Context & Key Themes
1 Samuel 19 is the chapter where the violence Saul has been suppressing finally breaks into the open. He tells Jonathan and his servants to kill David. He tries to pin David to the wall with a spear — again. Michal lowers David out a window at night. When Saul’s messengers come for David at Ramah, the Spirit of God stops them cold — three times. Saul himself goes, and the same thing happens to him. He lies stripped of his clothing prophesying for a day and a night. The chapter is a portrait of a king coming apart at the seams, and of God protecting his anointed through the very people and forces that surround Saul’s own household.
Key Verse
“Then the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied.”
— 1 Samuel 19:20
Summary
Saul tells Jonathan and all his servants to kill David. Jonathan warns David and then speaks to Saul on his behalf, reminding him that David has done nothing but good, that it was David who risked his life to strike down Goliath and the Lord worked a great salvation for all Israel. Saul listens and swears by the Lord that David will not be put to death. David returns to Saul’s service. But when the harmful spirit comes again and David plays, Saul hurls his spear at David a third time. David flees. Saul sends messengers to his house to watch him and kill him in the morning. Michal warns David and lets him down through a window, then puts a household idol in the bed with goat’s hair at its head to delay discovery.
David flees to Samuel at Ramah. Saul sends messengers to take him. When they arrive where Samuel and the prophets are, the Spirit of God falls on them and they prophesy. Saul sends a second group. Same thing. A third group. Same thing. Saul goes himself. The Spirit of God falls on him too, and he prophesies before Samuel and strips off his clothes and lies naked before Samuel all that day and night. Hence the saying: is Saul also among the prophets?
Reflection
Jonathan’s intercession in the opening of the chapter is a model of loyal truth-telling. He does not flatter Saul or tell him what he wants to hear. He reminds him of the actual record: David has not sinned against you, David risked his life, David brought a great victory. He makes the case on the merits. And for a moment it works — Saul relents. The tragedy is that the relenting never holds, because the fear that drives the violence is not addressed by the argument. Jonathan is speaking to Saul’s reason while the problem lives somewhere deeper.
The Ramah scene is one of the stranger passages in the entire Old Testament. Three sets of messengers sent to arrest David, all of them undone by the Spirit before they can reach him. Then Saul himself, perhaps the most hostile to David of anyone, falls under the same Spirit and cannot function as king for a day and a night. God does not debate with Saul’s murderous intentions. He simply overwhelms them. The irony is that Saul, of all people, was once among the prophets himself — the Spirit that used to rush upon him is now being used as a wall between him and the man he is trying to kill. The mercy that once commissioned him has become the mercy that restrains him.