1 Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 2 Saul took him that day, and would not let him go home to his father's house anymore. 3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. 4 And Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt. 5 So David went out wherever Saul sent him, and behaved wisely. And Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. 6 Now it had happened as they were coming home, when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women had come out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with musical instruments. 7 So the women sang as they danced, and said: "Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands." 8 Then Saul was very angry, and the saying displeased him; and he said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed only thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?" 9 So Saul eyed David from that day forward.
Jonathan’s Soul Bound to David (vv. 1-4)
Four Marks of Jonathan’s Friendship with David
Jonathan was a brave man. He had already attacked the Philistine garrison. But he was stunned by what he had just witnessed. And then he heard David talking with his father -- what sweetness and modesty! He had slain Israel’s foe, but he was a humble youth, without vanity or pride. Jonathan was attracted to David’s all-consuming faith, his faith that saw God as far greater than any earthly giant. Jonathan heard David’s zeal for the Lord – something tragically lacking in his own father and upbringing. Seeing and hearing, Jonathan’s soul was knit to David’s soul – like Ruth to Naomi, John to our Lord. David knew God like Jonathan wanted to know God, and Jonathan loved David. Such friendships between men were once more common and valued than today. There was nothing impure in them, and only the impure look for impurity in them. Jonathan was utterly captivated by David’s bravery and modesty, his almost other-worldly vision of God, and his zeal for God’s glory. David led Jonathan to know the Lord in ways he had not known him before. Jonathan, for his part, also saw David for what he was, and anticipated his destiny – to be Israel’s next king.
And this means that Jonathan had the most to lose and the least to gain from a friendship with David. A true friend does not count the cost but is like the Lord Jesus. Jonathan removed his royal clothing and insignia. He gave them to David. Never was a friend more humble. Jonathan is an echo of John: “David must increase, but I must decrease.” Jonathan gave up his kingdom for David, a lad just lately removed from the sheepfold. But love gives all. The love of true friendship rejoices when someone beneath us is promoted above us. Friends are thankful to give way to someone whom the Lord wants ahead of us. Friends improve and promote each other, even at their own expense and loss. Let us endeavor to be kind like Jonathan. Stand ready to serve; seek nothing for yourself. Love and empty yourself out for the good of those around you. Live in communion with Christ, and he will strengthen you to be this kind of friend, the kind of friend he is to you.
Four Gifts of God in Jonathan’s Friendship with David
One way the Lord shows himself to be a faithful friend to his people is to give us faithful friends. Jonathan’s friendship and support delighted David’s soul. He would not have Jonathan forever, but at that point in his life, he would have been very lonely had not the Lord raised up Jonathan in his life. In Jonathan, the Lord showed David true humility and selflessness. David needed this to be a king after the Lord’s heart. And what a contrast Jonathan’s noble nature and humble character was to Saul’s selfish moroseness and violent jealousy. David needed to see that being a king or having heavy responsibilities need not ruin a man, if he has the Lord. Jonathan was a kindly, giving prince. The Lord also gave David such a good friend because the coming trials would be heavy in his life. Until his death, Jonathan was one of David’s greatest supports. The Lord is working great good for us before we know we need it.
By Jonathan giving up even his royal insignia to David, he learned the beauty of submission to God’s providences. Jonathan gave up everything for David, and so great was Jonathan’s love for David, he did not feel any loss. This is like our Savior. It is like the love he works in us for each other – not cost-counting, but freely giving, not demanding elevation, but giving way to the Lord’s providences. He exalts and lowers. He is a good friend to teach us to accept this joyfully. When He gives a good friend like Jonathan, who lowers himself to raise us up, then he is showing himself to us. He is recalibrating our soul away from self and pride, toward his cross and self-denial. Let us labor to be like this toward one another – living pictures of Jesus Christ’s lowliness, meekness, and delight in seeing us raised up, even when it cost him everything.
David’s Success and Saul’s Envy (vv. 5-9)
David’s Elevation: Sudden, Dangerous, Preparatory
Saul did not allow David to return to the sheepfold. He became the leader not of the regular army, for Abner was the general, but of Saul’s bodyguard. The people and Saul’s servants recognized David’s position and godly character. He “behaved himself wisely.” He did not allow sudden elevation to ruin him. He did not forget his humble origins. He continued to trust the Lord. He remembered that honor, like riches, “make themselves wings, and fly away” (Prov. 23:5). Elevation is not for oneself but for the greater glory of God and good of his people. David’s victory and position did not alter him, even when the women began celebrating his victories. They sang of Saul first, so their honoring of David was not an insult to Saul. Even if the number is literal and not hyperbole, David’s victories were for Saul and Israel. Jonathan gave David everything, but Saul was angry if David received anything. As beautiful as was Jonathan’s friendship with David, Saul’s kingship over David was ugly.
This was not David’s fault. God-forsaken souls, small souls, envious souls cannot endure the elevation of others, especially those closest to them. If a man does not know the Lord, he does not reverence him, and he therefore cannot be content to see another raised up at his expense. David did reverence the Lord, and he therefore rejoiced in the Lord’s goodness to him. He used his position not to aggrandize himself but to serve the Lord’s people. We learn in David that godly men may be tempted by sudden elevation, but they are motivated by God’s goodness to serve him more faithfully. His grace humbly received does not degenerate into presumption but feeds faithfulness. Faith holds the soul’s rudder and keeps pride down. Faith receives God’s gifts and loves him more. False friends chafe over what they are not given. David was content to be a shepherd; Saul was not content to be a king. God’s grace makes all the difference in our lives. David’s elevation prepared him for the day when he would be king; Saul’s jealousy consumed his few remaining years as king.
Saul’s Anger: Jealous, Godless, Deadly
Do not think of the prosperity of others as a threat to you, or their advancement as an insult. Saul viewed any praise to David as praise taken away from him. How far Saul has fallen – from hiding in the baggage to anger when others are praised! His elevation has altered him. It ruined him. He was not a man after God’s own heart. His heart was consumed with jealousy, and he assumed David’s heart was like his – that David was actually trying to take away his kingdom. Some men are quick to suspect others of being ruled by the same passions as they are. Jealousy and envy, in Saul’s heart and ours, is one of the worst forms of practical atheism. It ignores that “what do you have, that you have not received” (1 Cor. 4:7). If we differ from one another in gifts or eminence, advancement or obscurity, the Lord is the author of these things. He makes us to differ from one another. Those with more of anything should give more thanks and serve more selflessly. Those with less of anything should bless God for what he has given them and use it to their utmost to serve the Lord. Jealousy and envy ignore and disdain our Father’s wise providence in the specifics of our lives – personal gifts, wealth, time, fame. Saul was so consumed by his envious heart that he was determined to kill David. In his case, “who can stand before envy” was far more than hyperbole. He will spend the next ten years trying to kill David and keep for himself what the Lord already told him was no longer his.
How did Saul arrive at this place of such fear and jealously that he wanted to kill the young man who had slain Goliath? Disobedience. Why was he so consumed with himself that he could not delight in the praise of another? Forsaken. His afflictions did not result in repentance, and Saul was exposed as a false son of the kingdom. The Lord forsook him. If the Lord forsakes us, we are doomed. This is tragically similar to our national situation. We want the blessings of prosperity and liberty that previous generations bequeathed to us. But as a nation, the God of our fathers has forsaken us. We have broken all our covenants with him, and now we wonder why the nation is given over to hate, the politics of guilt and envy, and the rage of sodomy. The Lord has forsaken us – not his church. Never his church. But as a nation, the only blessings we retain are those common to God’s enemies and those the Lord gives for the sake of his people here. Otherwise, we are forsaken. When we will not have the Lord Jesus to rule over us, we will be ruled and destroyed by our passions. This is our nation – desperately craving national blessing but rejecting the only Lord and Savior who gives it.
Christ a Greater Friend than Jonathan…and Our Friendships
Christ Gave All to Us…and Became Nothing for Us
Those who know and love the Lord Jesus have a far greater friend than we can know. Like Jonathan, he gave everything for us. He emptied himself of his insignia as the Son of God, and he became a servant. But he went far lower than Jonathan. Our Savior took the hell of our judgment upon himself, became a curse and sin for us. He became a worm and no man, less than nothing. You may not feel like you have a friend in the world. You may be facing Goliaths of your own, troubles of such magnitude that you do not know which way to turn. Remember you have a Friend. Every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has the greatest friend: exalted, glorious, full of power and grace, kind and faithful. When Jonathan took off his robes and replaced David’s shepherd clothes, the Holy Spirit was showing us what our Lord Jesus did for us. He took off all his dignity, and he gave it to us. He took off all his righteousness, and he gave it to us. For a while, he took off all the outward glory of his eternal Sonship, and he gave sonship to us. He left his throne of glory and entered our pit to raise us up to glory.
We cannot grasp how much the Son of God has given to us, how much he loves us, what he has done for us. Are you discouraged? Remember that Jesus Christ is your greater Jonathan, and his heart is full of sympathy joined with power. Are you being tempted? Have you lost hope and heart in these times? Remember that you have a friend who has given you everything – every promise, full invitation to draw near to God, and a throne to rule with him as a kingdom of priests. Love your friend, child of God. Trust your friend and delight in him. His name is Jesus, and he is the Friend who sticks closer than any brother ever can or will.
Christ Calls Us to Have His Mind…Basis of True Friendship
How can we be friends to one another as the Lord has been to us? Follow Jonathan’s example. We must not envy and provoke one another. When one is elevated or enriched, we must celebrate their blessing as our blessing – just as we are to think of ourselves as bound with those imprisoned for Christ’s sake. We must have a lowly mind that thinks of ourselves as small. How could Jonathan give all his princely paraphernalia to David so easily, without holding back anything for himself? Faced with David’s faith and noble heart, Jonathan did not hold on to himself. David was bigger than he was. David’s good and faithful Lord was bigger and worthy of Jonathan’s all. It is the same with us. Do we live by faith so that we can see this in one another? Are we giving a good testimony to God’s bigness to one another, so that we all learn to have low views of self and high views of him and one another? A big, faithful, holy, and loving God and Father – loved, adored, and trusted – is the basis of true friendship among believers. We want to serve and give to one another because we see Christ better in one another. And remember his sacrifice, we become willing to share and give our best. This is not an age of good friendships because we must know and imitate the one true Friend, Jesus Christ, to be selfless friends to each other.
Christ Learned Obedience through Suffering…As Will We
Jonathan’s friendship would be more valuable than David knew at the moment. He was soon to “learn obedience through suffering.” He learned much keeping the sheep. Faith had overcome the giant. But David was a type of the Messiah. David was to teach the world that the cross comes before the crown. Had David been crowned king with only Goliath and victories as the foundation of his kingdom, he would have certainly been spoiled. We would not have the Psalms. Our understanding of the humiliation of our Lord would be impoverished. We would have much more difficulty understanding why so many trials happen to the godly and why the Lord tests the righteous so severely. We would not long for heaven with the sharpness that suffering brings.
Thus, even under the old covenant, the Lord was teaching his people the way he saves us from our sins and the nature of his kingdom. Not pomp and circumstance, cathedrals and palaces, but bearing the cross and learning obedience. Why? It was disobedience that ruined us, Adam’s and our own. It is Christ’s obedience that justifies us, and his obedience unto the death of the cross that purchased our redemption. And how do we live? Do we expect the world to treat us better than it did our Savior? To enter heaven on a bed of roses? To stand before our Redeemer with an untested faith? No, we see Jesus. We learn much of him and therefore much of ourselves by what is about to happen to David. Trouble was stalking him, but by his trials he would learn obedience, like our Lord, and like we must.
Since we have such a Friend in our Lord Jesus Christ, let us:
Imitate his lowliness of mind and do good to all around us.
Ask the Lord to make us better friends to one another, especially our spouses.
Search our hearts to see where we are not happy at the success of others.
Draw closer to the Lord Jesus Christ as the best Friend of every believer.
Look for ways to prefer one another to ourselves.
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