Samuel & King Saul

Therefore deal kindly with your servant; for you have brought your servant into a covenant of the LORD with you: but if there is iniquity in me, kill me yourself; for why should you bring me to your father?”

Jonathan said, “Far be it from you; for if I should at all know that evil were determined by my father to come on you, then wouldn’t I tell you that?”

Then David said to Jonathan, “Who shall tell me if perchance your father answers you roughly?”

Jonathan said to David, “Come, and let us go out into the field.” They both went out into the field.

Jonathan said to David, “By the LORD, the God of Israel, when I have sounded my father about this time tomorrow, or the third day, behold, if there is good toward David, shall I not then send to you, and disclose it to you?

The LORD do so to Jonathan, and more also, should it please my father to do you evil, if I don’t disclose it to you, and send you away, that you may go in peace: and the LORD be with you, as he has been with my father.

You shall not only while yet I live show me the loving kindness of the LORD, that I not die;

but also you shall not cut off your kindness from my house forever; no, not when the LORD has cut off the enemies of David everyone from the surface of the earth.”

So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “The LORD will require it at the hand of David’s enemies.”

Jonathan caused David to swear again, for the love that he had to him; for he loved him as he loved his own soul.

Then Jonathan said to him, “Tomorrow is the new moon: and you will be missed, because your seat will be empty.

When you have stayed three days, you shall go down quickly, and come to the place where you hid yourself when this started, and shall remain by the stone Ezel.

I will shoot three arrows on its side, as though I shot at a mark.

Behold, I will send the boy, saying, ‘Go, find the arrows!’ If I tell the boy, ‘Behold, the arrows are on this side of you. Take them;’ then come; for there is peace to you and no hurt, as the LORD lives.

But if I say this to the boy, ‘Behold, the arrows are beyond you;’ then go your way; for the LORD has sent you away.

Concerning the matter which you and I have spoken of, behold, the LORD is between you and me forever.”

So David hid himself in the field: and when the new moon had come, the king sat him down to eat food.

The king sat on his seat, as at other times, even on the seat by the wall; and Jonathan stood up, and Abner sat by Saul’s side: but David’s place was empty.

Nevertheless Saul didn’t say anything that day: for he thought, “Something has happened to him. He is not clean. Surely he is not clean.”

On the next day after the new moon, the second day, David’s place was empty. Saul said to Jonathan his son, “Why doesn’t the son of Jesse come to eat, neither yesterday, nor today?”

Jonathan answered Saul, “David earnestly asked leave of me to go to Bethlehem.

He said, ‘Please let me go, for our family has a sacrifice in the city. My brother has commanded me to be there. Now, if I have found favor in your eyes, please let me go away and see my brothers.’ Therefore he has not come to the king’s table.”

Then Saul’s anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said to him, “You son of a perverse rebellious woman, don’t I know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?

For as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, you shall not be established, nor your kingdom. Therefore now send and bring him to me, for he shall surely die!”

Jonathan answered Saul his father, and said to him, “Why should he be put to death? What has he done?”