We return today to the story of Saul and David. If you remember, Saul was anointed King of Israel by popular acclaim, though at God’s direction. He was a man of stature, taller than all his peers, an apt warrior king. Just the sort of man Israel needed to oppose the Philistines. Except that he was also a flawed king. He forgot where his power as King came from and so made one too many mistakes as far as obeying God was concerned. As a result God decided to turn the kingship over to another, to David, a man after God’s own heart.
Well, as we’ll see as we go through 2 Samuel, David himself wasn’t without his failings. He was a human being with all the greatness yet all the failings of the human condition. But of all the kings of Israel, David stands out as the one King who throughout his life remained steadfast in his faith in the God of Israel. David is the model King, the one all others will be compared to, the one after whom Jesus Christ himself will be named, as the Son of David.
So what is it that’s so remarkable about David? Well let me suggest it’s that he maintains his faith in God throughout a life that encompasses all that the human condition deals out. As you read through the life of David it’d be easy enough to see it simply as a classic human drama, with all the elements of a Shakespearean play: tragedy, romance, family conflict, madness, hate, betrayal, etc. But it’s far more than that. Here is the story of a man chosen by God to bring his people to security and prosperity in the land God had promised to Abraham all those years before. Here is the beginning of a dynasty that will start well, then fade away to nothing, until at last God sends his own Son to bring his promises to completion.
Of course here in 2 Sam 1 we’re in the middle of the narrative of David. David has been anointed some time before, but has had to wait 15 or 20 years for Saul to die before receiving the promised kingdom. And as 1 Samuel finishes, as Saul is defeated by the Philistines and dies on his own sword, we’re tempted to sigh a sigh of relief, perhaps even to cheer that at last the hero is free to take up the promise of the kingship.
But there’s no sense of triumphalism as the story unfolds, is there? This is no fairy tale where the wicked king dies and the prince who was banished from the kingdom returns to claim his inheritance. No, this is a sad day in the history of Israel. Her first king is dead. The grand experiment is a dud. Not quite a failure but there’s much more to be done if it’s to succeed.
So let’s look at the narrative for ourselves. If you remember, David and his men were sent back by the Philistines from the battle with Saul and ended up in a battle of their own, attacking an Amalekite raiding party who had kidnapped their wives and children. Now they’ve returned, unaware of the outcome of the battle to the north. But then a man comes into their camp with news of the battle. He comes to tell David of Saul’s death. Now notice what’s happening here. We, the readers, know what’s happened, but David doesn’t. We know that this man is an out and out liar, an opportunistic con man. He’s torn his clothes and covered himself with dust to make his appearance seem authentic. He elaborates his story with all sort of details: where they were; the chariots and riders bearing down on them; Saul leaning on his spear on his last legs; his heroic action in dealing Saul the death blow and then taking the crown and arm band to bring to David. And it’s all made up! But he knows that the best liars are the ones who can fabricate a believable story with lots of detail. Clearly this Amalekite expects to receive a substantial reward from David. After all he’s done him a great favour, hasn’t he?
Or has he? No sooner has he told his story than he realises his mistake. David doesn’t respond with the joy he expects. Instead he responds with grief. He takes his clothes and tears them as a sign of mourning. So do the soldiers standing around him. They begin weeping and mourning and it goes on until evening. What’s going on here? The Amalekite is no doubt thoroughly confused.
What he’s failed to realise is that these men hold God’s choice as precious. This death that he’s reported is part of a great defeat for the people of Israel. And not only has Saul died but so has Jonathan, David’s great friend and companion.
But more than that, Saul is God’s anointed one. David is rightly described as a man after God’s own heart. For him, personal ambition was secondary. What mattered most was God’s right to choose, God’s right to dispose of his people as he saw fit. And when God anointed someone as King, only God had the right to take away that position.
So as the mourning and lament subside, he calls the man over. He asks where he comes from. The man tells him that he’s the son of a resident alien, an Amalekite. Now the fact that he’s an Amalekite isn’t the issue here, despite the fact that David’s just come back from fighting an Amalekite raiding party. No, it’s more that he’s a resident of Israel, probably since birth. That means that he would have been aware of the significance to the Israelites of Saul as God’s anointed king. He should probably even have understood David’s attitude to Saul as God’s anointed one.
But of course he isn’t a theologian, he’s an opportunist. He’s thinking on a purely secular political level. He thinks that he can manipulate David to his own advantage.
It’s interesting, by the way, that in the OT history of Israel there are 2 other Amalekites who come to prominence. One is Agag whom we encountered in 1 Sam 15 and who in the end was put to death by Samuel. The other is Haman, who appears in the story of Esther. There he manipulates events, first to rise to power in the court of King Xerxes of Persia, then uses his power to arrange for a great slaughter of all the Jews living there. But in the end his opportunism is overcome and he suffers a similar fate to his other 2 countrymen.
Unfortunately for this man, he hasn’t given a thought to the theological reality in which he lives. But he soon realises it as David rebukes him, then, as the new King of Israel, passes judgement on him. "Were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?" "Your blood be on your head; for your own mouth has testified against you, saying, ’I have killed the Lord’s anointed.’"
The sense of relief at Saul’s death that this man expected and that even we might have expected at first reading, never eventuates. Instead the one who claims to have killed the Lord’s anointed is executed. Instead of the great victory celebration that he expected, we find David composing this great lament over Saul and Jonathan.
"How the mighty have fallen! The glory of Israel lies slain upon the mountain tops. Don’t speak of it, lest you give the Philistines cause to rejoice. Treat the news with the reverence it deserves." You can imagine him today, saying ’turn off the cameras. Don’t put this on CNN. It’s too serious, too tragic to make a spectacle of.’
He enjoins nature to join him in his mourning, to withhold it’s bounty: dew, rain and harvest. Mt Gilboa, where Saul died was synonymous with fertility. But now it’s been defiled by the blood of Saul and Jonathan. So he calls on nature to honour the dead, to fast and mourn out of respect for those who have died.
He celebrates the valour of these two leaders of Israel, Saul and his son Jonathan, joint leaders of Israel, valiant and strong. Here we see the dual images of war, of horror and of honour. Both must be remembered.
I heard someone talking about the film Gallipoli last week and they made the comment that it was a film that celebrated mateship and devotion to duty, but what I remembered was that it highlighted the futility of war. Well, as I thought about it later I realised that in fact both were present in that movie, weren’t they? There was no glorification of war, no sentimentalising of Aussie mateship, but there was an acknowledgement of the heroism, the devotion to duty, the love of country that led to the sacrifice of so many lives. But the stark reality and horror of war was there as well.
And that’s what we find here. There’s the blood of the slain, the fat of the mighty, but there’s the expertly wielded bow, kept steady in the face of overwhelming odds, the courageous sword that keeps swinging with great effect until the end.
And there’s the camaraderie, the partnership of father and son, joined as inseparable allies in their battle for God’s people. Certainly Saul was David’s enemy at times, while Jonathan was his unswerving friend. But when they appeared together on the field of battle they were seen to be partners, working together, equal in their strength and battle skill. Combined they were a force to be reckoned with.
But now they’re gone. Israel has lost a king and so David calls for the community to mourn. Mourning is something that needs to be done with our community. That’s why we join together for funerals. You know, one of the saddest funerals I’ve ever taken, wasn’t one of those I’ve conducted for a young child who’s died, and you know how sad they’ve been. No, it was for a woman who had no-one there to mourn for her except a niece and the nurse who’d looked after her to the end.
We need a community around us when we mourn the loss of a loved one, don’t we? The person who’s died needs a community to express the loss that their death has brought on the world and to acknowledge their contribution to the lives of others. And so David calls on the community to mourn together.
Finally David gives a heartfelt cry of lament over his closest friend, Jonathan. He says "I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."
Don’t ever let someone tell you this is referring to some of sort of homosexual love between David and Jonathan. The whole point of what he says here is that this isn’t the sort of sexual love that he might have with a woman, and let’s face it, David had a few wives in his time, so he knew what he was talking about!
No, this is the sort of close intimate friendship between 2 men that you don’t her about much these days. I guess it’s what Australians like to think of when they talk about mateship. The sort of close interdependence portrayed in Gallipoli. Only I’m not sure our friendship with mates are often at this sort of level any more. More often they’re more of the nature of acquaintances or teammates or associates. C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, the Four Loves, "This love, [i.e. friendship love,] free from instinct, free from all duties but those which love has freely assumed, almost wholly free from jealousy, and free without qualification from the need to be needed, is eminently spiritual. It is the sort of love one can imagine between angels" (p91) David and Jonathan shared a bond of friendship so close it couldn’t be broken, except by death.
And so he repeats this refrain. "How the mighty have fallen!" It’s a refrain that sums up the sense of loss and waste, coupled with the recognition of their achievements as warriors. It begins and ends the lament. It’s repeated as Jonathan is remembered. "How the mighty have fallen!" It’s a lament in fact of the human condition. All fall in the end, no matter how great they are.
But before we leave this lament for Saul, I want us to notice the significance of this form of public mourning. First notice what a beautiful thing it is. There’s something about the human mind, the human spirit, that needs beauty even in the depths of sadness. The beauty of the poetic form that we find here, takes the sadness we’re feeling and transforms it from something ugly to something that we can begin to deal with. It’s an essentially personal form of expression, a way of entering into our experiences, not just watching them happen to us. If you’ve ever read the prayers of Eddie Askew, many of them are in the form of a lament. And they’re truly beautiful and personal expressions of faith in God in the midst of pain.
But Lament isn’t just a personal expression. It’s at the same time a communal, public expression. There’s no doubt that this expresses David’s personal pain, but it’s also intended as a public expression of the loss of the community. That’s why he instructs that this "Song of the Bow" be taught to the people of Judah. He wants the whole nation to be able to express their sadness. He wants the people to acknowledge what’s been lost in this battle. It isn’t just a strategic loss of territory. It’s more personal, more spiritual, than that. They’ve lost the one that God anointed as their King.
As David is about to begin his reign, it’s significant that he sees with theological eyes the deeper principle at play here. The Lord’s anointed is dead. This is the cause of great sadness for Israel. David’s reign can’t begin until the loss of Saul is acknowledged. And as he begins his reign he knows it’s not because of his own ability or wisdom or strategic skill. It’s because he too is the Lord’s anointed. The success he gains in establishing the kingdom will be the result of God’s intervention, God’s empowering. This is a lesson David had already learnt and it’s a lesson he taught to his people. Listen to the words of Ps 127, reputedly written by David’s son, Solomon: "Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain." David’s success will come from his devotion to and his reliance on the Lord, shown so clearly here in his response to the death of Saul. David is a King after God’s own heart, because he looks to God for success in all he does.
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