Commentaria in I Regum (I Samuelis)
Chapter 18. Synopsis of the Chapter
The people acclaim David for the slaying of Goliath: Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands; wherefore Saul, envying him, and grieved that he is preferred to himself, thinks of killing him. First by hurling a spear at him, verse 11; secondly through the Philistines in the war in which he put him in command, verse 17; thirdly, verse 25, through his daughter whom he betrothed to him, demanding of him for her a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, hoping that he would at last be slain by them.
1. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking to Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 2. And Saul took him that day, and would not let him return to his father’s house. 3. And David and Jonathan made a covenant: for he loved him as his own soul. 4. For Jonathan stripped himself of the coat with which he was clothed, and gave it to David, and the rest of his garments, even to his sword and to his bow, and to his girdle. 5. And David went out to do whatsoever Saul sent him: and behaved himself prudently: and Saul set him over the men of war, and he was acceptable in the eyes of all the people, and especially in the sight of Saul’s servants. 6. Now when David returned, after he had slain the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel singing, and dancing, to meet king Saul, with timbrels of joy, and with cornets. 7. And the women sang as they played, and they said: Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.
8. And Saul was exceeding angry, and this saying was displeasing in his eyes, and he said: They have given David ten thousands, and to me they have given but a thousand: what can he have more but the kingdom? 9. And Saul did not look on David with a good eye from that day and forward. 10. And the day after, the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of his house: and David played with his hand, as at other times. And Saul held a spear in his hand, 11. And threw it, thinking to nail David to the wall: and David stepped aside out of his presence twice. 12. And Saul feared David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from himself. 13. Wherefore Saul removed him from him, and made him captain over a thousand men, and he went out and came in before the people. 14. And David behaved wisely in all his ways, and the Lord was with him. 15. And Saul saw that he was exceeding prudent, and began to beware of him. 16. But all Israel and Juda loved David: for he came in and went out before them.
17. And Saul said to David: Behold my elder daughter Merob, her will I give thee to wife: only be a valiant man, and fight the battles of the Lord. Now Saul said: Let not my hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him. 18. And David said to Saul: Who am I? or what is my life, or my father’s kindred in Israel, that I should be son in law to the king? 19. And it came to pass at the time when Merob the daughter of Saul should have been given to David, that she was given to Hadriel the Molathite to wife. 20. Now Michol the other daughter of Saul loved David: and it was told Saul, and it pleased him. 21. And Saul said: I will give her to him, that she may be a stumblingblock to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be upon him. And Saul said to David: In two things thou shalt be my son in law to day. 22. And Saul commanded his servants to speak to David privately, saying: Behold thou pleasest the king, and all his servants love thee: now therefore be the king’s son in law.
23. And the servants of Saul spoke all these words in the ears of David. And David said: Seemeth it to you a small thing to be the king’s son in law? But I am a poor man, and of small ability. 24. And the servants of Saul told him, saying: Such words as these hath David spoken. 25. And Saul said: Thus shall you speak to David: The king hath no need of any dowry, but only of an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, that he may be revenged of the king’s enemies. Now Saul designed to deliver David into the hands of the Philistines. 26. And when his servants told David the words that Saul had said, the word pleased David, to be the king’s son in law. 27. And after a few days, David rose up, and went with the men that were under him, and slew of the Philistines two hundred men, and brought their foreskins, and numbered them out to the king, that he might be his son in law. Saul therefore gave him Michol his daughter to wife. 28. And Saul saw, and understood that the Lord was with David. And Michol the daughter of Saul loved him. 29. And Saul began to fear David the more: and Saul was an enemy to David always. 30. And the princes of the Philistines went forth. And from the beginning of their going out, David behaved himself more wisely than all the servants of Saul, and his name was much esteemed.
1. THE SOUL OF JONATHAN WAS KNIT WITH THE SOUL OF DAVID,—as if to say: Jonathan loved David intimately and most tenderly, so that his soul seemed to be fastened with glue, and as it were compacted into one with the soul of David. For the soul of the lover is more in the beloved than in the lover, and so lovers seem to have one and the same soul, mind and will. Such were St. Augustine and that friend of his, whom he does not name, but describes thus, book 4 of the Confessions, chap. 6: “I marvelled that other mortals lived, because he whom I had loved as if he would never die was dead; and I marvelled more that I lived, who was another self to him, he being dead. Well did someone say of his friend, the half of my soul. For I felt that my soul and his soul were one soul in two bodies, and therefore life was a horror to me, because I would not live by halves; and therefore perhaps I feared to die, lest he whom I had loved so much should wholly die.”
Such also were St. Basil and St. Gregory Nazianzen. Hear Nazianzen, oration 20 on the funeral of St. Basil: “One soul seemed to both, bearing two bodies. And if less faith is to be given to those who say that all things are in all: yet surely we must believe this of us, that each was in the other and with the other.”
The cause of the love was likeness of manners and loves. For Jonathan, as David, was candid, upright, warlike, and triumphed over the Philistines, as David had now triumphed over Goliath. Wherefore Jonathan made with David a covenant of perpetual friendship and confirmed it by oath (Abulensis adds, by the immolation of victims also). And he renewed it twice, chap. 20 and 23.
Jonathan was therefore very unlike his father Saul; for in the latter David’s virtue and victory moved envy and deadly hatred, but in Jonathan it moved the highest love.
7. SAUL HATH SLAIN HIS THOUSANDS, AND DAVID HIS TEN THOUSANDS;—because, Goliath being slain, David caused the whole camp of the Philistines to fall, in which were more than ten thousand; for these, seeing that Goliath, in whom they had placed all their strength and all hope of victory, was slain, fled at once, and in flight were slain by the pursuing Hebrews, chap. 17, verse 52. Moreover this song passed into a proverb, which we use when we praise two for notable virtue, but prefer one to the other.
Allegorically St. Augustine, sermon 197 On the Season, and from him Rupert, book 2 on the books of Kings, chap. 6: “David,” he says, “that is Christ, cut off the head of the accursed enemy (sin and the devil), that is, took away his dominion, and thence, rising from the dead, ascended as victor into the heavenly Jerusalem. At this hearing, aroused by faith, our souls meet the victor publicly and privately, singing and leading choirs of gladness. What do we sing? what do we confess? Saul hath slain thousands, and David ten thousands, in his thousands, that is, he destroyed the universality of sin by his virtues: his own, I say, because not sought from elsewhere.”