David's friendship with Jonathan; Saul's growing jealousy

Jonathan is the king's son and heir, roughly a generation older than David, and a proven soldier in his own right. What he does when they first meet is the most politically extraordinary act in the whole reign: he takes off the robe he is wearing and gives it to David, along with his tunic, his sword, his bow and his belt.

Handing over your outer robe and your weapons is not a gesture of affection in that world. It is the transfer of status. The heir to the throne is dressing a shepherd from Bethlehem in his own clothes in front of the court, and the covenant they make is described as being made because he loved him as himself.

Saul, meanwhile, promotes David and gives him a high rank in the army, and this pleases everyone, including Saul's officers.

Then the women come out of the towns to meet the returning army, singing and dancing with timbrels and lutes, and the refrain is the sentence that ends everything: Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands. Hebrew poetry works by parallel lines that escalate slightly, so the second line is a poetic convention rather than an insult, but Saul hears the arithmetic. They have credited David with tens of thousands, he says, but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?

Michal's position in all this is worth stating, because she is used by everyone. Her father offers her as a trap, priced in Philistine casualties. Her husband accepts the terms and delivers double. She loves him, which is stated outright and is one of the few times a woman's feelings are reported in these books, and it is the reason the trap fails. Within a few years she will let him out of a window to save his life, be given by her father to another man, be taken back by David for political reasons, and end the story childless.

From that time on he keeps a jealous eye on him.

Two spear-throwing incidents follow, both while David is playing the lyre to calm him, and both times David gets out of the way. Then Saul changes tactics and tries to have him killed at a distance, first by giving him command of a thousand men in the hope that combat will do it, then by offering his elder daughter in marriage and withdrawing the offer, and finally by offering his younger daughter Michal, who loves David, on payment of a bride price of a hundred Philistine foreskins. The stated intention is that David will fall by Philistine hands.

He brings two hundred.

The situation is now fixed and everybody in it can see the shape. Saul knows the LORD is with David and that his own daughter loves him, and he becomes his enemy for the rest of his life. David is married into the royal family, commanding troops, more successful than any of Saul's other officers, and being hunted by his father-in-law.