 better because as we know the calendar changed and everyone thought that 2020 was the worst year you could possibly ever have january said this is the same same thing served up differently so hopefully uh it's just january and we'll get back to you know i'm i'm choosing to believe that things got real crazy in march and maybe we just have to have like a whole a whole 12 months of crazy so that that's where the year actually starts so maybe it's just gonna last until march and then then i'm gonna hold you to that yeah i'm not a prophet uh or a son of a prophet there so i don't know but that's what i'm i choose to believe chad one thing i have decided to do uh is uh in honor of finding out that david had a beard

i'm just like growing my facial hair i don't know if you can tell like i'm just just letting it go that's impressive yeah it's not that impressive yet we'll see are you planning to act like a madman in the near future or or not i'm just gonna i'm planning on going and living in a cave okay all right well i hear that things can get pretty uh pretty crazy in caves yes maybe that's a that's a place to hang out yeah we're gonna be hanging out in some caves today yeah we this is a such a weird chapter we got uh we got david and his soldiers if you want to call them soldiers his uh his band of ruffians they're hanging out in the cave you got you got saul stopping by he's got the call of nature he has to answer you you've got uh david's longest recorded speech in

the bible occurs in this chapter he's chopping off part of saul's saul's robe saul's weeping by the end of the chapter i mean this is this is a crazy chapter there's a lot going on here let's get into it so yeah let's get into it so we left off with david barely being saved by uh the report that the philistines had attacked and so saul and his army they had to run in that direction and it's interesting when you read the read the story because there's like no mention whatsoever of what happened as a result of that it's like the narrator is not interested whatsoever in reporting what happened with the philistines all we're told is that saul received word the philistines had attacked

so saul had to leave off chasing david in order to go and attack the philistines and there's no report whatsoever about what happened yeah when did they lose or what yeah in fact i mean the first verse of chapter 24 references it but doesn't tell you exactly anything about what went down it just says when saul returned from following the philistines uh so that he i guess Maybe he just chased him out? Yeah, possibly so. It is just typical of this particular narrative that the sole concern, or we should say the primary concern,

is what happens with David. Everything is narrowed down to him, which, of course, is what we talked about at the beginning of 1 Samuel, that this is David's story. It's not really about Samuel. In fact, at the beginning of the next chapter, Samuel's going to die. So at the beginning of 1 Samuel 25, Samuel dies, and then he makes a brief appearance later on, but for the most part, he fades out of sight, and the rest of the book is

just about, the rest of the two books are about David. So 1 and 2 Samuel should have been entitled 1 and 2 David, but this is a case where the narrative is all about him, and at this point in David's life, all about him and Saul. So it came about, yes, when Saul got back from chasing the Philistines, that he found out once more that David, where David was. So he found that he was hiding in the wilderness of En Gedi, which is where we left him off at the end of chapter 23. So Saul does what Saul has done before.

He gathers a force and goes after David. In this case, he takes 3,000, not just 3,000 soldiers, but 3,000 chosen men from all the Israel. So he's going to take his best. And keep in mind that David, at this point, has 600 men. So he's outnumbered five to one. So you would think that Saul would have a pretty good chance of finding David, and if he does find him, of taking him out.

But that's not the way things are going to go. So he and his soldiers go to seek David and his men in front of the, well, it's either a place name, or it's either just a description of where they are. The New American Standard has rocks of the wild goats, and that's pretty close to what the ESV has as well. So maybe it was just a place name close to En Gedi. That's where they are. And there's some sheep nearby.

We have the sheep folds that are mentioned in verse 3. And there's a cave close to where these sheep folds are. One commentator suggested that perhaps the sheep folds are mentioned here because kind of an underlying theme of this chapter is who's going to be the shepherd of israel which i thought was pretty clever which i mean really is what it's all about is david or saul going to be the shepherd the leader of of israel now also i don't know if all 600 of his men are in this cave it says david and his men uh but if so this is a massive cave yeah yeah yeah they're probably spread out uh the uh the area around this is

evidently just full of caves. And many of these are honeycombed caves, just kind of openings all over the place. So I'm guessing, of course, I don't have any evidence of this, but I'm guessing they're kind of spread out. You have to find a pretty big cave to hide 600 men. So they're probably, you know, in this general area, but spread out here and there. So David and some of his men at least, are in this cave. And it just so happens that as Saul is passing by here that he needs to go in and answer the call of nature. Literally, he goes in to cover his feet because he is going to be squatting down and his robe is going to be covering his feet. Now, I can't help but think that this is actually a purposeful allusion back to the only other occurrence of

this particular idiom in the entirety of the scriptures. So if you were listening with us back in the book of Judges, you remember that one of the early stories was about a very obese king by the name of Eglon. And God raised up a left-handed guy named Ehud from the tribe of Benjamin. And Ehud fashioned for himself a short dagger. And he went to deliver the payment that the israelites owed to to eglon yeah while he was there the literal translation is i've got something for you yeah oh yeah i got something for you king i have a word from god i believe is what he said said to the king and uh eglon was yeah kind of curious really really so anyway they go into a room by themselves and of course ehud ends up uh stabbing eglon so deeply that

the whole hilt of his dagger disappears inside of Eglon's very large stomach. But what happens after that is that his servants think that he has, think the king, even though he's dead, the servants think the king has gone in to cover his feet. So they think that he's basically using the restroom. So if a purposeful allusion has been in 1 Samuel 24 back to Eglon, this is an insult to Saul because it's basically making a comparison between Eglon, a foreign king, and now Saul, the current king. And then it also puts David in kind of the place of Ehud. And the answer, the question is, is David going to pull out his own dagger and take out his enemy like Ehud did to Eglon or, or is he not? So that's the situation. So Saul is exposed in more ways, in more ways than

one. It says at the end of verse three, that David and his men were sitting in the inner recesses of the cave. So they're hiding in, they're hiding in the back, back of the cave. Now you're one of David's men and you're back there, you're in the dark, you see Saul come in And what are you going to say? What are you going to tell David? I'm going to tell David that I'm getting tired of living in caves. They got 3,000 guys out there. You could end this by just killing one guy.

And that would be better for everyone. Yeah. Be easy, right? I mean, take him out. No problem. He would never know what hit him. Yeah, because it's not like it's just David's life in jeopardy. I mean, these 600, we know how Saul has treated those who simply give aid to David.

You can imagine how he's going to treat those who have teamed up with him. Any of these guys get caught, it is fair to assume that they're dead. Yeah. I mean, it just kind of makes sense. It makes common sense to take advantage of the opportunity. Yeah. David, I think David's men are like, save yourself and all of us right now. I mean, we can all get out of this alive if you just do this one simple thing.

And not only that, but it seems like God has given him over to your hand. God has just made this so easy for you. Right. Yeah, I was going to say, they even come up with a theological rationale. They say to David, whispering no doubt, Look, hey, David, look, this is the day of which the Lord said to you, behold i am about to give your enemy into your hand and you shall do to him as it seems good to you now we have no evidence that god told david this i mean you do hear some of this reflected

in some of his psalms but i wonder if the men are just kind of making this stuff they're looking hey david god has just provided this opportunity for you and he's given his enemy into your hand so why don't you see why don't you do what seems right because you would be a fool to pass up this golden this golden opportunity this seems like they're saying you don't even need to inquire in the lord about this one i think that it's pretty obvious that god wants you to do whatever you want right now yeah i was reading the uh the translation and commentary by robert alter and he calls this theological presumption which i thought was a pretty good pretty good way of putting it yeah it is and he made the point that you know we all kind of have these situations where

uh we try and interpret events as if oh well this god had to have provided this opportunity for me because everything is just perfect for me to do well if it's i mean you can you i mean extend the david's men a little uh little grace i mean they are like what do you think this is a coincidence what kind of coincidence is this like i mean this is this is this would be a pretty a pretty radical coincidence that saul goes wandering into the cave that you happen to be in all by himself squats down and you're like that seems like god dude this is this is more than just good fortune there are supernatural things at work here yeah and to their credit also they were partially correct i mean they were yeah i mean they were they were right that this was god had arranged

this particular situation they were wrong in that well let me put it this way they didn't come right out and say hey david kill saul i mean they didn't they weren't quite as explicit as deeply implied right but it's very deeply implied they're like uh do what's good do what seems good to you wink wink so what does he do well i think the way the way that it's narrated is a bit out of temporal sequence uh so we kind of we'll have to read the next two or three verses to kind of get the whole of what happened because i'm thinking at this point david actually said something to them what's first reported is he did something but i think he probably said something to them but we'll just kind of read it the way it's narrated so after they give their little theological

speech, David arose and cut off the edge of Saul's robe secretly, which is pretty impressive. And it came about afterward that David's conscience bothered him. Well, that's the new American standard. I don't do this very often, but in my English Bible, when I come across translations that are just too weak, I will actually cross out the English word and replace so i i crossed out bothered and i wrote in its place uh smote because that's literal hebrew here that his conscience the the verb there is naka which is the verb used to like when god strikes someone down he not cause them yeah so it wasn't like his conscience kind of bothered him a little bit afterward no it's like god took his fist and hammered into david's conscience

that's what it felt like yeah the ESV translated translates it and afterward David's heart struck him that's good yeah yeah that's that's an accurate translation it wasn't just it bothered him yeah his conscience struck him because he had cut off the edge of Saul's robes David's a different kind of guy that's a different kind of conscience right there too man tell you what that's a very different kind of because I'm sure his men were like what a weirdo like that's like that's the thing you decided to do and they would think that you had just done the most gracious thing ever like there's no one no one is more gracious than david and david's like i was messed up i shouldn't have done that yeah yeah he does have it's it's fascinating to watch his his changes over the

years i mean when you when you think about okay this what seems to us a minor act really smote his conscience and then you see what happens you know later on with uh uriah and batsheba and some other things as well you don't you don't really see his conscience quite as tender at that point no it tells you it shows you how complicated people are right oh yeah this this immediately he feels bad about having uriah killed i mean this he doesn't feel bad about at all until like somebody has to come and explain to him why he should feel bad about it yeah that is one of the that's one of the the great things about the scriptures is it does reveal how complicated people are i mean we'll see in just a few verses how even how complicated saul is and we we've

seen this throughout throughout his story how he starts out and he's he's very kind of self-effacing he's very humble he's just like you know like who am i to be king you know i'm just a i'm just a guy he was a dude he was a dude hiding among the baggage and stuff yeah right he wasn't like definitely progressed wasn't stepping out saying yeah yeah kingship that fits me no it was quite the opposite and we've of course we've seen how he's changed over over the course of the years so anyway at this point yeah david david's conscience bothers him and he says to his men in verse uh verse six far be it from me because of the lord that i should do this thing to my to my lord the lord's anointed to stretch out my hand against him since he is the lord's anointed

and david persuaded his men with these words and did not allow them to rise up against saul and saul arose and left the cave and went on his way so i think this is what i was referring to earlier where things are a little bit out of temporal sequence. Probably what happened is the men give their little speech, take out your enemy. David then responds by saying, no, I can't do that because this is the Lord's anointed. How dare I stretch out my hand against the Lord's anointed? And we're going to see when we get to chapter 26 that something similar happens then. his men want to kill Saul David David says no

I mean is there anything about this that makes you think David obviously interprets their words the way that we interpreted them that they are heavily implying that you should go kill them or kill that you should go kill Saul and David says no I'm not doing that that's the Lord's anointed

the Lord's going to have to take him out I'm not doing that and then like the sort of I don't know if it's you know David still probably young-ish i mean he's a young man i think about me in my 20s uh if you're i can't i i can see it since you're like no i'm not doing that but watch this uh and and you know you're with all your boys and you're like you're going you're like sneaking over there and you're cutting i mean is it and

then he feels bad about it you know later uh like i shouldn't have done that like and you're really just i mean it almost seems like david's just like messing with him right like he's gonna later on figure out like he's gonna see this it's gonna be it's uh and he feels bad about it like it's it's like childish and uh and it's um you know and still something that he did to um oh insult the lord's anointed you know right right and i think another thing that's probably going on here too is the reason he feels bad about it is, I mean, there is something to the king's robe that's sort of emblematic of his office, you know,

where, because remember that we had the story back in, I can't remember what chapter that was, maybe 15. Anyway, it's when he starts, Saul starts to walk away from Samuel, or excuse me, when Samuel starts to walk away from Saul and Saul reaches out and grabs his garment and tears it. Yeah. And then the prophet says,

the lord will tear the kingdom away from you so i'm thinking probably just you know the symbolic act of of what we might say touching the king's crown i suppose would be something along the lines of of this and he feels he feels bad about bad about that and i mean if you go do this thing if you don't kill saul but you go cut off the corner of his robe you have kind of put everyone in danger i just i mean this is a risky thing to do yeah and not not as risky as what he's about to do i mean that in itself was was a terribly risky move but then he follows that up of course as we'll see in just a second by actually going out of the cave and confronting confronting saul with uh the edge of the robe that he that he just caught cut off by the way a little hebrew uh

Hebrew comment here. Verse 7 says that David persuaded his men with these words, and that's, I think, a pretty common English translation of that. It's actually an extremely forceful word. When we read back in books like Leviticus about the cloven hooves, so hooves that are split, that's the same root of this word here. So it's the idea of split or tearing in two. So we might, using idiomatic English, might say something like David tore into his men with these words. So he was going out of his way to try and persuade them against any kind of violent action against Saul. So let's pick it up with what happens next. So Saul leaves, puts his robe back on, leaves the cave, goes on his way.

verse 8 David steps out goes out of the cave and he calls after Saul and I'll just go ahead and read the read the speech it's about 6 or 7 verses long David says to Saul

my lord, the king and when Saul looked behind him David bowed with his face to the ground and prostrated himself and David said to Saul why do you listen to the words of men who say behold David seeks to harm you Look, this day your eyes have seen that the Lord had given you today into my hand in the cave.

And some said to kill you, but my eye had pity on you. And I said, I will not stretch out my hand against my Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed. Now, my father, see, look, see the edge of your robe in my hand. For in that I cut off the edge of your robe and did not kill you. Know and perceive that there is no evil or rebellion in my hands. and I have not sinned against you, though you are lying in wait for my life to take it. May the Lord judge between me and you, and may the Lord avenge me on you, but my hand shall not be against you.

As the proverb of the ancients says, Out of the wicked comes forth wickedness, but my hand shall not be against you. After whom has the king of Israel come out? Who are you pursuing? A dead dog? A single flea? therefore the lord therefore be judge and decide between you and me and may he see me and may he see and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand so as i mentioned earlier i think that is the longest recorded speech of david in the bible and it's really uh it's a great speech there's a whole lot of different approaches that david uses to try and persuade saul of of his innocence and

fact that he's not a threat whatsoever to Saul. It's interesting the way he starts out by calling him, my lord, the king, and then he bows down with his face to the ground and prostrates himself. So in that very action, David is saying, look, I wouldn't be bowing down before you if I didn't think that you were the legitimate God-anointed king. Yeah, this is a way of David saying uh i have not laid claim to the throne i'm not going around calling myself the true king of israel or anything yeah yeah the other the would-be king does not bow does not does not prostrate himself before the other king not if he doesn't think not if he thinks he uh needs to needs to leave office yeah he does like two things here right like he does the he calls him his his lord

and his king and then he will trance evil uh he will trance uh what word am i looking for here he will move to referring to him as father, which, of course, is true enough that he is his father-in-law, right? So, I mean, he's sort of pleading to him as a member of his family. It also seems to me that this speech was not David's plan when he initially cut off the corner of Saul's robe, that he went and did that and then felt real bad about it immediately, it seems. It seems that this is an immediate conscious striking that happened and then goes out and just God works all things together for good. He's like, well, I got this. I'm going to I'm going to use it now.

But that his plan was not the whole time. Like I'm like, because otherwise he would not. Why would he feel bad about this? Right. I mean, this is the plan. I think he cut it off, maybe even as an insult, as you were saying, and then felt bad and immediately went out and made this speech. Yeah. He's being very shrewd and he's quick.

too. I mean, of course, there's no way he could have known this was going to happen, so there's no way he sat down and thought through, okay, I'm going to give a speech to Saul, a very public speech, so what should I say? He's quick on his feet, he's shrewd, and he's taking advantage of, he's trying to make the most out of the opportunity that he has. And as you say, he calls him my lord, he calls him my king, and he calls him my father. So he's appealing to him both with regard to his authority as well. I mean, there's a lot of emotional appeal here, too. You know, he's calling him, listen, I'm your son or your son-in-law,

and you're my father-in-law, kind of my adopted father. And then he says, you know, why are you listening to these false accusations? Why are you listening to anybody that says that I seek to harm you? You know, here's evidence, more or less. he said the lord gave you today into my hand in the cave so acknowledges that this is this didn't just happen this was the lord's doing he brought you to this particular cave and some of them told me to kill you but uh i didn't because i wouldn't do that to to the lord's anointed then he holds up the evidence the the edge of his the edge of his robes then verse 13 is interesting he quotes

this proverb. He says, as the proverb of the ancients says, out of the wicked comes forth wickedness, which is just three words in Hebrew. It's very much like what Jesus says, right? You will know a tree by its fruits, but it's a pretty common biblical image of wickedness coming forth from the wicked or bad trees producing bad fruit, good trees producing good fruit. And what David is saying is, listen, if I were wicked, that is to say, if I were actually out to kill you, then would I not do that? Because out of the wicked comes forth wickedness. Yeah, I think that some people could maybe read this and initially think that David is saying, you do wicked things because you're wicked, which is not what he's saying. I mean, that's true, but

what he is saying is why don't you audit my actions and will you not find that I'm not wicked because I'm not out here doing wicked things against you? That's why he follows it up by saying, but my hand shall not be against you. Meaning

if I were truly full of wicked intentions to kill you, then my hand would be against you. You would be able to tell by the fruit I bear what kind of what kind of person I am. It's also interesting that, you know, when he talks about why you're listening to these people who say these things about me, and we haven't heard like a single person say any of this, the only thing that Saul, as far as we know, that the only voices Saul is

listening to are the voices in his own head. You know, I mean, people have learned probably not to push back against these accusations because that doesn't end well, but David is really appealing to him to stop listening to himself yes yeah yeah yeah he is yeah maybe maybe david is putting putting the best construction on this and thinking you know what somebody's somebody's got to be telling saul that i'm after him yeah because nothing else makes sense the only thing we've seen as far as people referring to this situation is them saying wait what you're out you uh you think david's out to get what are you talking about yeah and that's right it's not there's not been a single instance where anybody has said to Saul, you better watch David, man. He's out to

get you. In fact, from the very beginning, I think, I guess the first time that Saul experienced any kind of, you know, jealousy or possible fear of David is when the girls started singing their David is greater kind of songs. But, you know, I was, I was completely on Saul. It was always him just you know being his own worst enemy telling himself these these lies and then after a while believing fully believing the lies that he's been telling to himself and then david gets close to the end and he more or less says you know what what what am i or who am i that you're that you're coming after me listen you don't you have better things to do you see he uses a pretty common uh hebrew hebrew image of you know something that's kind of worthless and that's a dead dog verse 14

whom are you pursuing you know a dead dog and then to double down on that he's like you know what i'm not even a dead dog i'm like a single flea on a dead dog that's who i am i'm not worth pursuing he's going to use that same image by the way in chapter 26 where he compares himself to uh to a flee. And his point is, listen, you're king, you have Philistines to worry about, you've got a whole kingdom to take care of. Why in the world would you be spending so much time and energy and expenses out here running from place to place in the wilderness trying to track me down? I'm no threat to you whatsoever. No more a threat to you than a single flee would be a threat to you. And then there's a, you know, for all of his protestation of innocence against Saul,

At the same time, there is a, I don't know if we want to call it a threat, like a subtle threat, but there is certain a realism that David has here, where he basically says, listen, the one who ultimately decides this is not me or you, it's God. So he says, the Lord be judge and decide between you and me, and may he see and plead my cause and literally judge me from your hand. It's a sense of deliver me, deliver me from your hand. So when he gets to the end, he gets extremely theological and says, listen, you know, the ultimate judge is the one who's going to decide who's in the right and who's in the wrong here. And it's not going to be you and it's not going to be me. So it's a very, it's a great speech. It's really appeals from all different sides for Saul to listen and to change his mind. So what kind of impact does this make on Saul?

It's a pretty amazing impact. verse 16 wraps it up by saying, it came about when David had finished speaking these words to Saul that Saul says, is this your voice, my son David? Then Saul lifted up his voice and wept. That's a pretty moving scene there. I'm assuming that he can't tell that it's David because his eyes are so full of tears i could be wrong there but you know it's a reminder of uh the scene with uh jacob and esau and old isaac isaac you know is is this it was jacob speaking but he's like his whose voice is this yeah so saul is kind of in the place of a blind isaac here but i'm assuming yeah he's he's crying uh he's listening to the speech from david and the lord has actually

struck his own conscience the conscience of Saul so this is the this is the first recorded time that Saul weeps we've had a lot of weeping in the book of Samuel but none from Saul so at this point he does he he cries out he weeps and he refers to he finally calls him by name I just noticed that yeah yeah he's he's called him the son of Jesse uh pretty pretty regularly for a while yeah yeah he won't even say his name. And not only does he call him David, but he calls him my son. So he echoes what David said to him and calling him, calling him father. Then he goes on, verse 17, he says, you are more righteous than I am, for you have dealt well with me while I have dealt wickedly with you. And you have declared today that you have done good to me, that the Lord

deliver me into your hand and yet you did not kill me for if a man finds his enemy will he let him go away safely may the lord therefore reward you with good in return for what you have done to me today and then he goes on now look i know that you shall surely be king and that the kingdom of israel shall be established in your hand so now swear to me by the lord that you will not cut off my descendants after me, and that you will not destroy my name from my father's household. So David swore to Saul, and Saul went to his home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold. There's a hint there at the end of that closing verse that things are not quite what they should be yet, because there's still a parting of ways. Saul goes his way, David and his men stay where

they are. This is kind of similar, I suppose, to the conversation that Jonathan had with Saul a few chapters back, where Saul acknowledges that it would be wrong for him to do that, to take David's life, and he swears to his son that he won't do it. So he does have these moments of clarity, of, I guess we would say, spiritual clarity, as well as just kind of mental clarity, where he seems to actually speak like a human being should, someone who's in their right mind, someone who is actually not just in the right mind, but is penitent because of their actions.

It's short-lived, unfortunately, as we'll see in chapter 26. But at this point, he is at least openly acknowledging that David is in the right and he's in the wrong. Yeah, I think this tells you, too, since he is having a moment of clarity, he does sort of show you what one of his major concerns is which is that he believes that if he doesn't take david out that david will in fact be king and that he is concerned about his family right so he's concerned about his lineage and his his name his household and so this is at least

partially what's behind the motivation to eliminate david it isn't just that he thinks that he's going to get overthrown, which he does seem to have convinced himself that David is going to try to kill him and take the throne from him, but also what that means for the rest of his family. So he's sort of a Walter White approach, right? I'm only doing this for my family. Yeah, and he's not only doing this for his family, but it does seem that he is partially doing it for his family. Yeah, he is partially doing it for his family.

you know there's a we've heard the echo of of isaac there's also an echo here of what judah says to tamar in verse 17 so saul says to david you are more righteous than i and after tamar tricked judah into sleeping with her dressed up like a prostitute judah hired her and then judah finds out that his that his daughter-in-law is pregnant he assumes that she uh has committed adultery and so he's going to have her punished and when she reveals that he's actually the father of her of her children then he says to her you are more righteous than i so proven to be uh proven to be in the wrong and for the opponent to be in the right and yeah he knows uh verse 20 he he openly acknowledges that one of these days that david will in fact be king so accepting that he

He says, I only ask one thing, that you will not cut off my descendants after me. That is the fourth occurrence, by the way, of that verb karat, for cut, that we've seen. It's used twice in reference to David's cutting off the edge of Saul's robe in verse 4 and verse 5. Then David refers to it again in verse 11, and now verse 21, it's that same verb. So that's why I think this is also an emblematic act, which David is kind of suggesting by this action, even if unintended, that Saul will actually be cut off from his throne. This is an easy oath for David to make, considering that he's already made this oath to Jonathan as well. Yeah, that's true. I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah, he's already told Jonathan that everything will be good. If Saul would have had a short conversation with Jonathan that he actually would have been willing to listen to, he could have already known that David was not going to just exterminate the house of Saul altogether.

Of course, not to spoil it, but Jonathan doesn't live to be at David's side. But you have to assume, I mean, I assume that if he had, that that's exactly what would have happened. Yeah, I assumed that it would. I mean, David and Jonathan had been so close, had loved one another as deeply as two close friends can. So chances are, if Jonathan had survived that battle, that final battle, that eventually he would have been David's second. He would have been his right-hand man, and there would have been a—it probably would have been good for the kingdom, because you would have had the Saul side connected with the David side, and you wouldn't have had this long period, this several period of division within Israel after the death of Saul. Because, to kind of skip ahead, after the death of Saul and Jonathan, David is proclaimed king by part of Israel, but he's not accepted by all of Israel. so there's a several there's a there's a gap of several years where david has to begin to kind of unify unify the kingdom so even after the death of saul you don't we don't have that unity yet but we probably would have of course we're just kind of guessing had uh had jonathan survived and

been david's david's right-hand man yeah yeah it's weird yeah i mean people don't you don't think about jonathan a lot jonathan uh dying is seems like it's a pretty big that's a pretty big bummer uh for the for the history of israel it does seem like there's a lot of conflict and turmoil that is that could be fixed uh if this were not the case and this is one of those things where you kind of trust that god knows what he's doing because you're like wouldn't have it been better god right like it seems like david could really use someone like jonathan because jonathan as as good as david i mean saul says you're more righteous than i am i'm like i don't know jonathan seems more righteous than david so uh yeah i mean it just seems like a good guy to have around for

david uh would have kind of unified you know uh the people uh seems like somebody somebody i mean you can almost not think of any minuses or negatives to jonathan being around no no you can't now i mean he he lives up to the meaning of his name uh yahoo natan which means the lord has given so he really was he was a he was a gift to his family was a gift to israel he was certainly a gift to David. He's a pivotal player in 1 Samuel, much more so than we sometimes realized, as an encouragement to David, a protector of David, someone who probably kind of helped David keep going, because he was such an encouragement to him. So his loss, his early death was a blow to David, for sure, but also a great loss for Israel.

Yeah. Well, that's it, man. That is chapter 24. Next week, we'll get into 25. We're going to have a little short thing about Samuel, real short. You think it's weird that 1 Samuel is named 1 Samuel. 2 Samuel is really weird named. Yeah, this is true. Yeah, next chapter is quite a story. Abigail and her foolish husband. I mean, his name actually means fool. It's a crazy story coming up yeah all right well i'll see you then all right see you then