1 Samuel 20


1 Samuel 20 is the twentieth chapter of the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the first part of the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter contains the account of David's escape from Saul's repeated attempts to kill him. This is within a section comprising 1 [Samuel 16] to 2 Samuel 5 which records the rise of David as the king of Israel.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 42 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis. Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls including 4Q51 with extant verses 37–40 and 4Q52 with extant verses 26–42.
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Places

A continuing major theme in this chapter is how Saul's family acted against Saul and sided with David, especially Jonathan, who had previously managed to reconcile both of them, now was forced to take sides. Initially he stood by his father and his father's oath not to harm David that he refused to believe that David was close to death, nonetheless he was willing to find out Saul's true intention during the Feast of the New Moon and to inform David using their agreed coded message about the outcome. At this time Saul explicitly told Jonathan that their dynasty of kingship could not be realized as long as David was alive. However, Saul's blind ambition had enlarged the extent of the rift between him and his family, to the point that his enmity towards David had 'isolated him from his own kin'.

Jonathan and David renew their covenant (20:1–29)

After escaping from Saul's pursuit in Naioth, David once again sought Jonathan to find out why Saul wanted to kill him. They agreed on a method whereby Jonathan, after establishing Saul's intention, would, unknown to anyone else, inform David.

Verse 5

  • "New Moon": a festival that consists of sacrificial offerings and celebratory feasts, which was also observed in other parts of ancient world, including Mesopotamia and Babylon. The feast may require the entire clan to be present and this was used as an excuse for David to be absent before the king. The eldest son was likely to gather all members, so David requested to be let go to "see my brothers". According to this chapter, the feast lasted for three days.

    Verse 19

  • "Have stayed three days": from Hebrew: שִׁלַּשְׁתָּ, shillashta, “to do a third time”, which could be emended into שִׁלִּישִׁית, shillishit, “ third ”.

    Saul seeks to kill Jonathan (20:30–42)

Jonathan opened the conversation with Saul by providing an excuse for David's absence, then with a defense of David echoing David's own words in verse 1, which moved from being a position of conciliator between David and Saul to be of David's defender under threat from his father. Saul's fierce reply and attempt to kill Jonathan shows that David had little choice but to leave Saul's court and run away, not out of disloyalty nor for his own ambition, but due to events beyond his control. A promise is made by David to extend his covenant with Jonathan to include Jonatan's 'house' and his 'descendants', anticipating David's kindness to Jonathan's son, Mephibosheth and the survival of the house of Saul.

Verse 42

General

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