1 Samuel 20 Friends

1 Samuel 20

David and Jonathan meet up again following Saul's attempt to hunt him down, David pleads his case with his friend Jonathan basically saying "why is your dad trying to kill me?"

Jonathan pleads ignorance of this but agrees to find out how the land lies between David and Saul - David absents himself during the new moon celebration and Saul is going to notice that he is missing during the celebrations and Jonathan will tell Saul that he gave David permission to leave court.

Meanwhile David has agreed to hide out in a field and wait for news of how Saul reacts when he is given the news.

The signal between David and Jonathan is that Jonathan will go out with a servant and his bow and arrows and get the servant to retrieve them, if Saul is content and not going to harm David Jonathan would say the arrows are behind you and if not they are further ahead.

The New moon festival comes around, and David is missed, Saul frankly goes nuts when he hears that David has eluded him and all but accuses Jonathan, who is the heir to the throne after his father, of siding with David who is going to steal the kingdom from his family, he also attacked his son with a spear for defending David, at which point it seems that Jonathan is convinced that David is not mad!

David and Jonathan then bid each other farewell in a tearful parting, and this is the last time they see each other

1 Samuel 19 Kings behaving strangely

1 Samuel 19

I do apologise for the rather sporadic posting over the last couple of weeks. I came back from Poland and the Czech republic with the dreaded lurgi (undefined illness invented by Spike Milligan), my voice is still quite ropey, and then have just bought a new computer which I've been trying to set up how I want it 

Saul has issued orders to his son, Jonathan and his servants that David is marked for death, but Jonathan has become best friends with David and warns him to make himself scarce, but that he would also have a word with his father, the king on David's behalf.

Jonathan speaks highly of David to Saul and Saul relents and lifts the death threat from David and all goes back to normal for a bit.

Soon enough though, the Philistines go to war against Israel and David goes out as one of the champion warriors of Israel, attacking the Philistines with such force that their campaign collapsed and they withdrew. Meanwhile Saul is afflicted with the evil spirit and Saul tried to pin David to the wall with a spear - David was playing the lyre at the time - have you ever seen the movie "Animal House" where the guy is playing a guitar in the party and John Belushi comes up, grabs the guitar and smashes it to bits, handing the wreckage back with a single word "Sorry"? I don't know for sure what made Saul attack it might have been David's incessant strumming!.

By this time, David's wife, who happens to be Saul's younger daughter, helps David escape through the window placing an idol in his bed with a bit of goat hair on its head. Charming that David's hair looked like a goat!! (Though in my case a luxuriant head of hair is a long distant memory!)

David went and stayed with Samuel the elderly prophet at Ramah.
Saul sent men to bring David back, but they were touched by God and prophesied, returning empty handed.
He sent more men and the same thing happened.
Finally Saul himself went to capture David, but the Spirit of God came on Saul again and he prophesied stripping off all his clothes (Charming!) 

1 Samuel 18 Popularity contests

1 Samuel 18

Following the success of David and Israel against Goliath and the Philistines, Saul keeps David permanently on his staff, and David and Saul's son Jonathan, the heir to the throne at this stage

However the praise of the women soon becomes a source of irritation to the king as he hear sthat "Saul has killed his thousands, but David tens of thousands"  
Saul by degrees becomes jealous of David and eventually his thoughts turn dangerous for young David.
One day Saul is listening to David playing on a bad day, when he decides to try and spear him, twice!

Saul eventually decided to try and get somebody else to kill off David by offering his daughter in marriage to David in exchange for the foreskins of the Philistines (who were typically never circumcised like the Jews) 

David managed to resist the temptation with Saul's older daughter, but his younger daughter had fallen very much in love with David 

David agreed to pay a bride price of 100 philistine foreskins for Saul's younger daughter, Michal . In fact, it would be embarrassing to mis count on something like this and he kills 200 philistines who would be unlikely to allow an involuntary circumcision as adults!

The relationship between Saul and David seems to be rather odd, Saul has great faith in David's obvious talents, though doing his best to get him killed. He has joined his family line with David and his son is David's best friend.

1 Samuel 17 Goliath and David

1 Samuel 17

Let us look again at this epic battle of David and Goliath

Medical people have long wondered at the size of Goliath - 3 metres or 9 feet is extremely tall and most ordinary soldiers would have come up to not that far above his elbows.
There is a theory that Goliath suffered from a condition called acromgely which is caused by a tumour on the pituitary gland that inhibits the signals to the body to stop growing.
Side effects include double vision and short sight - which may explain a few things here.
Goliath is accompanied to the challenge by a shield bearer, now as we saw yesterday, his armour was not the kind of thing that a normal person would carry - perhaps he has to be led to the field of battle because his eyesight is not all that good?

Goliath is a particular kind of soldier - heavy infantry. These guys are heavily armed and form the backbone of the army. In addition to infantry there would be cavalry or chariots forming a fast attack and ranged weapons such as bows and slings, catapults and trebuchets (Why the spell checker at Google does not recognise this word when the font I use is called "Trebuchet" I don't know!) who can attack from a distance.
Goliath obviously expected to be facing a similarly armed heavy infantry soldier.

Lets look again at David - here we have a young man who has been used to defending sheep from bears, lions and other predators - his weapon of choice is a sling - a pouch with 2 long straps attached, when spun at speed and let one of the strings go the projectile can travel great distance and with great speed and, with practice, accuracy. David has absolutely no intention of going to battle with Goliath as an infantry soldier - he has no intention of getting close enough to Goliath for him to hurt him.

A strange feature of the land is that the rocks there are particularly dense which would add power to the slingshot attack. Which apparently would have been like being hit with a 9 mm bullet. In the right hands a slingshot can be a devastating weapon that can kill before a sword or spear or javelin can make an impact.

So here we are - a Giant who may have difficulty with his eyesight - hence the challenge "Come up here and fight me" - when he sees David coming to attack him his response is odd - "Am I a dog that you come against me with sticks? Come here and I will give your flesh to the birds and wild animals"
Sticks? - David is carrying only 1 stick here a shepherds staff.
Goliath lumbers forward to attack David, but David broke into a run and knocked out Goliath with a slingshot between the eyes.

Perhaps these stories are not quite all they appear. It seems rather underhanded of David to use ranged weapons against this huge target, but pitching different kinds of soldiers against each other was a very popular part of the Roman gladiatorial games where they would put a lightly armed gladiator with light armour against a heavily armed gladiator with lots of armour.

1 Samuel 17 David and Goliath

1 Samuel 17

The Philistines are again causing trouble to Saul and Israel - they have come towards the highlands of Israel from the coastal plain. Where the Philistines meet the Israelites both sides dig in on the top of the hill with a river valley in between them.
This is a stalemate - neither army is prepared to lose the position advantage by going down into the valley and attacking up hill, so they wind up staring at each other and for weeks nothing happens.

Eventually the Philistines offer a solution - rather than the whole army coming to battle let it be settled in single combat, and the Philistines have a brilliant champion - a goliath of a man called, well, Goliath - he is extraordinarily tall at getting on for 3 metres (9 ft) tall and wearing the very latest in military technology - bronze scale armour weighing 58 kg - which would usually take 2 people to lift up if not 3. Normally if we are lifting at work we do not try and lift more than about 20 kg by hand.
In addition to this he has a bronze helmet, leg greaves. He has a bronze javelin at his back and an iron tipped spear where the tip alone weighed approx 7 kg (the same as 7 bags of sugar)

David is evidently not required in the service of the king as he has returned home and spends his time between tending sheep and visiting the army to check on his older brothers. Thus it happened that David arrived at the Israelite army camp as Goliath gave the same challenge he had been giving for the last 6 weeks - Come and fight me in single combat, winner takes all.

The trained soldiers having seen this massive, heavily armoured warrior have all decided that they do not want to face Goliath on his terms (or indeed any other terms)

David hears that Saul will reward whoever beats Goliath and exempt their family from taxes, and give his daughter in marriage (Not sure what his daughter thought of this - her letter to Dad is not recorded!)

Eventually David's older brother Eliab hears David chatting to the men, and challenges him for abandoning the sheep and causing trouble having just come to watch the battle..
David responds very much like a younger brother "What have I done now, can't I even speak?"

Eventually king Saul, leader of the army hears and sends for David, who apparently he entirely fails to recognise!

Saul tried to equip David to meet Goliath in single combat giving him armour and a sword, but David says he cannot use them as he is not used to them, instead he takes a shepherds staff, his sling and picks up 5 stones from the river valley.
David then went on to Goliath and in the prototypical David and Goliath moment beans Goliath with a stone from his slingshot and using Goliath's weapons he kills the champion and Israel win a great victory.

Saul apparently did not recognise David as after the dust had settled he had his army commander Abner find him and bring him to the king. Where David told Saul he was the son of Jesse in Bethlehem.

This is such a famous story that I'm going to, inspired by a TED talk by Malcolm Gladwell, look at this story in a bit more detail than today as there are some very interesting theories about David the underdog and Goliath the giant  

1 Samuel 16 Introducing David

1 Samuel 16

David is one of the major characters in the Bible - he wrote many of the songs found in the Bible's songbook, the book of Psalms. Here we are introduced to this remarkable future king, warrior, songwriter, giant slayer, and direct ancestor of Jesus Christ.

Samuel is instructed by God to visit Bethlehem to the house of Jesse to anoint one of his sons as the next king. Samuel is a bit hesitant since the current king, Saul would see this as treason and in all probability would lead to his death.
God advises him to bring a heifer and make it a sacrifice to God as a cover for his real mission.
When the leaders of Bethlehem greet Samuel, it is with some trepidation - Samuels visits could bring trouble as well as blessing evidently.

During the course of the ceremony Samuel meets Jesse's sons, who apparently are all strapping lads and really quite handsome, but God has other ideas and is looking deeper than initial impressions and appearances.

Jesse has 8 sons in total and after dismissing 7 of them he asked Jesse if that was all his sons.
"There is the youngest, he is out at the moment tending the sheep" 
When David is bought in he is "Ruddy and handsome" and Samuel is told that he is the chosen of the LORD and to anoint him. Which Samuel did in the presence of his older siblings and family.
The Bible says that the Spirit of God rested on David from that time.
Samuel meanwhile went back home to Ramah.

Now comes a real twist in the story as the anointed future king winds up as a court musician to the current anointed king, Saul.
It seems that Saul had, in the words of the Bible "An evil spirit from God that tormented him" 
Apparently music really helped Saul in these cases and somebody remembered David, son of Jesse played quite well and had a good voice, so David joined the court of Saul.
I don't know if today we would term Saul as mentally unstable rather than tormented by a spirit? In the UK we have had our kings who suffered from mental illness (They made a film about George the third - though it was titled the madness of king George so that audiences would not decide that they had not seen the madness of George 1 and 2 so why watch the madness of George 3?!)
Saul apparently liked David very much as he asked permission from Jesse for David to stay with him.

Two things confuse me about Saul in this chapter - first is can God send an evil, tormenting spirit to oppress Saul? Surely this is not what I would expect from god, though later on in the Bible is the book of Jeb where Job's life fell to bits, he lost everything but he would not curse God and Job said "Shall I accept only good from God and not evil?" I promise to explore this topic again when we get to Job.
The other one is why and how does music help? 
I play trombone and Euphonium and yes I get a lot of pleasure and sometimes peace when playing and listening to music (even if the neighbours do not agree!), but I'm going to let you into a secret here - sometimes I wonder at church why we sing songs, sometimes (not always I must add) it seems like it is expected and something we do out of a kind of sense of duty - I'm here to meet with God, songs are happening so I'd better join in.
Sometimes though bursting into song at church can be extraordinarily liberating - the music lifts my spirit and well, I'm going to paraphrase from the Blues Brothers (2000) "No pharmaceutical product can ever equal that rush you get when the band hits that groove and the church is worshipping"
PS - I know the second film is not as god as the first, but I cannot just come out and say "Were on a mission from God" for this chapter - though keep reading I will use it one day!

1 Samuel 15 What does it mean to obey God?

1 Samuel 15

God told king Saul to wage war on the Amalekites for the harm and hostility they showed Israel in the past , and they don't appear to have accepted the land of Israel even after these generations.

Saul is told to completely wipe out every Amalekite and destroy everything in the land.

Saul and his army advise the friendly Kenites to move out of the way before they attacked.
The army captured the city and destroyed everything as God had commanded - they took as plunder all the finest cattle, sheep and animals and took captive the king.

The word of God came to Samuel - "I regret making Saul king, he has turned away from me and has not carried out my instructions"

Early next morning Samuel set out to confront Saul and he was not in a good mood. He is told that Saul has moved on to Carmel and erected a monument to himself.
When Samuel caught up with Saul, Saul greeted him like a friend- "I have carried out my mission"

"What is the sound of bleating on about then?" 
Saul had allowed the army to take as plunder the best of the animals which he claims were to be sacrificed to God - though having been caught out perhaps he may have been telling the truth?
Samuel reminded Saul that a short time ago he was humble in his own eyes yet God appointed him to rule over the nation.

Saul again says that the sheep and cattle taken as plunder were destined to be ritually sacrificed to God.

Samuel then says something that is actually echoed in the words of Jesus Christ 
"Does God delight in burned offerings and sacrifice as much as obeying him?"
No - to obey God is better than sacrifices 

I'm not in a position to judge God for the command to destroy the Amelekites. from a modern perspective it sounds a lot like genocide and the sort of thing that winds up with war crimes trials, but I'll have to give God the benefit of the doubt.

Another thing I'm doing this year is reading the Bible in a year, and today I got to a passage in Matthews Gospel which accused the self righteous elite of offering God a tithe of their herb gardens but neglecting compassion, justice and respect.

Anyway - God has rejected Saul as king - Saul tried to stop Samuel leaving and tears Samuel's cloak. Samuel uses this as an illustration that God will tear the kingdom from Saul.

The last thing Samuel did was to bring out Agag, king of the Amalekites, who thought the worst was over having been captured, but Samuel killed him "You made women childless, so will your mother become childless"

Samuel and Saul never met again after this meeting, though Samuel mourned for the decline of Saul.

One other thing that makes me ponder reading the Bible is how often God regrets something he has done, for example making Saul king, making mankind just before Noah, bringing Israel through the wilderness to name but a few 

No doubt somebody more learned in the scriptures than I can supply some kind of explanation - for me I only hope that god never regrets calling me!

1 Samuel 14 Royal antics

1 Samuel 14

As you will know, I live in the UK, where we have a royal family - Oh boy do we have a royal family! There have been some real characters both good and bad.
The queen has been on the throne for more than 60 years and she is into her 80's, her eldest son, the prince of Wales, served in the navy (And did impressions of the popular radio series, the Goons). His sons, William and Harry have both served in the armed forces.

Saul's son, Jonathan appears to have set an example for princes to come - accompanied by his armour bearer decides to have a look at the Philistines and see if they want to fight.

They are spotted in a bit of a valley with cliffs on both sides, climb up the cliffs and attack the Philistines - killing about 20 of the enemy.  The Bible mentions that God sent an earthquake and caused a panic in the Philistine army.

Another well known thing about armies is that an army marches on its stomach, but Saul seems to forget this on the day of the battle by forbidding the men from eating any food that day. Jonathan had not heard this and being hungry and coming across some honey he eats some and his strength is renewed.

When he heard that his father had forbidden the army to eat, he basically said "Dad, that was a stupid thing to do" and he ponders that the victory would be better had Saul not forced the army to fight hungry.

Anyway the hungry army, victorious in battle take the plunder and seem to start eating the animals, if not before they are dead, at least with blood in the meat which is very strictly forbidden.

Saul prevents this by setting up a stone and making all the soldiers slaughter and bleed the captured beasts  so the blood is at least removed. Saul also built an alter to God at this time.

Later somebody suggested that they should carry on the war overnight and kill everybody they could find. Saul asks for God's guidance but God is silent on account of Jonathan eating the honey.

They cast lots to find the responsible person and the lot landed on Jonathan who admitted his action.
Saul was all set to kill him, but the army came to his rescue and pointed out that any victory was due to the actions of Jonathan and he should not be punished.

Saul carried on as king defeating the hostile surrounding neighbours - though the Philistines and Israel remained hostile for a long time.

They royal family consisted of Saul, his wife Ahinoam, and their children Jonathan, Ishvi, and Malki-Shua  and his 2 daughters Merab and Michal. The commander of the army was Saul's cousin Abner.

Any mighty or brave Israelite that they came across was immediately conscripted into the army.

I guess the royal princes of Britain are not allowed to go onto covert military sorties like Jonathan did as too much capiatal could be made of any failure.
This chapter also, for me, suggests that king Saul is actually not all that great a tactician and the brave men around him often resolve a situation that he seems unwilling to take any action in, but when he does do something decisive it's often the wrong thing.

1 Samuel 13 Things start to go wrong

1 Samuel 13

Saul was king from the age of 30 till the age of 72, a period of 42 years,

I does not say how long Saul had been king when things started to go wrong for him, but it started with attacks that Saul made against the Philistines with a relatively small army, which afterwards he sent as messangers to rally the rest of Israel to fend off the retaliation of the Philastines.

The Philistine army was very powerful - 3000 chariots each with 2 men, and foot soldiers too numerous to count.
The Israelite army saw this and promptly hid in caves, bushes, anywhere they could find cover and some even ran away completely as Saul waited a full week before committing to battle. 

Saul had arranged for Samuel to come and carry out sacrifices to God but the arranged day had come and there was no sign of Samuel, so Saul took matters into his own hands and conducted the sacrifice to God himself rather than more of his soldiers go AWOL. 

Just as he finished, Samuel turned up and demanded what Saul had done. 
Saul pointed out that Samuel was late, his army was fast deserting and he had not sought God's favour before the battle and felt compelled to make the sacrifices himself.

Samuel told Saul that his kingdom would not stand, he had crossed a line between the faith and the state and that his line would not endure. Remember that it is the job of the priest to offer sacrifices.

It is interesting at this stage that Israel was quite behind in the technology of warfare, Israel had no blacksmiths and they had to get farm implements repaired and sharpened in a Philistine smithy, and only Saul and his son Jonathan had a proper spear or sword

1 Samuel 12 Making way for the king

1 Samuel 12

Saul is now king over Israel, and Samuel no longer has the job of judging Israel.
This chapter is his final speech to the nation. His first question is basically "Did I do a good job, did I rob anybody? take anything? Oppressed anybody? take a bribe? If so tell me and I will make it right"
The people confirm that Samuel has never done any of these things.
Samuel calls on God to witness this, then gives a bit of history - 
God appointed Moses and Aaron to liberate Israel from slavery, but Israel forgot God and he handed them over to Sisera and Hazor, the Philistines, and Moabites until Israel came back to God confessing this worship of other gods.
God sent Jerub-Baal (Gideon), Barak, Jephthah and Samuel to deliver Israel from the hands of their oppressors Now when Nahash the king of Ammon coming against them they demand a king, even though God himself was their king 

Israel is to keep on obaying God and they and their king will be ok, but if not then expect the worst - it may well happen.

Samuel prayed to God for a thunderstorm to reinforce that Israel's real king is God himself - when it came it rather dismayed the Israelites.

They ask Samuel to continue to pray for them and that they would not be killed by God for this rejection of God.

Samuel tells them that it is beyond him not to pray, and exhorts Israel to follow God, turning away after Idols is futile - an Idol cannot save anybody nor can they do any good.
God will not disown Israel as that would be against his own character 

Samuel now takes more of a back seat and allows king Saul to rule the country, but in fact, Samuel is the nations conscience, and reminds Israel of the commands of God 

1 Samuel 11 Saul to the rescue

1 Samuel 11

The king of the Ammonites has laid siege to the Israelite town of Jabesh. Teh Ammonites will allow the surrender of the town on condition that they allow the Ammonites to gouge out the eye of everyone in the city, This would bring disgrace on the whole of Israel who can't protect their own relatives.

Jabesh requests 3 days for Israel to come to their rescue, if nobody comes forward to save them, they will surrender.

When Saul hears about this outrage, the Spirit og God came down on him he is incensed and roused the whole of Israel to defend Jabesh.

With an army numbering 330,000 soldiers he divided his army into 3 divisions and attack the Ammonites.

They scatter the Ammonites completely so that no 2 soldiers are together.

The trouble makers who asked "Should Saul rule over us" very nearly end up in very hot water, but Saul spares their lives saying that God has rescued Israel on that day.

Israel returned to Gilgal and Saul was unanimously proclaimed king.