1 Samuel 19 – 2018-11-13
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- Bible Text: 1 Samuel 19:11-24 (ESV)11 Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch him, that he might kill him in the morning. But Michal, David’s wife, told him, “If you do not escape with your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.” 12 So Michal let David down through the window, and he fled away and escaped. 13 Michal took an image and laid it on the bed and put a pillow of goats’ hair at its head and covered it with the clothes. 14 And when Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.” 15 Then Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.” 16 And when the messengers came in, behold, the image was in the bed, with the pillow of goats’ hair at its head. 17 Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me thus and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?” And Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go. Why should I kill you?’”
18 Now David fled and escaped, and he came to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. And he and Samuel went and lived at Naioth. 19 And it was told Saul, “Behold, David is at Naioth in Ramah.” 20 Then Saul sent messengers to take David, and when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying, and Samuel standing as head over them, the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. 21 When it was told Saul, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. And Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also prophesied. 22 Then he himself went to Ramah and came to the great well that is in Secu. And he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?” And one said, “Behold, they are at Naioth in Ramah.” 23 And he went there to Naioth in Ramah. And the Spirit of God came upon him also, and as he went he prophesied until he came to Naioth in Ramah. 24 And he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel and lay naked all that day and all that night. Thus it is said, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”
- Reflection & Application: 1 Samuel 19:14-17
- Starting with Jonathan, and now Michal, Saul starts to lose his own family members. What warning does this give to me regarding what happens to a person who insists on acting out of jealousy or insecurity?
1 Samuel 19:18-24
Finally, Saul must go himself (v.22); no one can do his dirty work for him. Before he even reaches the place where David and Samuel are, he is also seized by the Spirit of God (v.23). He falls into the same ecstatic frenzy as the others while apparently continuing to Naioth in Ramah. When there, he strips off his clothes and falls on the ground before Samuel and lies naked for an entire day and night. It is a scene of Saul’s final and total humiliation and his complete loss of authority as God’s anointed king. Before God’s prophet, the spirit of God, which once authorized him (10:9-10), now leaves Saul naked, prostrate, humiliated, and powerless. David then makes good his escape. [1]
- What can I learn from David’s decision to first go to Samuel in his time of fear and distress?
- What should Saul have recognized after “the Spirit of God came upon the messengers of Saul” for the third time? In what ways do people ignore God’s intervention while in pursuit of their personal agenda, and end up bringing shame upon their life? In what ways am I (or have I been) like this?
[1] Dozeman, Thomas B., “The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume II,” Abingdon Press, Nashville 1998, p.1128.
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