Descent into Darkness
Opening Prayer
Father of Lights, continue to shine the light of Your truth on all that I do.
Read 1 Samuel 19:1–24
Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to kill David. But Jonathan had taken a great liking to David 2 and warned him, “My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there. 3 I will go out and stand with my father in the field where you are. I’ll speak to him about you and will tell you what I find out.”
4 Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father and said to him, “Let not the king do wrong to his servant David; he has not wronged you, and what he has done has benefited you greatly. 5 He took his life in his hands when he killed the Philistine. The Lord won a great victory for all Israel, and you saw it and were glad. Why then would you do wrong to an innocent man like David by killing him for no reason?”
6 Saul listened to Jonathan and took this oath: “As surely as the Lord lives, David will not be put to death.”
7 So Jonathan called David and told him the whole conversation. He brought him to Saul, and David was with Saul as before.
8 Once more war broke out, and David went out and fought the Philistines. He struck them with such force that they fled before him.
9 But an evil spirit from the Lord came on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the lyre, 10 Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape.
11 Saul sent men to David’s house to watch it and to kill him in the morning. But Michal, David’s wife, warned him, “If you don’t run for your life tonight, tomorrow you’ll be killed.” 12 So Michal let David down through a window, and he fled and escaped. 13 Then Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed, covering it with a garment and putting some goats’ hair at the head.
14 When Saul sent the men to capture David, Michal said, “He is ill.”
15 Then Saul sent the men back to see David and told them, “Bring him up to me in his bed so that I may kill him.” 16 But when the men entered, there was the idol in the bed, and at the head was some goats’ hair.
17 Saul said to Michal, “Why did you deceive me like this and send my enemy away so that he escaped?”
Michal told him, “He said to me, ‘Let me get away. Why should I kill you?’”
18 When David had fled and made his escape, he went to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. Then he and Samuel went to Naioth and stayed there. 19 Word came to Saul: “David is in Naioth at Ramah”; 20 so he sent men to capture him. But when they saw a group of prophets prophesying, with Samuel standing there as their leader, the Spirit of God came on Saul’s men, and they also prophesied. 21 Saul was told about it, and he sent more men, and they prophesied too. Saul sent men a third time, and they also prophesied. 22 Finally, he himself left for Ramah and went to the great cistern at Seku. And he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?”
“Over in Naioth at Ramah,” they said.
23 So Saul went to Naioth at Ramah. But the Spirit of God came even on him, and he walked along prophesying until he came to Naioth. 24 He stripped off his garments, and he too prophesied in Samuel’s presence. He lay naked all that day and all that night. This is why people say, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
“Breathe on me, breath of God, / fill me with life anew, / that I may love what thou dost love, / and do what thou wouldst do” (Edwin Hatch, 1835–1889).
Think Further
Here begins the eventual undoing of King Saul: what began as jealousy at David’s success ends up as madness and murder. Harboring our own petty thoughts and actions allows evil to flourish and puts us at risk of going down Saul’s path. Saul was not an innately bad person whose evil nature emerged when in power. He had his flaws, and he initially seemed to be a good man who meant well. Few people who descend into rage and violence begin that way. God may have rejected Saul as king, but God did not reject him as a man. Like Jonathan, he could have accepted that the throne would pass to David, the man he once loved.
Again we encounter the ominous reference to the evil spirit from the Lord, the ancient affirmation that God is the ultimate source of everything. The gospel writers do not attribute evil spirits to God (although, incidentally, the evil spirits recognized Jesus). Rather, they saw them as emissaries of Satan—but ultimately Satan, too, is a created being. Our text also describes Saul’s nakedly human motives of anger, jealousy and self-interest. These are not the Lord’s doing.
We come finally to the strange episode of Saul and the prophets. Not all prophets were fearless representatives of God. Not all foresaw the future. Ancient Israel tolerated the prophetic cult, people characterized by ecstatic frenzy. While these trances were understood as in some way spiritual, they are not to be compared with speaking in tongues in the New Testament as a gift of the Holy Spirit. Saul found himself caught up in this incoherent trance. Whatever its origin, it leaves him naked, prostrate, humiliated and powerless. We will learn more of his life before his eventual suicide, but he has already approached the dark hole from which he will never emerge.
Apply
Each of us harbors the potential to do what will eventuate in our spiritual harm. As Paul well stated: “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.” Consider where you need healing and cleansing.
Closing prayer
Help us, O God, to control our hearts and minds, to dwell only on those things which lead to Christlikeness—all that is good, clean, wholesome, kind and selfless.
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