The Prince: Jonathan (5 page)

“Someone is coming!” the watchman called out. Jonathan ran to the gate of the city, where his grandfather and uncles had been holding court. Strangers appeared, stumbling with exhaustion, dust covered, faces streaming sweat. Jonathan pressed through the crowd to hear.

“We come from Jabesh-gilead . . .” The city, belonging to the tribe of Manasseh, lay east of the Jordan River, south of the Sea of Galilee in Manasseh’s territory. “. . . to ask the king what we must do.”

“Give our brothers water.” Kish waved his hand. “Quickly, so they can tell us what’s happened!”

Warriors gathered as the panting messengers grasped wooden cups and gulped water. “Nahash,” one managed before draining another cup. People whispered among themselves: “The snake!” Everyone had heard of the Ammonite king and feared invasion. Refreshed, the messenger addressed Kish and the other city leaders. “Nahash has besieged us. The elders pleaded for a treaty with him, and promised to be his servants, but he said he will only agree if he gouges out the right eye of every man in the city as a disgrace to all Israel!”

If Nahash got his way, Jabesh-gilead would be defenseless for years to come, and an open doorway to the territory of the other tribes of Israel.

Men wailed and tore their clothing. “God has forsaken us!”

Women screamed and wept.

Jonathan saw his father returning with the oxen and ran out to meet him. Saul looked past him at the wailing mob. “What’s the matter? Why is everyone crying?”

So they told him about the message from Jabesh. “The snake has laid siege to Jabesh-gilead.” One of the messengers had told Saul everything by the time Abner and Kish came toward them.

Saul spread his arms wide and made a sound unlike anything Jonathan had ever heard from any man before. Terrified, he drew back from his father. The people stared and fell silent. Saul’s roar made the hair on Jonathan’s neck stand on end.

Face fiery red, eyes blazing, Saul threw the yoke off his oxen. He strode to a man who had been chopping wood and took his ax, then cried out as he raised it and brought it down on the lead ox. The animal dropped and jerked with death throes while Saul moved to the second and killed it as well. No one moved; no one uttered a sound as the king of Israel kept swinging that ax until he had dismembered his oxen.

Tunic soaked in blood, ax still in hand, Saul faced the people. Children ducked behind their mothers. Men drew back, even Kish, who stared, white-faced.

“Send out messengers!” King Saul buried his ax in the severed head of the lead ox. He pointed to the carcasses. “This is what will happen to the oxen of anyone who refuses to follow Saul and Samuel into battle!
We muster at Bezek
!”

Grinning, Abner turned and shouted eleven names, ordering them to spread the word. “And tell them a king rules in Israel!”

Jonathan still stared at his father, convinced he had heard the voice of God come out of him. “King Saul!” he shouted, raising his fists in the air. “King Saul!”

Every warrior raised his hands and shouted with him.

Three hundred thousand Hebrews came to Bezek, thirty thousand more from the tribe of Judah. Even those who had turned their backs on Saul and mocked him now waited eagerly for his command! The prophet Samuel stood at Saul’s right hand, Jonathan to his left.

Saul spoke to his officers. “Where are the messengers from Jabesh-gilead?”

The question was shouted. Men pressed forward, separating themselves from the throng of warriors. “Here, my lord!”

“Return to your city and say, ‘We will rescue you by noontime tomorrow!’ Tell the elders to say to the Ammonites that the city will surrender and Nahash can do whatever seems best.” He laughed coldly. The Ammonites did not know the king of Israel had mustered an army. “They will return to their camp and celebrate. It will be the last time, for at the last night watch, we attack!”

Men raised their spears and clubs and cheered. Jonathan grinned in pride. No one doubted his father was king now! Let the enemies of Israel see God’s chosen in battle!

“Abner!” Saul beckoned.

“Yes, my lord!”

“Separate the men into three divisions. If one division is destroyed, there will be two others to continue fighting. If two fall, one will be left.” Each commander knew the route he was to take.

Where did his father come by such knowledge and confidence? It could only come from the Lord God!

Samuel stretched out his arms before the fighting men. “May the God of our fathers go out before you!”

Jonathan stayed at his father’s side as they marched by night the seventeen miles down the mountains and across the Jordan River. Fear tightened his belly, but he let no one know. When the army came near the Ammonite camp, all was quiet, the guards asleep at their posts.

“Now!”
Saul commanded. Jonathan and several others raised the rams’ horns and blew. Israel’s war cry rose to the heavens.

Saul held his sword high. There were only two in all Israel. Jonathan drew the other and raised it. Shouting, the thousands ran full out toward the Ammonite camp where confusion reigned.

When three Ammonites rose up to attack his father, rage fired Jonathan’s blood. He cut down one and sliced through another. His father killed the third. Excitement flooded Jonathan’s blood.

Jonathan’s strength held all morning as he protected his father. Any man who dared try to reach the king of Israel died. By the time the sun was overhead, Nahash and his army lay slaughtered upon the field. Screams from the dying were silenced. The few who survived had scattered before the scourging fire of the Lord.

Thrusting his bloody sword into the air, Jonathan shouted in victory.
“For the Lord and Saul!”

Others joined in his ecstatic praise.

But the bloodlust of killing Ammonites darkened and turned on those who had mocked Saul the day Samuel declared him king. The Benjaminites shouted, “Now where are those men who said, ‘Why should Saul rule over us?’ Bring them here, and we will kill them!”

Men who had fought side by side against the Ammonites now turned on one another, voices raised.

Jonathan remembered the Law he had written. “Father!” He had to shout to be heard. “We are brothers, sons of Jacob!”

Saul pulled him back from the fray and cried out, “No one will be executed today!” The throng quieted. Saul looked at Kish and the others and raised his voice for all to hear. “For today
the Lord has rescued Israel
!”

Samuel raised his staff. “Come, let us all go to Gilgal to renew the kingdom.”

“To Gilgal!” men shouted. “To Gilgal!”

Jonathan’s heart beat with a fear deeper than what he had felt in battle against the Ammonites. These men who turned so swiftly against one another might just as quickly turn against his father. He stayed close to Saul.

The throng of fighting men moved like a giant flock across the hillsides. For years, they had bunched together in small pockets of discontent, bleating in fear and uncertainty, ignoring the voice of the Shepherd, and looking about for one of their own to lead the way. Now, they followed Saul.

Saul had proven himself today, but Jonathan knew his father would have to continue to prove himself over and over again or these men would scatter once more.

God’s people were like sheep, but today Jonathan had seen how quickly they could turn into wolves.

Gilgal! Jonathan drank in the sight, remembering the history he had written and now wore around his neck. The children of Israel had crossed the Jordan River and entered the Promised Land here. It was on this plain they had first camped and then renewed their covenant with God. It was here the Angel of the Lord had appeared to Joshua and given him the battle plan to take Jericho, the gateway to Canaan.

What better place for his father to be reaffirmed king of Israel! After years of every man living in fear and doing what was right in his own eyes, God had given them a king to unite them!

May You instruct Saul and bless all Israel, O Lord!

Samuel stood at the monument of twelve stones the tribes had brought from the River Jordan to commemorate their crossing over. A sea of warriors stood silent as the old prophet—bent in frame, but still quick in mind and the Spirit of the Lord—spoke.

“I have done as you asked and given you a king. Your king is now your leader. I stand here before you—an old, gray-haired man—and my sons serve you.”

Despised by all
.

“Here I stand!” Samuel held his arms outstretched. “I have served as your leader from the time I was a boy to this very day. Now testify against me in the presence of the Lord and before His anointed one. Whose ox or donkey have I stolen? Have I ever cheated any of you? Have I ever oppressed you? Have I ever taken a bribe and perverted justice? Tell me and I will make right whatever I have done wrong.”

Jonathan felt tears well at the pain in Samuel’s voice. All because his sons had brought shame upon his house.
Lord, let me never bring shame upon my father! Let my actions be honorable
.

He stepped forward, unable to bear the pain he saw in Samuel’s face. “You have not cheated us, Abba.” His voice broke.

Samuel looked at Jonathan.

The people spoke, calling out here and there. “No! You have never cheated or oppressed us, and you have never taken even a single bribe.”

Tears streamed down Samuel’s cheeks. He turned to Saul. “The Lord and His anointed one are my witnesses today, that my hands are clean.” His voice was harsh with pent-up emotion.

“I am witness.” Saul bowed his head in respect.

“He is witness! The king is witness!”

“God is witness!” Jonathan cried out.

Samuel’s voice steadied when he spoke of Moses and Aaron and the forefathers of all present who had come out of Egypt. His voice filled with sorrow when he spoke of their sins in serving the baals and ashtoreths of the Canaanites rather than the Lord their God who had performed signs and wonders and delivered them from Egypt. The people had forgotten the Lord! And the Lord gave them into the hands of their enemies! Over the years, when they cried out and repented, the Lord sent deliverers—Gideon and Barak, Jephthah and Samson—to rescue them from the hands of evildoers.

“But when you were afraid of Nahash, the king of Ammon, you came to me and said that you wanted a king to reign over you, even though the Lord your God was already your king.”

Jonathan hung his head. Had he once given thought to what it meant for God to withdraw from His people so that men could rule themselves?
He calls us His children and we have rejected Him.
Jonathan’s throat closed tightly.
Lord!
Let me never forget that You are my king.

Samuel pointed. “All right, here is the king you have chosen. You asked for him, and the Lord has granted your request!”

Jonathan looked up at his father. Saul stood, head high, and looked out over the tribes of Israel. He was no longer the frightened man who had hidden in the baggage. His face was fierce, challenging. The Law felt heavy against Jonathan’s chest.

“Now if you fear and worship the Lord and listen to His voice, and if you do not rebel against the Lord’s commands, then both you and your king will show that you recognize the Lord as your God. But if you rebel against the Lord’s commands and refuse to listen to Him, then His hand will be as heavy upon you as it was upon your ancestors!”

Jonathan put his hand over his heart, feeling the Law encased there.
Mercy, Lord. Have mercy upon us!

“Now—” Samuel’s voice deepened—“stand here and see the great thing the Lord is about to do. You know that it does not rain at this time of the year during the wheat harvest. I will ask the Lord to send thunder and rain today. Then you will realize how wicked you have been in asking the Lord for a king!”

People murmured and shifted nervously. If God sent rain now, the crops would be ruined. Jonathan studied the sky. Clouds were forming; already the sky was darkening.

Saul groaned.

Jonathan knew all his father’s hard work would gain him nothing. He shut his eyes.
Lord, we have sinned! I love my father, but we have all done an evil thing in asking for a king. Forgive us
.