40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 1 Samuel 27:8-28:19 (Episode 254)

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

David leads violent raids from his new home with the Philistines. The king informs David that he must go with them to fight Israel. Saul is desperate and finds a Medium to raise Samuel from the dead. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network HWSS Northwest Arkansas 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 to check out all the other podcasts over there. while you're over there make sure you register for the here we still stand regional event in Bentonville Arkansas people are signing up people are coming out so you should be one of them Chad will be there I'll be there along with a whole bunch of other people two days April 16th and 17th it's just $65 for a two-day event so I mean you got to do it if you're at all able so there's a link in the show notes you can click that go see the lineup see the schedule and register for

that. Chad, we left David in an interesting spot. He decided that he's going to go leave his country and go live with the enemy. So he has set up camp with the Philistines, somehow talked the king of the Philistines into giving him a little town for him and all his warriors to occupy. Yeah. And he's there for quite a while. We learned from 1 Samuel 27, 7, that he's there for a total of 16 months. and he ends up doing quite a bit during those 16 months so we're going to find out what that is we also have in the next chapter

one of the strangest one of the most just oddball stories in the whole bible that involves a necromancy and a king disguising himself and a dead guy coming back to deliver a

a stinging rebuke so we got some We have some pretty fascinating material to get to. So first of all, David. Yeah, so as you know, if you've been listening to these last few podcasts, that David has been on the run from Saul. And they had some pretty close encounters. And David just finally decided, you know what?

I'm tired of this. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to go live with the Philistines. I'm going to just find out if I can hang out with them for a while. And that way I can get away from Saul and be safe. And it worked. He goes down to Achish, the Philistine king, and he's more than happy. He's like, yeah, man, if you want to come hang out with us, that's fine. We'd rather you be living with us than attacking us.

So they make a sort of a pact, a treaty. He gives David this town called Ziklag. And so David and his followers and their wives and children, the whole families, everybody just kind of moves into this community called Ziklag. And they're there for 16 months. Well, of course, David is not just kind of sitting around. He's not just taking it easy during the 16 months. He, in fact, is enriching himself as well as kind of building a foundation that he will use later once he is actually publicly proclaimed to be the king. So we learned from verse 8 and following, this is what David and his men were doing.

They'd go up and they would conduct these raids, more or less. they go up and they raided the uh we have a list of names here the the gesherites and the gearsites and the amalekites now we've met the amalekites before remember that's what got saul in trouble when samuel told him hey go wipe out every single one of the amalekites which saul almost did he didn't kill the king and he kept the the choices of the livestock so david is going up against them. He says, he says they were, it says they were inhabitants of the land from ancient times. And then verse nine tells us exactly what, what David did as kind of his overall plan. So he would attack these places, but what if somebody got away? I mean, what if

there was a survivor who went back to the king of the Philistines and told this king what David was doing. So he made sure not only that he would attack these places, but he would not leave anybody alive. He'd wipe out all the inhabitants. He would attack the land. This is verse nine. And he wouldn't leave a man or a woman alive, but he would take the sheep, the cattle, the donkeys, the camels, and the clothing. And then you go back to the king. And this is, so you go to the king and they had this little, you know, military report. The king would say to him, where have you made a raid today, David?

And here's David's response, verse 10. I went on a raid against the Negev. That's like the wilderness or the desert area of Judah. And against the Negev of the Jeromelites and against the Negev of the Kenites. But verse 11 says, David wouldn't leave a man or woman alive so they wouldn't go back to Gath and report what David had been doing the whole time that he had

been in the country of the Philistines. And the last verse, just to kind of wrap up the section, says that Akish believed David, saying, he has surely made himself odious among his people Israel, therefore he will become my servant forever. Yeah, so this is quite the thing that's going on here so david he's got his little his little army and he's going and raiding all these places so he's apparently getting rich i mean he's taking all the livestock and he's taking all the garments and so he's coming back with all this plunder yeah he's raiding and pillaging basically yeah uh now the the bummer is that he has to kill everyone in the places that he goes and raids and the the king is like this is great because what's happening here is david will never

be able to go back like he's going he's going to be in my service forever i mean like he wasn't lying when he said that he was ready to defect he's obviously very upset with saul he's trying to make him pay and so there's there's no way now that even after saul's gone that the people are going to take him back if he's out there raiding villages and killing people and taking all their stuff so i got myself a general for the rest of his life he can never go back yeah we were talking about this before we started the podcast you know i like david i really like david but you know after a while it's like god does this guy like ever not get his way it's like does anybody ever actually not believe David? Is there anything that David sets out to accomplish that he doesn't actually

end up accomplishing? I mean, it's almost like he's too smooth. He's too believable. I mean, this guy evidently harbors a little bit of a suspicion. We'll see that at the beginning of chapter 28. But more or less, he thinks, yeah, well, I guess David says he's going, he raids against his people in the land of judah so he must be must be telling the truth so i mean we will see eventually of course that uh there does come a point in david's life when he doesn't win when he doesn't he doesn't get his way but at least so far in the story it's like no matter what he does whether he gets he gets caught by the enemy or he's trapped in a cave or whatever the situation might be that david somehow manages to to get away to talk his way out of it to get people to

to believe him it does seem like this is something david has david has to know that there's an expiration date on this activity i mean how long can you possibly keep this up at some point that this is you're gonna get found out you know it's kind of like uh now when i was growing up i'm dating myself here but uh saturday mornings i pour myself a bowl of cereal sit in front of the tv for hours watching cartoons uh-huh and one of the cartoons was of course the roadrunner right was that just the cut was that the name of just the roadrunner the roadrunner the coyote yeah i don't know it's a looney tunes cartoon yeah it's a looney tunes basically and so you know for those of you who uh are old enough to remember this cartoon basically the coyote is always after the

roadrunner and no matter what the coyote does i mean he sets traps he puts bombs he does all this all this stuff goes to great lengths to catch the roadrunner and he never catches the roadrunner the roadrunner always gets away and david's kind of like that roadrunner and i remember i remember watching it as a kid like kind of wishing at times that the coyote would catch the roadrunner yeah yeah like he got away too often it was too easy for him and uh i mean it's kind of like that with david it's like eventually this guy's gonna get caught it's it's gonna catch up with him anyway that's what's that's what's going on with david right now at the and that that's a pretty short chapter, that's the end of chapter 27. And David has to assume that at some point these Philistines

are going to go out, as they always do, against Israel, and that he's going to be asked to join, right? This is what I mean by, he can't think that this is some kind of long, long, long-term arrangement. Right, and actually that's what we see here at the beginning of chapter 28, first couple of verses, we're introduced to that situation that's looming on the horizon. And then we'll have this most of a chapter kind of break where we go back to Saul and describe this strange situation with him. But then we're going to come back to that in chapter 29. So yeah, he's there for 16 months, and presumably during the 16 months, not much happens between the Israelites and the Philistines, but that is about to come to a conclusion, which is how chapter 28

starts. It says in those days that the Philistines gathered their armed camps for war to fight against Israel. And Akish said to David, know assuredly, this is one of these, I've talked about it before, it's a Hebrew grammatical structure where they repeat the verb twice. So knowingly know or know for sure that you will go out with me in the camp, you and your men. In other words, don't think that just because these are your people or were your people that I'm somehow going to spare you and let you stay in Ziklag or conduct raids somewhere else. No, you're coming with me. It's almost as if he, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, he harbors a little bit still of a doubt. like he wants to make sure and keep david pretty close to him in this battle so he wants him on his

side in his sight so he can make sure that he's fighting with him and david responds in a uh a little bit of a vague a little bit of vague way notice he doesn't say he doesn't say oh yeah i mean i'm ready to kill me some israelites all he says is this this is like yes or very well you shall know what your servant can do i mean you can't get much more vague than that yeah Yeah, the way the ESV translates this is that the king comes to David and says, understand this. Right. You and your men are to go out with me and the army.

Lest you get some other idea. This is what's going to happen. I just need to make sure that you understand one thing, and that's that you will be coming out with us to fight Israel. Yeah, and David's response is, he says, very well you shall know what your servant can do yeah and this is a little bit odious honestly like oh yeah that's very vague yeah you're gonna find out exactly what i'm capable of okay uh yeah so what do you say what do you apply well then then uh the whatever the philistine king

thought akish replies to him he says uh very well i'll tell you what i'll make you my bodyguard for life. So he wants to keep him close. His head guard in the Hebrew, which actually is a pretty cool way. I like head guard better than body guard. Make sure that nobody hurts you where it's really going to be fatal to you. I'm going to watch over you. So that's what David is at least theoretically going to be. He's going to be the body guard of the king of the Philistines. We'll find out in chapter 29 how well that goes but we have a uh we have an episode we have to get to before we jump back into david's uh david's relationship with the philistines and this is it is kind of interesting that the the writer decides to do this where there's some tension

in that language where you're like what's happening here like david's like oh you're gonna find out what i can do he's like cool i'll make you my bodyguard great you will find out exactly what i can do and then let's have a break and talk yeah i was gonna say then we're gonna go to commercial break yeah and then we're gonna come back and it's gonna be like in your drama series it's gonna be a whole different part of the story it's a whole different scene so we'll uh i mean that is a literary characteristic that you can definitely see in in first and second samuel where they'll they'll jump from scene to scene person to person situation the situation to to keep you in suspense as to exactly what's gonna i mean if you're watching you know some

kind of epic tv show yeah you might have an episode end with this sort of thing where you're like oh my gosh like he's gonna have to go out and fight his own people and he's not gonna want to do that what's gonna happen and then next week you tune in and it's an episode about saul and you're like what's going on hey i waited all week to find out what was going to go on and now you're switching the story on me but i mean what they've switched to is uh it's certainly going to be a fascinating, fascinating account. So it begins, this is chapter 28, verse 3, and this is going to take us through the end of the chapter. It sets us up, first of all, with verses 3 through 6, with a description of the predicament that Saul finds himself in. So we, first of all, hear what

we already heard before, just a repetition of this, that Samuel had died. We knew that from a couple chapters back. Samuel was dead, and all Israel had lamented him and buried him in Ramah, which was his hometown. And then we have introduced something just seemingly out of the blue. Of course, we're going to find out why it was introduced, but it's kind of a jarring introduction. The second half of verse 3 says, Now Saul had removed from the land those who were mediums and spiritists or those who were mediums and necromancers he'd gotten rid of all those you might be if you're just like if this is new to you you don't know the story and you're reading along you'll be like okay well that's random but what in the world does that have to do with

anything well of course this is a foreshadowing of what is about to what is about to happen then verse four it says the philistines gathered together and came and camped at Shunem, and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they camped in Gilboa. So this is what the king Achish was talking about earlier. They're getting ready for this major offensive against the Israelites, and so they camp there by the valley of Jezreel, which is a kind of a strategic place in the northern part of Israel. The valley of Jezreel runs east to west, kind of splits the north from the south. So that's where they're camped. They're getting ready for a major offensive. Verse 5, Saul saw the camp of the Philistines, and he was afraid, and his heart trembled greatly.

We're going to see that fear is a pretty big part of the theme of this chapter. Got a lot of fear going on. Saul's afraid. He's greatly afraid. He's terrified. He's trembling because he knows that this probably means the end for him. He's not certain, of course. He wants to find out.

He's wanting to find out what he should do. And so, verse 6 says that he asked of the Lord, or he inquired of the Lord, which is the same kind of play on words that we have seen several times, where the name Saul, Sha'ul, comes from the verb for ask, sha'al. so to sha'al is to ask sha'ul is asked so sha'ul sha'al's saul ask of the lord which is translated here as he inquired of the lord but the lord did not answer him he didn't answer him by all of the typical ways that god might answer someone but and the list is dreams or by urim or by the prophets Of course, we have multiple times when God communicates, not especially, but sometimes to leaders like Nebuchadnezzar or to Pharaoh or to others. He speaks by dreams. He reveals by dreams. So God didn't answer him with a dream, nor did he answer him by the priestly method, that is the sacred lots that they would cast, the Urim and the Thummim.

no surprise there since Saul had actually actively gone against the priesthood right he had wiped out all the priestly families there in the city of Nod nor did he answer him by the prophets well of course he's not gonna answer by the prophets because Samuel was opposed to him and presumably all those who were allied with Samuel were opposed to him as well so here's the predicament that Saul finds himself in he's at the worst point in his life and he has absolutely nobody to turn to he wants to know what god wants wants him to do or what's gonna what's gonna happen and all he hears is this great roar of silence that's it yeah his and his best philistine killer is uh on the other side presumably he knows this i mean yeah about that point he's he's got to

be aware of what what's going on with david yeah so i mean you would you would think that he's like man, you know who would be nice to have right now? The guy that has a reputation of winning a lot of battles against the Philistines. And there is at least a chance, I'm sure. I don't know if he knows anything, but there's at least a chance that he's actually lined up on the other side. Well, knowing Saul as we do, he probably thinks that David is. He probably thinks that David is.

Since he's gone, I mean, it just kind of stands to reason. why else would a guy go over to the enemy unless he's going to stand with the enemy in the field against you so everything and and that's no exaggeration everything is against saul there's like nothing on his side nobody is on his side it's got saul against the world more or less and right at this moment when it doesn't seem as if anything could get any worse well it will he makes he makes it worse himself yeah of course we are our worst enemies and saul is certainly his his worst enemy so let's pick up with the story this is this is chapter verse 7 through the very end so 7 to 25 so here's how we start out saul says to his servants

seek for me a woman who is a medium that i may go to her and inquire of her and his you you got to wonder what his servants are thinking of of saul but they respond they they say well you know what we we do know that there's a woman who's a medium in an indoor so even though saul had driven out removed all those who were mediums and necromancers from the land there is at least one left or at least there's one that the servants of saul happen to know about and i'm wondering to myself how do they know that have they like visited her or just worried to get around or how do the servants of saul who presumably are charged with carrying out his will know that even though all these all these mediums and necromancers have been removed that

there is actually one woman who's still practicing her trade anyway what we don't want to know the answer to that. But here's what Saul does. Saul disguises himself. He puts on other clothes and he takes a couple of guys along with him and they go to the woman by night. Well, this whole scene is just pretty seedy. I mean, we've seen several times how clothing is connected with the life of Saul, right? At one point, he's kind of gone into this static trance and he's lying on the ground with his clothes taken off. So there he's naked. At one point, he grabs Samuel's cloak and tears it as a symbol that the kingdom will be torn from him. And then, of course, there's a whole scene in the cave when he's relieving himself and David cuts off the edge of his cloak.

So clothing is connected with the narrative of Saul quite a few times. And probably, this of course is somewhat reading between the lines but probably one of the symbolic impacts of this is that Saul is putting on other clothes because to tell you the truth he's really not worthy to wear the regal robes anymore anyway he's basically he's a king in name only and so he disguises himself as just a regular person and not only that but they go by night so they go under the cover of darkness to the home of a necromancer and i assume he's having to disguise himself too because i mean he is a guy that had all the mediums and necromancers removing the land and if you just walk in there looking like yourself i mean we're going to see that she's a little skeptical anyway

uh yeah this might be a trap i suppose if you went in there just look at you know as the king like i'm fairly certain this is a trap and you know he's gonna say i need for you to you know conjure up some uh some dead people for me she's gonna be like uh what are you talking about i don't do that yeah wrong house buddy so so don't go wear your your robe and your crown when you when you go visit this woman so he they show up at this woman's house at night and he says conjure up for me i please and bring up for me whom i shall name to you and the woman yeah this is what you're alluding to she's she's not so sure about this she says look uh you know what what saul did right how he he cut off he didn't just remove so earlier we had a different hebrew verb

he removed but she she uses a a much more kind of violent verb how he cut off those who are mediums and necromancers from from the land so are you trying to trap me why then are you laying a snare for my life to bring about my death so the woman is is a little bit hesitant about this she I'm assuming she doesn't really know these people, and they just show up out of the blue as customers wanting her to conduct this, and so she's being overly, overly cautious. Now, listen to what Saul says. This is just, this is incredible. Verse 10. This is Saul's way of reassuring her. Saul vowed to her by Yahweh, by the Lord, and here's what he said. as the lord lives as yahweh lives there shall no punishment come upon you for this thing

now if you're if you ever if you ever maybe talking about the commandments and uh you're wanting to maybe come up with a biblical example of what it means to take the lord's name in vain yeah this is right here yeah you're thinking through the scriptures well it'd be a good example of taking the lord's name in vain well look no further just turn to first samuel 28 verse 10 and there you go this is uh this is just about as contradictory a scene as i can possibly imagine so you're going to you're going to a woman uh who according to the law of god should actually be be put to death that was the penalty back in the in the torah for people who practice this trade so you're going to her and now you're reassuring her in the very name

of the god who said that she should be put to death that everything's going to be okay so anyway obviously putting taking the lord's taking the lord's name in vain this is a weird this is a weird way to reassure her too i mean i'm assuming that this name probably doesn't mean a whole lot to her it must not i mean yeah that's a good point which i hadn't thought of before but yeah i mean of all the names to use why would you use something which if she does know much about the name of yahweh knows that it's associated with anti-necromancy yeah so whatever the reason and you know it's kind of strange too saul is so weird in many ways because he obviously knows what he's doing is wrong i mean he had the he had him theoretically removed from the land to begin with

and yet he it's almost like he can't bring himself to use any other god's name to make a vow i mean he could have said i vow to you by the name of bale or ashra or l or you know whatever but he can't bring himself to use any other god's name so he ends up using his god's name for a uh a wicked and just kind of demonic sort of sort of oath yeah this this shows you to just the the absolute desperation of saul at this point i mean he is he is desperate this is not this this doesn't read to me like something that saul wants to do but it reads as a guy that feels like he has has no other options yeah one of the commentators i was reading reading on this walter bergman compared it to a person who and we've all known people who have kind of been in

the situation they have a terminal illness and they've tried everything i mean they have tried everything and so they they end up because they're so desperate end up turning to to charlatans you know the things that are obviously just not even questionable uh science but just junk science uh junk medical procedures but they are in such a they're in such anxiety and desperation that they'll try anything, even if it is just as irrational as you can imagine. That's kind of the situation that Saul finds himself in. He's as desperate as desperate can be. So the woman says, whom shall I bring up for you? And he says, bring up Samuel for me. Now, we don't know a whole lot about how necromancy worked in Israel or close to Israel. I mean,

there's a there's a i was reading some articles this morning about uh the practice of magic and necromancy in the ancient world and we do know from some other cultures exactly how this works some of the rituals that were that were used with it one is that uh there'd be a pit dug kind of like a sort of a portal to the underworld idea a pit would be dug and offerings would be placed in the pit perhaps a sacrifice would be made and some incantations uttered and then the result would be at least this is the way the the rituals were described that when all this happened that the necromancer would call up the one from the dead and they would as it were appear or speak from this portal between the top of the earth and the bottom of this this pit that has been dug

now maybe something like this was going on here we have no idea because it's not told it's not told to us in the way that the narrative unfolds so maybe the woman i'm sure she did have some kind of spells or some kind of rituals that she went through that's the way these people worked but we're not told what those were but saul tells her who he wants her to bring up and so she does but we're not told how because we skipped from him saying bring up samuel for me to verse 12 when the woman saw samuel she cried out with a loud voice and said to saul why have you deceived me for you are saul there's a little bit of a question mark here as to in my mind anyway as to how she put two and two together she sees samuel but it's not so much the appearance of samuel that

frightens her as it is the realization that the one who's come to her is the very king who was supposed to be getting rid of all the people like her so however she puts two and two together her fright is not based upon i mean she's a necromancer so the the side of a dead person should not be frightening to her what frightens her is the customer who is in her house yeah it's it's it's weird i don't know if it's that once he says samuel she then realizes that it would be this is a giveaway to her that like okay this is that why why would someone be bringing this guy there's only one person that would bring this guy back right yeah maybe that's maybe that's why she is able to put two and two together so why have you to see me for your soul

and he reassures her he's like listen don't be afraid uh nothing's going to come to you just tell me what you see. And so here's what the woman says. She says, I see a, my translation to American Standard has a divine being. It's God in the Hebrew. It's Elohim. I see a God coming up out of the earth. Now, exactly what she meant by that is difficult to say. Maybe we could translate I see spirits or I see divine beings or who knows. She's just, I wouldn't read too much theology into this. This is just a, this is a pagan necromancer who's describing what she sees. So don't read, don't read too much of a theology out of this.

She's just trying to put into words exactly what is appearing to her. So she sees this God-like being, we might say, coming out of the earth. And he says, okay, well, you know, what does he look like besides that? And she says, well, he's an old man. and he's wrapped in a robe. And as soon as she says that, Saul knew that it was Samuel. The reason he knows it's Samuel is because Samuel, from the time he's been like three years old, is associated with this robe. Remember, his mother would come every year, she'd bring him a new robe. Well, this robe evidently was kind of the uniform that Samuel wore. And so as soon as she

says he's an old man and he's wrapped in a robe, then Saul's like, oh yeah, okay, that's got to be him. And so he responds, Saul responds by bowing down to the ground and paying homage to him. You can kind of see how desperate he is at this point. Now, verse 15, Samuel, as we've kind of picked up from the last few episodes before he died, had, I mean, anytime that he spoke to Saul, he was upset. A little cantankerous, right? Their relationship had definitely devolved. So right away, you can kind of understand that nothing has changed with regard to Samuel. He says, why have you disturbed me by bringing me

up? Why are you messing with me? I was perfectly fine before you disturbed me, or however you want to translate that verb. He's sitting there waiting for the resurrection. and uh this is not right this is not this is not like the interruption you want no it's definitely not definitely definitely not from saul he's the last person you want to see and saul just kind of sputters out this long run-on sentence he says well i was i was greatly distressed because you know the philistines they're waging war against me and and god has departed from me he doesn't give me the answer anymore he doesn't speak to me through prophets or through dreams and so i

called you so that you can basically tell me what I should do. And that's kind of the way that the Hebrew reads too. It's just kind of this one long run on sentence where just Samuel, I mean, Saul just kind of blurts out his situation. Now, Samuel is not fazed by any of this whatsoever. He says, well, then why'd you ask me? Because the Lord has departed from you and has become your adversary. In other words, it's not as if you're going to get something from me, you can't get from God because I am his prophet. Then he goes on, the Lord has done accordingly as he spoke through me

because the Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hand and given it to your neighbor. And then he gets very specific. He has told Saul this before. He said, God is going to take the kingdom away from you and give it to your neighbor. But at that point, this is chapter 15, at that point, he didn't specify who.

Now he names a name. He says, he's given it to your neighbor. that is to david as you and then he brings up uh the old crime he says you did not obey the lord and did not execute his fierce wrath on amalek so the lord has done this thing to you this day and then he wraps up everything with basically this this is the judge putting the gavel down and pronouncing the sentence and the sentence is going to be death moreover the lord will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines. Therefore, tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. Indeed, the Lord will give over the army of Israel into the hand of

the Philistines. I'm sure this is not the sort of news that Saul wants. I'm sure he is looking for some reassurance, like, no, the Lord is going to go out and give, you know, deliver the Philistines into your hand. He doesn't say that. Instead, he says, you and your sons are going to die. It is interesting, and I don't know how much you can read into it. Obviously, when Samuel says, you and your sons will be with me, at the very least, he means they're going to be dead. Right, at the very least, yes, yes. However, where is Samuel? If there is anything in the scriptures that make you think that God even has grace and mercy towards saul it's this statement by samuel so he brings up his

transgressions he's like no you're not going to be delivered from this this is not going to go well for you then he does say you and your sons are going to be with me which if the prophet tells you that you and your sons are going to be with me this can be taken as a as a comfort too you have to assume samuel is in what they would think was like abraham's bosom right right yeah it's a i've kind of gone back and forth on uh on this just because you know there's a there are multiple ways in which the old testament describes where the dead are i mean there is i mean we would all love it if the old testament just kind of spelled everything out in great clarity for us it doesn't really but it doesn't it doesn't really do this heaven and hell thing no it doesn't i mean most

of the time when people die they're said to be maybe in in shoal which isn't hell i mean shoal is just kind of a basically a a word that means a place for the dead and sometimes they're described to be with their fathers that is to say with the people who have preceded them not just their father but grandfather great-grandfather so with their their family who's already passed from this world so there's a lot of uh ambiguity we might say with regard to exactly where they are and here it seems as if when samuel says you've you know why have you disturbed me that could also be translated why have you woken me up so he's he's asleep which would you know fit with of course even the new testament description of people who are they're dead they're sometimes called

called sleeping this is jesus primary way of speaking about death yeah yeah it's it's pretty common old and old and new testament so when he says you will be with me yeah a very very minimum we can say that means yeah tomorrow you're going to die you're going to be dead with me but also i don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that samuel is also giving him as it were kind of an unexpected promise that where i am there you will also be and i think one of the reasons i think that is because he doesn't say that you will be but he includes his sons and we all know that jonathan was just about as you know as faithful and israelite as you can imagine right so this is not only you but also your sons will be with with me now i wouldn't i wouldn't bet the farm

on this particular interpretation but i do think it's pretty it is pretty suggestive especially when, of course, we haven't got there yet, but if you jump ahead and you look at what David says in his lament over the death of Saul and Jonathan, David has nothing but kind of a praise for both of them. He doesn't take advantage of the death of Saul to run him down and say, yeah, what a terrible person he was. Instead, he gives a true lament over one who was part of the family of God. So I think those two things joined together would suggest that what even dead Samuel is giving this promise of hope to Saul. Yeah, because it's easy enough to say, you will be in Sheol. That would be less comforting.

I kind of think that if he had brought some evil person back from the dead, and the response was, you and your sons will be with me, I feel like theologians would be like what he's saying is that by this time tomorrow you and your whole family is going to be in hell right this is what they would draw from it but if Samuel says it I just try to think of it's not as though like Saul's

extremely complicated figure but I don't know that you could say that he is someone who doesn't believe as we said he only knows one name to make a promise by and even though he's taking the name of the Lord in vain it's still the only name he knows it's still the highest thing he knows to swear by he's still when he wants advice and counsel is the only reason he's at a necromancer

is because god's not talking to him through he's exhausted all he's trying to speak to god for those who would speak with certainty that yeah saul didn't make the cut i'm not i'm not sure you can go there no no i listen saul like so many other people in fact i guess you could say all of us. He's a very complicated sinner, just like every single one of us. We just happen to know a whole lot about his story, about his initial rise and then his fall and just kind of how his whole life is crumbling around him. But that does not mean that he is somehow an unbeliever who's destined for eternal punishment. He's just a guy who makes a whole lot of really stupid mistakes and ends up dying on the battlefield

fighting the Lord's battles. Yeah. So, yeah, he's complicated, and this is a complicated story, but I think that's the direction that I would go as well. And we didn't finish the whole story, but that's basically the end of that particular part of the story. We'll pick up next week with what happens in the aftermath

when he's trying to recover from what he's just been told, and then we'll also pick up the battle in which David is going to go out or maybe not go out with the Philistines. Yeah, yeah. So you actually do get that pause, and you're going to have to wait until next week to find out what is going on with that pregnant statement that David is going to have to go out and David says, oh, you'll see what I can do.

What is actually going to happen there? We will check that out next week. I'll see you then, Chad. See you then. We'll see you next time.