📖 1 Samuel 19 Summary: 💎 Saul, a Man Who Could No Longer See Anything

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In chapter 18, we saw Saul becoming increasingly afraid of David because the LORD was with David.

📖 Summary of 1 Samuel 19

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👉 Saul is desperate to kill David

• Saul tried several times to kill David with a spear.

• When that failed, he even used his own daughter as a trap, trying to have the Philistines kill David. But all his attempts failed.

Finally, right at the beginning of chapter 19, Saul orders his own son and all his servants to kill David.

• But there is a serious problem: David had done absolutely nothing wrong to Saul.

1. Jonathan's persuasion and a temporary reconciliation (1–7)

• Saul orders his son Jonathan and all his servants to kill David.

• Jonathan tells David to hide and then speaks to Saul, explaining that David has done nothing against him.

• Saul changes his mind and swears by the LORD, saying, “As surely as the LORD lives, David shall not be killed.” (v. 6)

2. Saul tries once again to kill David with a spear (8–10)

• There was another war, and David struck the Philistines with a great slaughter.

• Later, while David was playing his harp, Saul once again threw his spear at him, trying to pin him to the wall. David escaped.

• Saul then sent messengers to watch David's house and kill him in the morning.

3. Michal helps David escape (11–17)

• Michal, Saul's daughter and David's wife, learns what is happening and helps David escape during the night.

• She lets him down through a window and places a household idol in the bed, covering it with clothes to deceive Saul's men.

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4. David flees to Ramah, to Samuel (18)

• Ramah was where Samuel was staying.

• David goes to Samuel and tells him everything Saul had done to him.

• Then David and Samuel go to Naioth and stay there.

5. God protects David through His Spirit (20–24)

• Saul sends messengers to capture David, but the Spirit of God comes upon them, and they begin to prophesy.

• Saul sends another group of messengers, but they also prophesy.

• He sends a third group, and the same thing happens.

Finally, Saul himself goes to Ramah to look for Samuel and David. But the Spirit of God also comes upon Saul, and he begins to prophesy.

Saul takes off his clothes and lies there naked throughout that night and the following day.

→ In the Bible, there are occasions when being naked is associated with the exposure of shame. Therefore, this scene also seems to reveal Saul's shame and humiliation.

😀 Then the people ask:

“Is Saul also among the prophets?”

This seems to have been recorded as an ironic and almost absurd question: Saul, the very man who was pursuing David in order to kill him, was now among the prophets.

📍 Saul's evil viewed through the Law of the Pentateuch 💎

➡️ Saul committed one of the most serious offenses against God's commandments: he sought to shed the blood of an innocent man. 💎

• Genesis: Whoever sheds the blood of another person, his own blood shall be shed.

• Exodus: “You shall not murder.”

• Leviticus: The life of the flesh is in the blood; therefore, blood was not to be shed recklessly.

• Numbers: The blood of an innocent person, once shed, could not be atoned for except by the blood of the one who shed it.

• Deuteronomy: Among the Ten Commandments is, “You shall not murder,” along with many instructions not to harm one's neighbor.

In His mercy, the LORD established cities of refuge to protect someone who had killed another person unintentionally.

But when a person committed intentional murder, the situation was completely different: one who deliberately took another person's life was to be held accountable.

When we consider this, Saul, as the king of Israel, was acting in a way that showed complete disregard for God's commandments.

Thankfully, by God's grace, David was protected and his blood was not shed.

But Saul's deliberate and repeated attempts to kill David reveal the seriousness of his actions.

😀 Saul tried to kill David personally and also tried to get other people to kill him. There were so many direct and indirect attempts that it would be difficult even to count them all.

😀 In the beginning, David was simply someone outside Saul's family. But now Saul was trying to kill someone who had become his son-in-law.

(ㅎㅎ And since Jonathan, his own son, was also threatened by Saul, we might say that it was not only his son-in-law: even his own son had become invisible to him.)

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