An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 52: David vs. Goliath, One Hundred Philistine Foreskins, and Absolutely Nothing The Slightest Bit Gay Happens At All (1 Samuel 16-20)

1 Samuel 16-20

David vs. Goliath, One Hundred Philistine Foreskins, and Absolutely Nothing The Slightest Bit Gay Happens At All.

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.

For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT

For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

1 Samuel 16

“And the LORD said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.”

Samuel is sent by God to the house of Jesse the Bethlehemite, where he is told that he will find a successor to Saul, and a more worthy one at that. Samuel pretends to be going to make a sacrifice, and the first of Jesse’s sons that he sees is tall and handsome, and Samuel assumes that this is the king, but God tells him to look into a man’s heart, not his appearance, and so Samuel passes over all of Jesse’s sons until he gets to David, the youngest of the family, tending the sheep. It’s not much fun being a first-born son in the Bible. If you aren’t being sacrificed you are inevitably overlooked for your younger siblings.

Samuel anoints David, and the spirit of God alights on David, and as it does so it leaves Saul, who instead is afflicted with an evil spirit. Interesting that the evil spirit is said to come from God, and I note that nine books in and there’s still no mention of the devil.

Anyway, Saul’s advisors tell him to find someone who can play the harp to soothe his evil moods, and eventually they find David. David is bought before Saul, who finds him pleasant and makes him his armour-bearer. David plays the harp whenever the evil spirit descends upon Saul.

1 Samuel 17
“And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.”

Hands up who hasn’t heard of David and Goliath? This is the original chapter, and it unfolds pretty much as we all know. Goliath is a giant champion from amongst the Philistines who daily issues a challenge to fight a champion from the Israelite army. (There’s no suggestion here that other have tried and failed, which would have been an interesting point).

David,s elder brothers are in the army, but David is running errands and keeping sheep. He arrives at the front lines at a time when Goliath is issuing his challenge, and offers to take him up on it. Everyone considers him foolish, but he points out that he has killed a lion and a bear (oh my) whilst guarding sheep, and Goliath is no different, with God’s help. David is given armour and sword but eschews them for a staff and a sling, since he’s untrained in proper weapons. There’s a bit of an echo here of Jepthah reducing the numbers of his men so as to prove that the victory was due to God.

As we all know, David kills Goliath with a single sling stone, then beheads him with his own sword. Saul is impressed and wants to know who is that young man? Which is odd, since it’s Saul’s armour-bearer; one possibility is that there is a time-skip between this and the last chapter, or two variants of the same story have been squeezed together. Wouldn’t be the first time.

1 Samuel 18

“And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”

David in the house of Saul, develops a very close relationship with Jonathon (who I forget who he is. Saul’s son?) Maybe not a Leviticus-defying closeness, but I’m getting a Achilles-Patroclus vibe from this. But that’s not the main part of this chapter.

Saul becomes jealous of David when singing women attribute more Philistine deaths to David than to Saul, and tries to kill him with a javelin when he is playing the harp. Saul tries to marry David to one of this daughters, and handily Michal likes David, but David demurs for a while because he doesn’t feel worthy of being a king’s son-in-law (or he’d rather be with Jonathon…). Saul sees an opportunity to bump off David by sending him to collect one hundred Philistine foreskins to prove his worth, hoping that he gets killed fighting the Philistines. David brings him two hundred foreskins (what a gift to get!) and marries Michal. Saul becomes even more afraid and jealous of David.

1 Samuel 19

“But Jonathan Saul's son delighted much in David: and Jonathan told David, saying, Saul my father seeketh to kill thee: now therefore, I pray thee, take heed to thyself until the morning, and abide in a secret place, and hide thyself:”

There’s a bit of retread of previous ground in this chapter, which is the ongoing jealousy of Saul for David and his plans to kill or otherwise harm him. First Jonathon warns David and hides him, next time (after David wins some victories and Saul attacks him with a javelin whilst he is playing the harp), David’s wife Michal hide him instead and, like Samwise Gamgee, uses a bolster in the bed as a decoy. Eventually David runs off to Samuel, in a place called Naioth in Ramah. Saul finds out and sends envoys (i.e. kidnappers), but every time the envoys arrive they end up prophesying and turn back empty handed. The last envoy becomes some kind of naked holy man because of the power of Samuel’s holiness, or something.

1 Samuel 20

“And David fled from Naioth in Ramah, and came and said before Jonathan, What have I done? what is mine iniquity? and what is my sin before thy father, that he seeketh my life?”

David in hiding seeks Jonathon’s help in finding out if Saul means him harm. Jonathon is to return to his father and sound him out on his intentions towards David and as an excuse for David’s absence he is to say that David is at a family ceremony in Bethlehem. They concoct some fairly convoluted scheme for passing on the message involving Jonathon firing arrows and sending a boy to fetch them as a code for Saul’s intentions.

As it turns out, Saul gets angry with Jonathon for caring about David and calls him a “son of a perverse rebellious woman” who has been misled by David, so the end result is that via archery David finds out that Saul means to kill him. Saul throws a javelin at Jonathon as well – the man needs to be kept away from sharp objects I think. There is a tearful parting between David and Jonathon; I’ve seen some commentators think that this hints at a homosexual relationship. I’m not sure it goes that far, there’s more of a Frodo and Sam vibe (second LOTR reference in as many chapters!), very close male companions. Not that it really matters – it could be that there was one and the bible compilers have downplayed it a bit because of the disapproval (not to mention death by stoning) from Leviticus.