David the shepherd boy, Israel’s King, and a man after God’s own heart usually receives the lion’s share of attention in sermons and Bible lessons. Yet David would not have lived to become king without the help of his closest friend and fellow warrior, Jonathan. (1 Samuel 13 – 20)
Jonathan was King Saul’s son and the heir Israel’s throne. Following David’s well-known slaying of Goliath the giant, David grew in favor among the people. For a time, things between King Saul and David were harmonious, and Saul gave David more leadership responsibilities and recognition. However, David’s popularity and military successes eventually began to eclipse Saul’s. Saul perceived David as a threat to his power and sought to have David killed on several occasions.
Typically, someone in Jonathan’s position might have supported a scheme like that. He would have known that David was God’s next anointed. He could have supported his father Saul in a bid to preserve the crown for himself, but he didn’t. When Saul told Jonathan that David must die, Jonathan opposed his own father the king. Saul attempted to kill Jonathan with a spear because of it.
This wasn’t the first time Jonathan had nearly perished at the hands of his own father. Saul’s reign was rife with conflict and intermittent wars with a group known as the Philistines. Before Jonathan met David, the Philistines had taken control of all the metal workers (black smiths) to prevent the Israelites from arming themselves. Only Jonathan and Saul had metal weapons (swords and spears).
Jonathan and his armor bearer snuck out to the Philistine encampment. In hand to hand combat, with 20 to 2, abysmal odds, Jonathan and the armor bearer emerged victorious. Their surprise attack gave Saul and the Israelite army the advantage and they ultimately won the day despite being vastly ill-equipped, and as modern expression might put it, outgunned.
Jonathan ought to have been rewarded for this incredible, heroic effort wherein he risked his own life rather than throwing his unarmed men into the teeth of the enemy. Instead, because he had not heard his father’s decree for the men to fast, Jonathan ate honey. When it came to light that he had broken the fast, Saul wanted to put Jonathan to death. Only the intervention of Jonathan’s soldiers, who spoke up on his behalf, saved his life.
Jonathan later met David and the Bible says Jonathan “loved David as himself.” Jonathan would have considered David a closer friend than a brother, a member of his own family. Saul grew more and more unhinged and eventually sent assassins to David’s house to kill him one night. However, David managed to escape with his wife’s help.
David went to Jonathan for help. At what was undoubtedly great risk to himself, Jonathan created a secret code that only he and David knew using a bow and arrows. It likely would have held special significance to the two friends because a bow was among the first things Jonathan gave David when they first became friends.
Jonathan then went to King Saul and attempted to determine how real and severe the threat to David’s life.
Then Jonathan said to David, “I swear by the Lord, the God of Israel, that I will surely sound out my father by this time the day after tomorrow! If he is favorably disposed toward you, will I not send you word and let you know? 13 But if my father intends to harm you, may the Lord deal with Jonathan, be it ever so severely, if I do not let you know and send you away in peace. May the Lord be with you as he has been with my father. 14 But show me unfailing kindness like the Lord’s kindness as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, 15 and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family—not even when the Lord has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth.”
16 So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the Lord call David’s enemies to account.” 17 And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.
18 Then Jonathan said to David, “Tomorrow is the New Moon feast. You will be missed, because your seat will be empty. 19 The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go to the place where you hid when this trouble began, and wait by the stone Ezel. 20 I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target. 21 Then I will send a boy and say, ‘Go, find the arrows.’ If I say to him, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them here,’ then come, because, as surely as the Lord lives, you are safe; there is no danger. 22 But if I say to the boy, ‘Look, the arrows are beyond you,’ then you must go, because the Lord has sent you away. 23 And about the matter you and I discussed—remember, the Lord is witness between you and me forever.”
1 Samuel 20: 12-23
Jonathan went so far as to make a covenant with David. A covenant was the most solemn vow or agreement into which a person could enter. It mirrored the covenant God himself made with the Israelite’s forefathers Abraham and Isaac.
When Saul nearly killed Jonathan for questioning the king’s judgment regarding David, Jonathan used the arrow code to signal David, thereby saving David’s life and ensuring David would eventually come to the throne. Through David’s lineage, the whole world would be saved through the birth, death and resurrection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
Jonathan’s actions had far greater ramifications than he could have possibly foreseen. He stood beside his friend David and honored God’s will for his life, even though by worldly standards, he may as well have signed his own death warrant. Jonathan valued something greater than his own life and desires. By sacrificing his future, he paved the way for the salvation of the entire world. He just didn’t know it.
Grace and Peace,
A.A. Wordsmith
Selah Vie! 