part0283

Key Verse : "Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape."

Saul was the first king of Israel, and very early into his reign, he failed to do right according to the Old Testament Mosaic Law. On the first occasion, he offered a sacrifice to the Lord that he was not qualified to offer, and on the second occasion, he failed to fully carry out the Lord’s orders with respect to the Amalekites. Therefore, God stripped the kingdom from him, but He did not take it away immediately. Instead, while the curse was always upon Saul, God let him remain king for a number of years while some key events were being orchestrated to permanently remove his family and him from the throne. The first event involved Saul’s son, Jonathan, and the second event involved a young shepherd boy, named David.

Saul very much wanted Jonathan to become his successor, but the Lord had already chosen David to be the next king. David had demonstrated his skills by being a shepherd, by defeating the Philistine giant named Goliath, and also by prevailing over the Philistines in other battles. In I Samuel 18:5-9, David was a trusted servant to Saul, but when the people began attributing greater successes to him, Saul became suspicious. He knew that the Lord had taken the kingdom from him, but he did not yet know to whom it would be given. Soon, however, he realized that David was a likely candidate, and after that, he started looking for ways to kill him or to have him killed.

In I Samuel 19:1, he tried to get Jonathan and his attendants to do it, but they would not. In I Samuel 19:9-10, he tried to kill him with a spear while he played his harp, but David escaped. In I Samuel 19:11, he sent men to David’s house to kill him, but he was again able to get away. Saul did all that he could to keep the kingdom in his family, but he failed. In the end, Jonathan and he were killed in battle, and David became the king, just as the Lord had planned.