May 11, 2015
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Misunderstood Loyalty

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Opening Prayer

Lord, help me to take You seriously so that my worship will be acceptable and You will be glorified.

Read 2 Samuel 1:1-16

[1] After the death of Saul, David returned from striking down the Amalekites and stayed in Ziklag two days. [2] On the third day a man arrived from Saul’s camp with his clothes torn and dust on his head. When he came to David, he fell to the ground to pay him honor. [3] “Where have you come from?” David asked him. He answered, “I have escaped from the Israelite camp.” [4] “What happened?” David asked. “Tell me.” “The men fled from the battle,” he replied. “Many of them fell and died. And Saul and his son Jonathan are dead.” [5] Then David said to the young man who brought him the report, “How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan are dead?” [6] “I happened to be on Mount Gilboa,” the young man said, “and there was Saul, leaning on his spear, with the chariots and their drivers in hot pursuit. [7] When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me, and I said, ‘What can I do?’ [8] “He asked me, ‘Who are you?’ “‘An Amalekite,’ I answered. [9] “Then he said to me, ‘Stand here by me and kill me! I’m in the throes of death, but I’m still alive.’ [10] “So I stood beside him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive. And I took the crown that was on his head and the band on his arm and have brought them here to my lord.” [11] Then David and all the men with him took hold of their clothes and tore them. [12] They mourned and wept and fasted till evening for Saul and his son Jonathan, and for the army of the LORD and for the nation of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword. [13] David said to the young man who brought him the report, “Where are you from?” “I am the son of a foreigner, an Amalekite,” he answered. [14] David asked him, “Why weren’t you afraid to lift your hand to destroy the LORD’s anointed?” [15] Then David called one of his men and said, “Go, strike him down!” So he struck him down, and he died. [16] For David had said to him, “Your blood be on your own head. Your own mouth testified against you when you said, ‘I killed the LORD’s anointed.'”

Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reflect

The motives of the Amalekite is not the focus here. The main point is the nature of Saul’s death, in tragic circumstances, in battle, at the end of a life that promised much but delivered little. A cautionary tale.

We can only imagine the Amalekite’s horror when he realized what he had done. He intended to win favor with the new ruler of his national enemies. Instead, he discovered that he had killed “the Lord’s anointed” (14), an act David viewed as the highest form of spiritual treason. We cannot blame an Amalekite for not knowing Israel’s view of its leaders. David’s view of Saul was unconditional loyalty. Nothing that Saul could have done would change David’s commitment to Saul.

How had Saul mistreated David? Saul had publicly declared David to be his enemy (1 Sam. 19:17). He had given David’s wife Michal (also Saul’s daughter) to another man (1 Sam. 18:44). Saul once hurled a spear at David intending to kill him while David played his harp for Saul, trying to soothe Saul’s uncontrollable anger (1 Sam. 19:9-10). He even tried to turn his son, David’s closest friend, Jonathan, against David (1 Sam. 20). For years, Saul hunted David like an animal in the Judean wilderness, trying to kill him. By contrast, David repeatedly spared Saul’s life, even when others wanted David to kill Saul (1 Sam. 24:3-7). In every imaginable way, Saul was disloyal to David. But David believed that God would honor his loyalty to the Lord’s anointed simply because David’s loyalty was to the Lord who anointed Saul, king of Judah. The Amalekite whom David killed did not understand that commitment.

People will misunderstand our loyalty to the Lord and to others who serve him. For example, unbelievers struggle to understand why their family member who has just become a Christian spends so much time in church and likes to be with Christian friends and fellow church members. This kind of loyalty is hard for non-Christians to understand. Like David, we may suffer for these types of misunderstandings.

Apply

Ask yourself what loyalty to the Lord means to the commitments you have with family, friends, and others in your life.

Closing prayer

Father, please help me understand what it means to be loyal to You in my relationships with other people.

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