I Samuel 19:1-3 says, “And Saul spake to Jonathan his son, and to all his servants, that they should kill David. But Jonathan Saul’s son delighted much in David: and Jonathan told David, saying, Saul my father seeketh to kill thee: now therefore , I pray thee, take heed to thyself until the morning, and abide in a secret place, and hide thyself: And I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where thou art, and I will commune with my father of thee; and what I see, that I will tell thee.” King Saul is a very hard man to figure out, for he is so jealous of David over the praise he received for killing Goliath that he is ready to kill David. Saul did not realize that in speaking to Jonathan about his plans to kill David he was, in essence, speaking to David, for Jonathan would tell David all that Saul had said. More than speaking to Jonathan about killing David, Saul also spoke to all his servants and instructed them to kill David. It is here that we see Jonathan putting his life and his career on the line for his friend David.
The key to understanding the actions of Jonathan here is that he had great delight in David, for he was his loyal friend. The news that Saul wanted to kill David would have been sounded in David’s ear by Jonathan within perhaps a short time after Saul made his threat. Jonathan not only told David about Saul’s desire to kill him, he also made a plan to save David’s life, thus putting his own life in jeopardy with his father. The plan made by Jonathan was that David should hide in a secret place until the next day, when Jonathan would test the threat of his father Saul to see if it were real. The plan of Jonathan was to take his father out into the area where David was hiding and to talk with his father about why he wanted to kill David. The promise of Jonathan to David was that he would tell him what Saul had said concerning his plan to kill David. Here we have a young son of a king going against the plans of that king, his father, in order to protect a friend. The loyalty that is seen here is above and beyond the call of duty, but that is what true friends are all prone to do. The life of David was more important to Jonathan than his own life. Our selfish world still has a few people who are willing to be this kind of friend, but their numbers seem to be decreasing. May God bless all those who are willing to value friends above their own pleasure, gain or even their own lives!
By J. Briggs King, Evangelist, Rainsville, AL (678) 451-0921