1 Samuel 18 — Saul Hath Slain His Thousands, and David His Ten Thousands
When David finishes speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan is knit with the soul of David; they make a covenant, and Jonathan gives him his robe, his garments, his sword, his bow and his girdle. Saul keeps David, sets him over the men of war, and he behaves himself wisely. But the women come out singing: Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. Saul is very wroth — what can he have more but the kingdom? — and eyes David from that day. On the morrow the evil spirit comes; David plays as at other times; Saul casts the javelin, twice, and David avoids it. Saul is afraid, because the LORD is with David; he removes him to a captaincy, and all Israel and Judah love him. Saul offers Merab — fight the LORD's battles — thinking, let the hand of the Philistines be upon him; then gives her to Adriel. Michal loves David; Saul sets the dowry at a hundred Philistine foreskins, hoping David will fall; David brings two hundred, and marries Michal. Saul sees that the LORD is with David, is yet more afraid, and becomes David's enemy continually; and David's name is much set by.
“And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and the LORD was with him.”
— 1 Samuel 18:14
- v.1-5 Jonathan's soul knit with David's — the covenant and the robe
- v.6-9 The women's song; Saul eyes David from that day
- v.10-16 The javelin twice; Saul afraid because the LORD is with David
- v.17-27 Merab and Michal — a snare, and a hundred foreskins
- v.28-30 Saul became David's enemy continually
The prince's robe and weapons were the signs of his rank and his succession. Many readers see in this gift a prince voluntarily handing over his own claim to the throne — Jonathan will say as much later: thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee (23:17). The text does not say that Jonathan knew of David's anointing; it says only what he gave. Whatever he understood, he gave the best he had to the man God was with.
Chapter 17 had David refusing Saul's armour because he had not proved it (17:39); here he receives Jonathan's. The difference is not the metal but the giver. Saul's armour was a king trying to control a victory he had not earned; Jonathan's sword and bow are a friend's love, given freely. The covenant of verse 3 will hold through everything Saul does and will bind David to Jonathan's son long after Jonathan is dead (2 Samuel 9).
The women's song is Hebrew poetry: two balancing lines, the second heightening the first, as Miriam sang at the sea and Deborah at Kishon. In that form thousands... ten thousands need not be a ranking at all; it is the way such couplets praise. The women came to meet king Saul (v. 6) and meant to honour both. But a poem is heard by the heart that hears it, and Saul's heart hears arithmetic: to me they have ascribed but thousands.
The song will follow David — the Philistines of Gath quote it when he flees to Achish (21:11), and their princes repeat it at Aphek (29:5). What was sung to glorify him nearly costs him his life among enemies and does cost him his place among friends. Public praise is a dangerous gift; the chapter shows it doing more harm to the one who was not praised than good to the one who was.
A short verse that explains the rest of the book. Eyed — watched with suspicion, kept under a jealous eye. The question Saul has just asked, what can he have more but the kingdom? (v. 8), is in fact the truth: the kingdom has already been given to a neighbour better than thou (15:28). Saul does not know who, but he has guessed, and from this day he treats the guess as a threat to be removed rather than a word to be accepted.
Envy in Scripture always begins with the eyes: Cain's countenance fell when Abel's offering was accepted, and Joseph's brothers could not speak peaceably unto him. The narrator contrasts the day of verse 9 with the day of 16:13, when the Spirit came on David from that day forward. Two things began on two days: the LORD's favour on one man and another man's hatred of him. Both run to the end of Saul's life.
The evil spirit comes (v. 10) and Saul prophesied in the midst of the house — the word is used here of a frenzied raving, not a message from God; the same verb covered both in the ancient world, and the narrator uses it with grim irony: the man who once prophesied among the prophets (10:10) now raves with a spear in his hand. David played with his hand, as at other times — the harper doing his job, the servant soothing the master who is trying to kill him.
Twice — some take this as two throws in one fit; others connect it with the second javelin of 19:10. The point is the pattern: Saul's hatred has moved from the eyes (v. 9) to the hand within a day, and David avoided — he escaped, and he did not retaliate. The man with the right to the throne will not take it by striking the man who sits on it; that restraint, shown here for the first time, will be his rule in the caves (24:6; 26:9).
The chapter's refrain: behaved himself wisely (vv. 5, 14, 15, 30) and the LORD was with him (vv. 12, 14, 28). Wisely carries the sense of acting with prudence and prospering; David succeeds not by scheming but by a conduct that gives Saul nothing to charge him with. Removed from court to a field command (v. 13), he turns demotion into a ministry — he went out and came in before the people — and all Israel and Judah loved him (v. 16).
The LORD was with him is the narrator's explanation for everything David does well, and for everything Saul fears (vv. 12, 15, 28-29). Saul is afraid not of David's ambition — the text gives him none — but of God's evident presence with another man. That fear, with nothing in David to justify it, is the shape of a soul that has lost the Spirit and knows it.
Saul has turned from the javelin to the Philistines — let not mine hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him (v. 17). First Merab, offered and then given to another (v. 19); now Michal, who loved David (v. 20), and whose love Saul immediately prices as a snare (v. 21). The dowry — a hundred proofs of dead enemies — is designed to be fatal, and dressed as patriotism, to be avenged of the king's enemies. The narrator lets the reader hear the real thought in the second sentence.
David's reply to the honour is the same note he struck with Saul in 17:58 and that Saul once struck with Samuel (9:21): who am I?... a poor man, and lightly esteemed (vv. 18, 23). He takes the task at face value and returns with double the price (v. 27) in full tale — counted out — so that no one could say the king's son-in-law had not paid. The grim trophy is a feature of ancient warfare; the text records it without comment, and the reader need not admire it to see that David met every condition Saul set and Saul's plot failed.
Saul saw and knew that the LORD was with David (v. 28) — and the knowledge makes him worse, not better. That is the tragedy of this king in one line: he can see God's hand and will not bow to it. Enemy continually — the hunting that fills chapters 19-27 is announced here as a settled state. Nothing David has done in the chapter has been against Saul; everything Saul has done has been against David, and every attempt has turned to David's honour.
Verse 30 closes with the refrain once more: David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul; so that his name was much set by. The envy that meant to make David fall has made his name. Hannah's song had said it: the LORD... bringeth low, and lifteth up (2:7). The book will not let Saul destroy what God has chosen, and it will not let David lift his hand to hasten it. Between those two refusals lies the long way to the throne.
Decide which man in this chapter you are becoming. Jonathan heard the same song and gave David his robe; Saul heard it and reached for a javelin. When someone near you is praised above you, you will do one of those two things. Then study David under the spear. He kept playing, he avoided, he did not strike back, he went where he was sent and did it well — behaved himself wisely — and left the rest to the LORD who was with him. Most of the people who have hurt you will be answered the way Saul was: by your conduct, and by God's evident presence, not by your retaliation. And treasure a Jonathan if you have one; a friend who is glad at your rising is rarer than a giant.
A king's son who strips himself of his robe and gives it, with his claim, to the one God has chosen; a people singing of ten thousands while a jealous ruler plots the singer's death; an anointed one hated without cause, who will not lift his hand against his persecutor and whose name grows the more he is attacked — the church has long read this chapter through the Psalms, where David's sufferings became the prayers of Christ. They hated me without a cause (Psalm 69:4) is quoted of Jesus in John 15:25. Jonathan's self-emptying love is for Christian readers a shadow of the greater Prince who made himself of no reputation (Philippians 2:7), and David avoiding the javelin a picture of the One who, when He was reviled, reviled not again.
Jonathan had climbed to the Philistine garrison with one companion, trusting that the LORD could save by few (14:6); he has just watched a shepherd do the same thing in the valley of Elah. The soul that is knit to David's is the soul that recognised its own faith in another man. Scripture's great friendship begins not in sentiment but in a shared view of God.
Loved him as his own soul — the Law's love thy neighbour as thyself (Leviticus 19:18) made flesh. Note who Jonathan is: the crown prince, the man with most to lose from David's rise. His love is the opposite of his father's envy in the same chapter, and the narrator sets them side by side on purpose. The same deed — a giant killed — produces a covenant in the son and a javelin in the father.