I Samuel 20, Arrows in a Field

Erratic Saul has tried several times to kill David.

I Samuel 20: 1-4, "A step from death"

Then David fled from Naioth at Ramah and went to Jonathan and asked, "What have I done? What is my crime? How have I wronged your father, that he is trying to take my life?"

"Never!" Jonathan replied. "You are not going to die! Look, my father doesn't do anything, great or small, without confiding in me. Why would he hide this from me? It's not so!"

But David took an oath and said, "Your father knows very well that I have found favor in your eyes, and he has said to himself, `Jonathan must not know this or he will be grieved.' Yet as surely as the LORD lives and as you live, there is only a step between me and death."

Jonathan said to David, "Whatever you want me to do, I'll do for you."

David is frustrated by Saul's erratic behavior and attempts to kill him.  Jonathan is skeptical that his father will kill David but agrees to help.

I Samuel 20: 5-11, "A step from death"

So David said, "Look, tomorrow is the New Moon festival, and I am supposed to dine with the king; but let me go and hide in the field until the evening of the day after tomorrow. If your father misses me at all, tell him, `David earnestly asked my permission to hurry to Bethlehem, his hometown, because an annual sacrifice is being made there for his whole clan.'

If he says, `Very well,' then your servant is safe. But if he loses his temper, you can be sure that he is determined to harm me. 

As for you, show kindness to your servant, for you have brought him into a covenant with you before the LORD. If I am guilty, then kill me yourself! Why hand me over to your father?"

"Never!" Jonathan said. "If I had the least inkling that my father was determined to harm you, wouldn't I tell you?"

David asked, "Who will tell me if your father answers you harshly?"

"Come," Jonathan said, "let's go out into the field." So they went there together.

Jonathan assures David of his commitment to protecting David.  Jonathan hatches a plan, a code, in order to communicate Saul's current mood to David.

I Samuel 20: 12-17, A covenant

Then Jonathan said to David: "By the LORD, the God of Israel, I will surely sound out my father by this time the day after tomorrow! If he is favorably disposed toward you, will I not send you word and let you know? But if my father is inclined to harm you, may the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if I do not let you know and send you away safely. 

May the LORD be with you as he has been with my father. But show me unfailing kindness like that of the LORD as long as I live, so that I may not be killed, and do not ever cut off your kindness from my family--not even when the LORD has cut off every one of David's enemies from the face of the earth."

So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, "May the LORD call David's enemies to account." And Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself.

The two friends express their commitment to each other. Jonathan, aware of David's increasing rise in fortune, asks David to protect his family.

I Samuel 20: 18-23, "Come here/go away"

Then Jonathan said to David: "Tomorrow is the New Moon festival. You will be missed, because your seat will be empty. The day after tomorrow, toward evening, go to the place where you hid when this trouble began, and wait by the stone Ezel. I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target.

Then I will send a boy and say, `Go, find the arrows.' If I say to him, `Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them here,' then come, because, as surely as the LORD lives, you are safe; there is no danger.

But if I say to the boy, `Look, the arrows are beyond you,' then you must go, because the LORD has sent you away. And about the matter you and I discussed--remember, the LORD is witness between you and me forever."

Jonathan's plan is a simple one and easy to remember.  "If I say to the boy, 'come back my way', then you are to come back.  But if I say, 'Go away further' then you are to go away."

I Samuel 20: 24-29, David is missed

So David hid in the field, and when the New Moon festival came, the king sat down to eat. He sat in his customary place by the wall, opposite Jonathan, and Abner sat next to Saul, but David's place was empty.

Saul said nothing that day, for he thought, "Something must have happened to David to make him ceremonially unclean--surely he is unclean." But the next day, the second day of the month, David's place was empty again. Then Saul said to his son Jonathan, "Why hasn't the son of Jesse come to the meal, either yesterday or today?"

Jonathan answered, "David earnestly asked me for permission to go to Bethlehem. He said, `Let me go, because our family is observing a sacrifice in the town and my brother has ordered me to be there. If I have found favor in your eyes, let me get away to see my brothers.' That is why he has not come to the king's table."

When the king has his evening meal, the attendants join him. Some type of uncleanness is suggested for the first absence but Saul finally asks after the second absence.

I Samuel 20: 30-34, Anger

Saul's anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, "You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don't I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you? As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. Now send and bring him to me, for he must die!"

"Why should he be put to death? What has he done?" Jonathan asked his father.

But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father intended to kill David.

Jonathan got up from the table in fierce anger; on that second day of the month he did not eat, because he was grieved at his father's shameful treatment of David.

 

Saul is angry. He makes accusations against Jonathan's mother in his anger and throws a spear at Jonathan.  Jonathan's questions are appropriate but do nothing to calm his father down.

In Saul's attack on Jonathan, he makes derogatory statements about Jonathan's mother. The phrase translated "shame of the mother who bore you" in the NIV is literally "shame of your mother's nakedness." (See this interlinear text.) Insulting a man by making an abusive statement about his mother is a human practice that is at least three thousand years old!

I Samuel 20: 35-40, "Beyond you!"

In the morning Jonathan went out to the field for his meeting with David. He had a small boy with him,

and he said to the boy, "Run and find the arrows I shoot." As the boy ran, he shot an arrow beyond him. When the boy came to the place where Jonathan's arrow had fallen, Jonathan called out after him, "Isn't the arrow beyond you?" Then he shouted, "Hurry! Go quickly! Don't stop!" The boy picked up the arrow and returned to his master. (The boy knew nothing of all this; only Jonathan and David knew.) 

Then Jonathan gave his weapons to the boy and said, "Go, carry them back to town."

Jonathan has signaled that David is to leave. But Jonathan has an opportunity to send the boy away and does so. This leaves Jonathan free to meet briefly with David.

I Samuel 20: 41-42, Friends embrace

After the boy had gone, David got up from the south side [of the stone] and bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground. Then they kissed each other and wept together--but David wept the most.

Jonathan said to David, "Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the LORD, saying, `The LORD is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.'" Then David left, and Jonathan went back to the town.

Two friends embrace and part. Both have pushed Israel, under Saul, to greatness, but Saul's reign (and possibly his mind) are decaying.

David and Jonathan will meet one more time.