The Prince: Jonathan (16 page)

“And made peace with Samuel. I heard. All is well. He prophesied. He has turned back to the Lord!” The king had not seen Samuel since the debacle at Gilgal. His father had loathed the very mention of Samuel’s name. All that must have changed!

David shook his head, anguished. “I’m running for my life, Jonathan. You’re the only one I can trust, the only hope I have of finding out why the king is so determined to kill me!”

Jonathan felt how David trembled from exhaustion and fear. Was everyone going mad? “Rest. Here. Eat some grain.” He took the pouch from his belt. “Drink.” He gave him the skin of water. “All this is a misunderstanding. Look, my father always tells me everything he’s going to do, even the little things. I know my father wouldn’t hide something like this from me. It just isn’t so! You know how he is sometimes. His moods pass. A spear thrown in a fit of temper doesn’t mean the king is plotting to murder you. Why would he do such a thing? Your victories rally the armies of God.” But a niggling worry took hold of him even as he spoke.
Let it not be so, Lord.
“No! It’s not true!” He refused to believe it.

“Jonathan, your father knows perfectly well about our friendship, so he has said to himself, ‘I won’t tell Jonathan—why should I hurt him?’ But I swear to you that I am only a step away from death! I swear it by the Lord and by your own soul!”

David’s fear was real, and he must be proven wrong. “Tell me what I can do to help you.”

David looked around, a hunted look on his face. “Look, tomorrow we celebrate the new moon festival. I’ve always eaten with the king on this occasion, but tomorrow I’ll hide in the field and stay there until the evening of the third day. If your father asks where I am, tell him I asked permission to go home to Bethlehem for an annual family sacrifice. If he says, ‘Fine!’ you will know all is well. But if he is angry and loses his temper, you will know he is determined to kill me.” His voice broke with pent-up emotion. “Show me this loyalty as my sworn friend—for we made a solemn pact before the Lord—or kill me yourself if I have sinned against your father. But please don’t betray me to him!”

“Never!” Jonathan exclaimed. “You know that if I had the slightest notion my father was planning to kill you, I would tell you at once.” Surely David was wrong. Surely Michal had exaggerated. His father had seemed himself the next morning he spoke with him.

But why did he send me away?

And the reports were incorrect. All that wasted time.

Or was it?

“How will I know whether or not your father is angry?”

“Come out to the field with me.”

They walked across the hills together. They had spent many hours out here practicing with bow and spear, running races.

“Do you believe me, Jonathan?”

“I don’t know what to believe.” He turned to David. “But I can tell you this. I promise by the Lord, the God of Israel, that by this time tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, I will talk to my father and let you know at once how he feels about you. If he speaks favorably about you, I will let you know. But if he is angry and wants you killed, may the Lord strike me and even kill me if I don’t warn you so you can escape and live.” He clasped David’s hand. “May the Lord be with you as He used to be with my father.”

Jonathan knew David had no ambitions to take the throne, but he was not so certain about David’s relatives. What if they were as ambitious for David as Kish and Abner had been for Saul? David’s relatives—Joab, Abishai, and Asahel—were known to be cunning warriors. And they would urge David to follow the ways of the surrounding nations.

“And may you treat me with the faithful love of the Lord as long as I live. But if I die, treat my family with this faithful love, even when the Lord destroys all your enemies from the face of the earth.”

“I will never break my covenant with you, Jonathan. I am your friend until my last breath!”

“And I yours.” Jonathan felt something else, something far bigger than he could understand, at play here. Only one thing did he hold tight. His father might suffer from fits of rage, but he was not David’s enemy. However, there might be several enemies in the ranks of his father’s advisors. Snakes coiled and ready to strike. “May the Lord destroy all your enemies, no matter who they are.”

Jonathan tried to think of where the safest place would be for David to hide until he could set his mind at ease about Saul. “As you said, tomorrow we celebrate the new moon festival. You will be missed when your place at the table is empty.” Jonathan would make certain the seating arrangements were unchanged. David was irreplaceable. “The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go to the place where you hid before, and wait there by the stone pile. I will come out and shoot three arrows to the side of the stone pile as though I were shooting at a target. Then I will send a boy to bring the arrows back. If you hear me tell him, ‘They’re on this side,’ then you will know, as surely as the Lord lives, that all is well, and there is no trouble. But if I tell him, ‘Go farther—the arrows are still ahead of you,’ then it will mean that you must leave immediately, for the Lord is sending you away.”

David thanked him. They embraced and turned their separate ways.

Michal’s words came back to Jonathan, strident with warning. Could he be mistaken about his friend? No. He couldn’t be wrong about David. He knew him as well as he knew himself. But he could not forget about Samuel’s prophecy. God had torn the kingdom from Saul and given it to another. And not long after that proclamation, Samuel had gone to Bethlehem. Saul had sent men to question him, and Samuel had said he had gone to sacrifice. But why there? And now, with this trouble between his father and David, his friend had run to Samuel.

Is David the one, Lord? Or am I to be king after my father?
If Samuel had anointed David in Bethlehem, it would explain his father’s wild behavior. But Samuel had said he had gone to sacrifice. Would a prophet lie?

The tribe of Judah might still covet the crown.

Jonathan turned back. “David!” When his friend turned, he called out to him. “And may the Lord make us keep our promises to each other, for He has witnessed them.” As long as they were true friends, all might be well, no matter what happened.

“Forever!” David raised his hand.

Jonathan smiled and waved. David’s word was enough. It was his bond.

When the new moon festival came, Jonathan sat in his usual place opposite his father. Saul held a spear in his hand. Abner sat beside the king and they whispered together several times. Both commanded a full view of the entire room and entrance, and their relatives sat in the best positions to guard Saul.

The king looked at David’s empty seat. Irritation flickered, but he said nothing about his absence. Jonathan relaxed and ate. David’s worries were unnecessary. Jonathan could hardly wait to tell him. Still, he should wait until tomorrow and see if the king said anything about David on the second day.

And the king did ask. “Why hasn’t the son of Jesse been here for the meal either yesterday or today?” Something in his father’s face made the sweat break out on the back of Jonathan’s neck when his father raised the question.

No. David cannot be right. Michal exaggerated. Father would not plot murder. He could not!

The room fell silent. Jonathan looked around at his relatives. “David earnestly asked me if he could go to Bethlehem.” He looked into his father’s eyes.
Don’t let it be true!
“He said, ‘Please let me go, for we are having a family sacrifice. My brother demanded that I be there. So please let me get away to see my brothers.’ That’s why he isn’t here at the king’s table.”

Saul’s eyes went black with malevolence. “You stupid son of a whore!”

Shocked, Jonathan stared speechless. And then a rush of anger spilled into his blood. His mother, a whore?

“Do you think I don’t know that you want him to be king in your place, shaming yourself and your mother?” Face florid, hands clenched white, Saul glared, a muscle twitching near his right eye.

It’s true! Everything David said is true! God, help us all!

“As long as that son of Jesse is alive, you’ll never be king.”

“It is not
my
kingship that worries you.”

“Now go and get him so I can kill him!”

Jonathan came to his feet. “But why should he be put to death? What has he done?”

Screaming in rage, Saul hurled the spear at Jonathan with all his might.

Jonathan barely avoided being pinned to the wall. Men scrambled. Servants fled. Relatives shouted. Stunned and furious, Jonathan rushed to the doorway. “Your struggle is not with David or me, Father. It is with the Lord our God!” He strode from the room, grinding his teeth in anger.

Storming into his house, he ordered the servants out, closed all the doors, and gave vent to his wrath. Holding his head, he screamed in frustration.
Am I becoming like my father? Lord, don’t let me become a captive of fear!
He longed to leave Gibeah. He wanted to get as far away from Saul as he could. How could he have been so wrong? Was it possible to spend so much time with a man and not know what went on in his mind?

What do I do now? What is right?

He moved near the lamp and took the Law from beneath his tunic.

God, help me. What am I to do?

“Be holy as I am holy. . . .”

How, Lord?
How could he get past words like
honor your father
. . . ?

How do I honor a man who plots murder, who grasps hold of power like a child holds on to a toy, who ignores the needs of his people to satisfy his own lusts for power and possessions. What happened to the father I knew, the man who didn’t want to be king?

“Show me the path, Lord! Help me!” His hands trembled as he read, for words he had loved to read now cut deep and made his soul bleed.

“Honor your father. . . .”

If he sided with David, he dishonored his father. If he sided with his father, he would sin against God. Honor. Truth.

I love them both!

His soul was in anguish.

You anointed my father king over Israel. But if You have chosen David now . . . which one do I serve, Lord
?

Serve Me.

Tears dripped onto the parchment. He carefully dried them so they would not smudge the Word of the Lord. He rolled the scroll up, tucked it into its casing, and slipped it back inside his tunic. Gathering his bow and arrows, he opened the door.

Ebenezer waited just outside. “I will go with you.”

“No.” Jonathan strode out the door. As he walked through Gibeah, young boys ran alongside him. He chose one young boy from among them to accompany him. “The rest of you, go back inside the gates.” He looked up at the watchman above him. The man gave a solemn nod.

They went out into the fields. “Start running, so you can find the arrows as I shoot them.”

“Yes, my lord.” The boy pranced with eagerness and then ran like a gazelle.

“The arrow is still ahead of you!” Jonathan called out. Had David heard him? Jonathan glanced back. What if his father had sent men to watch? They might capture David, and then his father would have innocent blood on his hands. “Hurry, hurry, don’t wait.”

The boy ran faster, gathering up the arrows and racing back.

Emotion filled Jonathan as he saw David’s head rise a little from the rocks where he hid. Would David trust him? Why should he trust anyone in Saul’s house? Jonathan slipped the arrows back into the quiver and handed it to the boy. He handed over his bow as well. “Go. Carry them back to town.” David could see now that he had no weapons. Jonathan walked slowly toward the stone pile.

David came out and dropped to his knees, bowing down three times with his face to the ground.

Jonathan’s throat closed. “Get up, David. I am not the king.” Jonathan embraced him. They kissed as brothers. Jonathan wept. How long before they saw one another again? before they could sit by lamplight and read the Law together?

“I know the truth now, David. God will help us both. It is not right that this has happened to you, but the Lord will bring good from it. I am convinced of that.”

David cried. “I can’t go to my wife. I can’t go home or Saul might think everyone in my family is his enemy. I can’t go to Samuel without risking his life. Where am I to go, Jonathan?”

Tears ran down Jonathan’s cheeks. “I don’t know, David. All I know is this: The Lord will not abandon you. Trust in the Lord!”

David sobbed.

Jonathan looked back toward Gibeah. There was no time. His father’s men might come at any minute.

What did the future hold?

Jonathan gripped David’s arms and gave him a gentle shake. “Go in peace, for we have sworn loyalty to each other in the Lord’s name. The Lord is the witness of a bond between us and our children forever.”

David looked bereft. His mouth worked, but no words came.

Jonathan fought against the shame that filled him. How could his father hate David? How could he not see the goodness in him, the desire to serve the Lord with gladness and fight beside his king? Did any man in Israel love the Lord as David did? Sorrow filled him.
“Go!”
He gave him a shove. “Go quickly, my friend, and may God go with you!”