08-Jonathan: The Friend of David
Jonathan: The Friend of David
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVERY CHRISTIAN FAMILY that studies the Bible should have a Concordance and a Bible dictionary. These two books are the keys to answer many of the difficulties found in the Book of books, and are greatly helpful, in its study, for our faith and life. The Concordance enables us to find all the references to any Bible character or all that is said on any particular subject. The Bible dictionary is based on the Concordance and gathers into short compass all the light thrown by geography, ethnology history or theology on the subject treated. When you open the Concordance you are surprised, first of all, that there are no less than fifteen or sixteen different Jonathans in the Old Testament; that this beautiful Hebrew name occurs ninety-two times - and that only in the Old Testament historical books. The name signifies the Lord’s gift, of which Nathan is the abbreviation and Theodore or Dorothy the Greek equivalents. Jonathan was also the name of the youngest son of the priest, Mattathias, whose brother, Judas Maccabeus, was slain in battle against the Romans in 161 B.C. Every Jewish lad can tell the glorious exploits of this hero who fought for Israel with devotion as fanatic as the Irgun Zionists did so short a time ago (I Maccabees 2:9). The other fourteen Jonathans of the Old Testament are more obscure: a Levite of Bethlehem, an uncle of King David, a son of Abiathar, one of David’s mighty men, an opponent of Ezra, and others - all had the same name. But Jonathan, Saul’s first son, stands out above them all, a friend who loved David at all times and stuck to him closer than a brother. Perhaps he was the true friend to whom Solomon referred in his Proverbs. "A friend loveth at all times and a brother is born for adversity" (Proverbs 17:17). "A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother" (Proverbs 18:24).
Perhaps Solomon heard the story of Jonathan from his father’s or mother’s lips. But why did not a prophet or New Testament writer refer to Jonathan, the great friend of David, as an example of unselfish devotion to man and faith in GOD? That is hard to answer. The omissions of the Bible record are sometimes as arresting as its statements.
Nevertheless, the Bible contains wonderful stories of great friendships from Abraham, the friend of GOD, and of Eliezer of Damascus, to the friendships of JESUS at Bethany and Paul’s great list of friends in Rome (Romans 16:1-23). One must read that chapter of names, and read between the lines, to grasp the greatness of Paul’s loving heart. It reads like a page in a modern Guest Book - and Paul had not yet been to Rome! But the most wonderful definition of human friendship, and illustration of it, is given in the story of Jonathan, the son of Saul.
"The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David"; and GOD did the knitting. The warp and woof of two lives became a seamless garment of friendship, celebrated by David in the most touching elegy of Scripture, when he received the news of the tragic death of Saul and Jonathan in battle (2 Samuel 1:19-27):
"Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions . . . O Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places. I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" Was there ever a royal friendship like this? No crown prince ever resigned his right to a throne with nobler motive and greater humility and sincerity of heart than Jonathan did to David on that day when they made their covenant (1 Samuel 20:1-42). The shooting of arrows was a symbol so deeply moving that we read:
"David . . . bowed himself three times: and they kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded . . . And Jonathan said, . . . Go in peace, . . . the Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed forever."
David lived up to his promise when he sought out and loved poor lame Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 4:4; 2 Samuel 9:13) and gave him a place at the king’s table. The strange character of Saul has been described in literature (especially by Robert Browning); of David’s sure mercies, his dark sins and deep repentance everyone knows.
Even as the Psalms reflect many of the experiences of David while shepherd boy and king, and all the deep waters through which he passed as exile before he was restored to his throne,- so we may read between the lines of some of the Psalms his references to friendship. David could never forget his bosom- friend, Jonathan. In the 35th Psalm he pitifully pleads with GOD against his enemies who rewarded him good for evil, who again and again sought to kill him (Psalms 35:20-23); but at the end he cries, "Let them shout for joy and be glad that favor my righteous cause." In Psalms 38:11, when his lovers and his friends stand aloof and his own family stand afar off, he knew that Jonathan was still close to his heart and cause. Yet Jonathan’s name is not mentioned in a single Psalm! Who has written in praise of Jonathan the Greatheart and the friend of both Saul and David? Who has told of his courage in single-handed battle (1 Samuel 13:3); his endurance in pursuit of the enemy (I Samuel 14); his filial patience with a father who tried to murder him (1 Samuel 20:33); his secret rendezvous in the wilderness of Ziph when David’s hands "were strengthened in God"?
All this story is vividly told only in the book of Samuel.
It is an epic worthy of a poet’s pen - Jonathan, The Friend. The eldest son of Saul seems to have loved obscurity, but he was not a coward. When his father placed one-third of his army at Geba under the command of Jonathan, he smote the Philistine garrison by a courageous adventure. With a few companions he climbed the steep gorge of Michmash and startled the enemy into headlong retreat. Saul had pronounced a curse upon anyone who should eat food during the retreat. Poor Jonathan, ignorant of his father’s oath, found some wild honey and ate it. Then obdurate Saul wanted him to die, but the clamor of the peoples’ affection saved him. The whole story is told in I Samuel, chapter fourteen.
Jonathan’s friendship for David began after this battle and after David’s encounter with Goliath.
Even when Saul suggested that David was trying to become king and usurping Jonathan’s place as crown-prince, the two never lost faith in each other. They held their secret rendezvous again and again. One must read the entire story in chapters eighteen to twenty of I Samuel. Their last meeting was in the woods of Ziph (1 Samuel 23:16-18).
It is against the dark background of Saul’s jealous hatred and duplicity that this friendship stands out in all its light and love and beauty. No one has ever depicted the psychology of Saul’s schizophrenic character like Robert Browning does in his great poem. David enters the royal tent to soothe the maniac monarch with his music; he says, "At first I saw nought but the blackness; but soon I descried A something more black than the blackness - the vast, the upright Main prop which sustains the pavilion: and slow into sight Grew a figure against it, gigantic and blackest of all.
Then a sunbeam, that burst through the tent-roof Showed Saul." [1]
Every incident in the story of Saul and David sheds glory on the unselfish devotion of Jonathan. He loved Saul because he continued filial in his devotion; but he loved David more and sacrificed his very career for the King whom Samuel had anointed in the place of his father.
"Jonathan, the Generous," Dr. George Matheson calls him.
"Jonathan then stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his garments even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle (1 Samuel 18:4)." "It is a typical statement; it describes the whole trend of his heart. From beginning to end the love of Jonathan for David was a disrobing, a divestiture. He was stripping himself of a royal garment. He was unarming himself, ungirding himself." [2]
It was the Crown-prince of the new kingdom conferring all his own rights on a plebeian friend because he loved him. No wonder their two hearts were knit together. Not even the glamour of a royal throne and the rule over all Israel could produce jealousy in such loyal hearts.
Friendship is the master passion and surpasses the bonds of kinship in its utter devotion. "There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother."
David (who knew the love of women) agreed with Montaigne (1533-1592) in his great essay on Friendship: that true friendship surpasses all other passions.
"Thy love for me is wonderful, passing the love of women," said David to Jonathan. And Montaigne explains it.
"As for comparing it [real friendship] with affection for women, though this is born of our choice, we cannot do it nor can we put it in this class. Its fire I confess is more active, more scorching and more intense. But it is an impetuous and fickle flame; wavering and variable, a fever flame, subject to fits and lulls, that holds us only by one comer. In friendship it is a general and universal warmth, moderate and even, besides, a constant and settled warmth, all gentleness and smoothness, with nothing bitter and stinging about it. Friendship, on the contrary, is enjoyed according as it is desired; it is bred, nourished, and increased only in enjoyment, since it is spiritual, and the soul grows refined by practice." [3] David would have said of Jonathan what Montaigne goes on to say of his friend Etienne de la Boétie:
"For the rest, what we ordinarily call friends and friendships are nothing but acquaintanceships and familiarities formed by some chance or convenience, by means of which our souls are bound to each other. In the friendship I speak of, our souls mingle and blend with each other so completely that they efface the seam that joined them, and cannot find it again. If you press me to tell why I loved him, I feel that this cannot be expressed, except by answering: Because it was he, because it was I." When at Gilboa, Saul and Jonathan were both slain and the news came to David, he wrote the beautiful dirge recorded in 2 Samuel 1:19-27.
Here is James Moffatt’s poetic version. The Song of the Bow “O Judah, to your crying!
O Israel, to your grief and woe! On your battle-fields the slain are lying, and heroes, alas! fallen low.
"Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in Ashkelon’s streets, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.
"Dew never fall on you, hills of Gilboa, Rain never reach you, O death’s own field! For there a hero dropped his shield, Saul’s shield, the armour of the anointed.
"From the blood of the slain, from the flesh of the mighty, never did Jonathan’s bow turn back, nor the sword of Saul unsated.
"Saul and Jonathan, loved and lovely, never divided in life or in death! swifter than eagles, stronger than lions!
"Daughters of Israel, wail for Saul, who decked you in scarlet and jewels, who adorned your robes with gold!
"Alas for heroes fallen low in the thick of the fray!
"Jonathan slain on the field of battle, “My heart is sore for you, O Jonathan, my brother!
You were my dear delight, your love for me was a wonder, far beyond a woman’s love.
"Alas for heroes fallen low, for weapons that once felled the foe!"
Such was Jonathan, David’s bosom friend in life and death. No wonder that his name became a legend of friendship and loyalty, and that, at least in Anglo- Saxon circles, the name Jonathan was beloved. Jonathan Edwards in America and Jonathan Swift in England are only two out of many examples of those who bore the name worthily. Yet, in a sense, every American bears the name of Jonathan. In the Revolutionary War, Washington, we are told, used to consult his friend Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut, in all his difficulties.
"We must ask Brother Jonathan" was so often on his lips that the phrase became synonymous with the good genius of the States and was subsequently applied to Americans generally.
"Brother Jonathan" surely never had a larger opportunity to show world-friendship than he has today and so make the sobriquet appropriate reality.
"Teach us, Good Lord, to serve Thee as Thou deservest; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do Thy will; through JESUS CHRIST our Lord. Amen."
1 Robert Browning, Saul, iii.
2 Representative Men of the Bible, Vol. II, p. 187.
3 Selected Essays, New York, 1943, pp. 59 and 63.