Dark Messiah
by
Tony Price


A Novel for NaNoWriMo, November 2005







�� Tony Price, 2005. 
You may read and save this on your own computer and share it with other people free of charge, but you're not allowed to edit or amend it, copy it into your own documents without my prior written consent, or make any money out of it without cutting me in.
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It would be interesting if we had a historical narrative written in a circle sympathetic to Saul - for instance, an account written by a member of Saul's own tribe of Benjamin.
Bernhard W. Anderson, The Living World of the Old Testament, page 215


Now that the stories told about my prince, are the stories that favour and flatter the man who supplanted him, that David, the man after Yahweh's own heart, the man whom everyone loved, the sweet psalmist of Israel, the bloody man who caused the deaths of so many good men - though he made sure never to have their blood on his own hands - now more than ever it is time for the other stories to be told. The stories of those who loved Saul, and wished him well. Who loved his courage, his passion, his zeal for his people, his love of Yahweh. And who knew the shock of loss that never left him, when Yahweh turned against him and rejected him. None of us ever knew why. And for Saul himself, it was as if the heart was torn, still beating, from his breast; as if the love of his life betrayed him. From that day until he fell on Mount Gilboa, it seemed that he was never fully alive.
Here are some of those other stories.

1. A King Like Other Nations	
My seed.
Until a man can look at his own grown sons, and say those words, "My seed", he does not feel fully a man, cannot rest in the knowledge that his name will live in Israel. I, Samuel, should know. My own mother was barren for many years, unable to bring forth the fruit of my father's seed. For years she cried to Yahweh, pleading and weeping bitter tears. And HE heard her prayers, and opened her womb. As she gave thanks to him in Shiloh, she named me Samuel, saying, "I have asked him of Yahweh," and dedicated me to the life-long service of our God.
So it was that from a boy of four I lived with Eli the judge and seer, serving before Yahweh in His house at Shiloh. And when Eli died, there was no one but me to succeed him as judge of Israel, for his sons had fallen in battle on that terrible day when the Philistines defeated our armies and seized the Ark of Yahweh. It was His punishment for our turning aside from his commandments, and Eli never recovered from the bitter shock of the news that Hophni and Phinehas were dead.
It is not an easy thing to judge the people of Yahweh: they have ever been a stubborn, self-willed confederation of tribes, arguing among themselves and with their neighbours. It saps a man's best strength and energies, the constant strain of hearing one Israelite's complaints against his neighbour, and the neighbour's complaints against him. Most times the judge can simply use his wisdom and discretion, the result of so many years of experience. But sometimes there are the hard cases where he must look to the words of the Torah, and when these provide no clear answer, then to seek the face of Yahweh himself. That is what exacts the greatest cost of all. To enter the awesome Presence, and endure the Silence and the Darkness that surround the One who hides himself as much as He reveals. And then perhaps to have no answer, and to wait and wait until He chooses to speak, and then to endure His speaking.
Like Moses in the stories of old, I could not bear this burden alone. I appointed my sons, my seed, Joel and Abijah, to be judges in Beersheba.
Shall I say, it was the bitterest blow in my life, to learn that my sons did not follow in my ways, but turned aside after gain? More bitter than the death of my wife, for every man expects that grief and knows that one day will bring it. But to find that my sons were taking bribes, and perverting justice in favour of those who paid them more, and against those who would not or could not pay. It was as if they did not know Yahweh; for how could it be that they really knew that Presence and Darkness, and that Silence and that Voice, and yet turned aside from his ways?
For months and years I tried to hide my eyes from it, tried to deny the truth that faced me, and that accused me in the eyes of all the Israelites who came to me. It was worse than it had been for Eli, who in like manner suffered the defection of his two sons, when they extorted the best portions from the people's sacrifices for their own and their friends' tables, or forced the serving maids to submit to their lusts. Those are the appetites of men, at least. But for my two sons to pervert justice for mere gold and silver, was more than I could bear.
What I tried to hide from my own eyes, was not hidden from the eyes of the people. There came a day when the elders of the tribes gathered to me at Ramah. The twelve chief men of the tribes, sent word that they would speak to me on an important matter; would I receive them? Already I had some foreboding, a sense that this was not any ordinary request for an audience. For the door of my house had always been open to the people, even when I had thought it closed. At all hours of the day and night, they imagined I was ready to receive their requests, their pleas, their complaints. This was something different.
The twelve came into my room, where I sat bowed down with pain and weakness: the days previously had been heavy with duties. They looked from one to another nervously, whispering urgently in voices that my deaf ears could not understand. They had not agreed among themselves who was to be the spokesman on their behalf. I almost smiled at their awkwardness and embarrassment, yet my heart went out to them too in their discomfort, and I waited for them to speak.
At length one of them was pushed to the front, by those behind. He tugged at his beard, muttering behind his fingers till my questioning glance forced him to speak loud enough for me to hear.
He coughed, and began, "It is not I who would trouble you with this, abba," (using the familiar form of address that some of them had recently adopted, in deference to my age and many years of leading them.) "You must understand that I speak for the people. You are old, abba, and we would not wear you out with these matters, yet we know that at some time (may it be many years yet) Yahweh will call you to walk with your fathers. And your sons do not walk in your ways, but they pervert justice for the sake of gain. We would ask you; that is, we believe it would be best for the people; that is ..."
But one of the elders pushed himself forward at this point, elbowing the first aside. "Out with it man, for God's sake," he spluttered. "This is what we ask, Samuel: appoint for us a king, like other nations."
There was a kind of gasp at his temerity and directness, or perhaps it was that they thought I would fall headlong as the blood rushed in my head, and the room swam before my eyes. Then I grasped my staff tighter, and mastered the roaring in my ears, and spoke quietly and firmly: "Give me a day. Let me seek His Face, and hear what he will say to your request."
In a rush of relief and dismay, like naughty boys who have somehow, against all expectation, escaped the predictable wrath of their teacher, they left the room in a murmuring crush. I sank onto the chair, breathing deeply to still the beating of my heart.
Seldom had I felt such anger, and yet it was different from the righteous rages I had often known, when cases were brought to me for judgement and I saw again the unaccountable perversity and mischievousness of the people whom Yahweh had redeemed. This time I did not know for whom I was angry. There was the sense that it was me they were rejecting, me, who had spent myself and all my years in serving them. But it was not that only. There was the sense, too, that it was Yahweh himself they were rejecting from being king over them.
When I was calm again, I went into the Presence and the Silence, trying to lay down all the bitterness I was carrying before I entered, though I could never let go of it all. And when He was there, I knew that I did not need to tell Him anything. The Voice was just as near, just as real, just as if my old master was calling me from the next room, as it had been when I was a lad of eight with old Eli.
He said to me, "Listen to the voice of the people. For it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me from being king over them." Then the calm flooded and eased my mind and my heart, and I knew that I had not misjudged what He would say. I was still the seer, the listener, the one who was qualified to judge the people of Yahweh.
I sent for the elders to come to me again on the morrow. Again they entered the room, some swaggering and confident as if they had cowed the old man and forced him to accede to their demands, others more diffident, still unsure about how Yahweh would have told me to  answer them.
I drew myself up to my full height, supporting myself again on my staff, and spoke to them the word of Yahweh. "Listen, you rebels, you stiff-necked disobedient children, always rejecting the word of Yahweh and turning from his ways. I have spoken to Him for you, told Him of your request; and He has told me to appoint for you the king that you desire, so that you might be as other nations. But He has commanded me to tell you also what will be the ways of the king you will have over you.
"He will take to himself the best of all that you have. He will take your sons to serve in his army, and your daughters to serve in his palace. He will take the best of your crops to feed his own household, the best of your animals to work in his fields, the best of your slaves to serve him. He will take one-tenth of all your wealth.
"One day you will cry to Yahweh for relief from the yoke this king you have chosen will lay upon. But He will not listen, He will not hear you. For it is He you are rejecting from being king over you."
At this most of the elders looked crestfallen, like the same disobedient boys they had seemed the day before. But two or three of them bristled angrily, pushed themselves forward again, and argued, "Never mind your complaints and excuses, old man. We will have a king to rule over us. If Yahweh has spoken and decreed it, then so be it. Give us what we ask."
Then I acceded to their demands, and sent them away. I knew that I could not act, even then, until He told me how, or who He had chosen to appoint as king over them.
Not many days afterwards, before even the most impatient of them had had time to come troubling me again, reminding me of the pledge I had given them, the Voice came to me once more in the Presence and the Silence.
"It is tomorrow," He said. "About this time, tomorrow, I will send to you a young man from the tribe of Benjamin. Him you shall anoint with holy oil, to be ruler and prince over my people. For I have heard their cry, and I have chosen him to deliver them from their enemies who assail them."

2. The Lost Asses	

There are a lot worse masters than Kish. Though he was a member of the smallest tribe in Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, his was a noble ancestry - son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah - and he was a man of wealth and substance. He worked his men hard, but he was always fair, and shared the fruits of their labour with those who served him well.
None of us ever begrudged the master the sweat we shed for him, no matter what the task he assigned. That's not to say we didn't prefer some of those tasks to others. For me, I always enjoyed it best, and had the greatest fun, when he told me to help his son Saul with anything.
I loved Saul, like my own brother. In fact there were many times I wished he were my brother, though that would never have been the same. He was about five years my junior, so if we had been brothers, it would have been me that was the chief. Saul knew very well that he was the master's son, he was the one to command. But still, we played together, learned together, worked together, often more like brothers than master and servant. Saul was an outstanding young man, a full head and shoulders taller than the rest of us, even at fifteen years old. We never went anywhere, but all the girls heads turned, and their eyes followed him. These were the best of times, for out of any group that sought his attention, there would be one of the others, whom he did not choose from among them, who would be happy to pass time with his friend or companion. That way I enjoyed many a sweet hour.
Among all those golden days when we were young together, I will never forget the time the asses went astray; for those were the days that sealed my friend's future destiny. In a way, I suppose, that day laid the foundation for all the glory and the heartbreak that would come his way. We didn't know all that when our little summer adventure began.
It started with the tumult of hue and cry. The house and yard were in uproar after someone first asked the question, Where are the donkeys? They knew exactly which donkeys were meant. The best ones, the new ones Kish had bought from his neighbour the week before - and paid a good price for, though he had haggled with him and forced him to reduce the price from his first asking. Everyone's first thought was that they had wandered off on their own and found their way back to their old home. But a disgruntled neighbour hotly denied it, as if he was being accused of having stolen the donkeys. A quick survey of his property confirmed his denial.
So Kish called his oldest son and gave him the task of finding those lost donkeys. Told me to go along with him to make sure he didn't meet with any accident; for in those days raiding bands of the Philistines often found their way into Israelite territory. When they did, they didn't spare anyone who was too weak to resist them, stealing beasts or food or money, terrorising whole villages and sometimes carrying off the women to be slaves or whores. The danger was that if they found the missing donkeys first, they would all too readily kill Saul if he came upon them claiming to be the rightful owner.
We set off from Gibeah with all the excitement of young men going to take part in a festival. I carried a bundle with food and a skin of wine, Saul strode out in front with his staff and short sword. There was laughter, voices wishing us well, girls waving and calling out to us. It was Saul they were calling to, but I loved every minute of it too, basking in his reflected glory.
The hill country of Ephraim, on a day of early summer, is a place of stark beauty that lowland people like the men of Asher do not understand. It can seem harsh and inhospitable, until you learn its ways and recognise the hidden sources of water and shade. But we were young and in good heart, laughing and joking, confident that we would soon find the lost beasts.
In village after village along the way, children and young women came out to see who we were, and stayed to talk with Saul. In answer to his questions about the donkeys, they told us they had not seen any sign of them, but if we went a little further, we might hear something more in the next village. People there had more to do with places further afield and would certainly know if three wandering donkeys - a remarkable event - had been seen; or if there were any rumours of brigands or raiding parties in the neighbourhood.
But in the next village too, there was no news. And after we had eaten and drunk most of our provisions, and rested for an hour during the heat of the day, and trudged on through a long afternoon, and still heard no news nor seen any sign of my master's donkeys, even our high spirits sank. We found ourselves near a village where we knew no one, and the best shelter we could find for the night was in among a pile of old, and none too savoury smelling, hay. After our long day's walk, Saul slept much better than I; though that was only what anyone would expect.
Still, we woke early and set off in the cool morning, convinced that the donkeys could not have wandered much further, and even if they had been stolen, the thieves would not be far ahead. We had come to places that neither of us knew well, and we wandered a whole day in parts that were called the land of Shalishah, and then the land of Shaalim. Towards evening of that second day, even Saul was becoming tired and angry. The villagers we asked for shelter drove us away with stones and sticks, accusing us of being robbers, and we slept under a scrubby olive tree, huddled together for warmth in the cold night air.
In fact we had come in a wide circle and were once again within the territory of Benjamin. When Saul realised where we were, he kicked his foot against a stone in bitter frustration - for he had been so confident that this would be an easy errand to do for his father, and he would return home in success, and earn the praise of his father and (more important) every maiden in Gibeah.
"We'd better turn back for home," he muttered. "My father will have stopped worrying about the donkeys, and will be thinking some mischance has befallen us."
My heart went out to him, he looked so disappointed, so young. At the last village we had passed, they told us we were close to the town of Ramah, where Samuel the seer lived. Surely we could go and ask him, and he would be able to tell us what had become of the donkeys?
Saul hesitated. He knew that there was no food left in our sacks; in fact we had hardly eaten the whole of the previous day. What would we have to offer the man of God, in payment for his prayers and advice?
I don't know why I said it; it seemed absurdly presumptuous for a mere servant. But I told Saul about the quarter shekel of silver I had with me, which was all the money I possessed. I told him a lie: that his father Kish had given it to me in case of need. That was at least believable, since Saul, notoriously, could easily have given it to the first pretty girl he saw just to see her smile her gratitude. The silver would be a suitable gift for the seer, that no one would be ashamed to offer for his help.
And so Saul agreed, and we set off up the hill towards the gate of Ramah. Some girls were coming out with water jars, to fetch water from the well. They giggled, fluttering their eye lashes at Saul and smiling.
"Is the seer here?" he asked them.
One of them, greatly daring, and egged on by her comrades, told us, Yes, he was just ahead of us, for he had come to the town just now to offer sacrifice with the people at their shrine.
As we passed through the gate, there was Samuel coming towards us, on his way to the shrine. He seemed the oldest man I had ever seen, his beard long and white, his face wrinkled and pale, but with the most piercing eyes you could imagine. Seeing eyes, that could see what no one else saw. He seemed so old you would think a sudden gust of wind might blow him off his feet, and he grasped his staff as if it alone kept him upright; yet he seemed too to be the only thing in that little street that possessed any strength at all. As if he alone was substantial, and all else - people, houses, buildings, the blue sky above us - were somehow thin and dissolving like mist.
Anyone would have known that this was the man we sought. Yet Saul amazed me by going to him, bowing his head in respect, and asking, "Tell me, sir: where is the house of the seer?"
Samuel took his arm in a grip like a vice, and equally astonished me - for how should he not know already? - by asking, "Who are you?"
"I am Saul, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin."
The seer's eyes seemed suddenly to look beyond Saul. Not just past him, but through him, as if he was looking into impossible depths or distances. And he cocked his head to one side, seeming to listen to a voice that no one else heard, speaking to him alone.
"Yes," he said after some moments, "yes..." but he said it not to us.
Then, as his eyes returned to the two of us youths, standing before him now in fear and trembling, he fixed Saul with his gaze and said, "I am Samuel. And you, Saul, son of Kish, will stay with me this night. Go up before me to the shrine, for you will eat this feast with me, and tomorrow I will let you go and tell you all that is on your mind. But let me just tell you this: The donkeys you are looking for these three days have been found. And you are the one that all Israel desires and longs for."
I have never known such an evening, such a feast, as that was. Saul sat at Samuel's right hand, and they gave him all the best portions of the meat of the sacrifice; while I, as Saul's friend and companion, also received meat and wine in plenty. We were young men who had eaten little for two days, and we fell upon what was set before us like ravenous beasts; more than once I caught the surprised, amused glances of the maidens who were trying to catch Saul's eye, only to find he never lifted it from the food he was eating.
When the feast was ended, Samuel took us to his house and we fell into the deep sleep of the exhausted and well-fed young.
Morning came, and we packed up ready to make the shorter journey home to Gibeah. As we were leaving the town, Samuel sent me on ahead while he held my master's son back to speak privately with him. I could not hear what he said, nor see clearly whatever it was he did to Saul. But when my companion rejoined me, he looked thoughtful, his eyes almost as distant as the seer's had been.
I pressed him to tell me what had happened, what the seer had told him.
Saul shook his head, as if trying to clear a film or veil from his eyes; he seemed to come to himself from somewhere a long way away, and said, "He took a small vial of olive oil and poured it on my head. He said, 'You are Yahweh's Messiah, for Yahweh has chosen you to be the prince of his people, the one who will deliver them from the hands of all their enemies round about.' And he told me about three signs that will happen as we travel on, that will confirm his words to me."
And as we went on our way, all those signs came to pass. First we met with two men, as we were passing along by Rachel's tomb at Zelzah, who told us that the lost donkeys that had caused us such sore feet and aching limbs and pangs of hunger, had indeed been found, and now Kish was worrying about his son and me. It didn't seem like much of a miraculous sign to me: by this time the whole countryside seemed to have heard about the missing donkeys, and the vain quest that had taken the son of Kish on a three-day march around the hills of Ephraim.
But then, some miles further on, three men going up to sacrifice at Bethel met us on the road. One of them was carrying three kids for the sacrifice, another three loaves of bread, and the third a skin of new wine. They greeted Saul as if they knew him, though he himself swore to me he had never seen any of them before, and offered us two of their loaves of bread which we were glad to accept, the effects of last night's feast having already worn off.
Lastly, as we drew near to Gibeah-Elohim, just near the place where the Philistines had one of their garrisons to keep us in check and continually flaunt their armed superiority to us, and our weakness to resist them, the third and strangest sign came upon us. A band of prophets was coming down form the shrine, with the musicians playing the harp, tambourine, flute and lyre before them, and the prophets themselves following. They were dancing, singing, chanting in strange meaningless words given them by the Spirit, throwing themselves to and fro and sometimes flinging themselves to the ground and leaping up in the air. Saul and his family, pragmatic men of Benjamin, had never had anything but scorn for these so-called prophets in their frenzies, which no one had ever seen until the Philistines began to assert their power more aggressively throughout the tribes of Israel. They were sure it was some kind of moral or spiritual weakness, the recourse of men too weak to resist, or to accept what they dare not or could not prevent.
As we watched the band coming nearer, I turned to Saul, ready to make some joke at the expense of these crazy fellows. But even as I turned, Saul gripped my arm like a vice.
"It is the third sign!" he gasped between clenched teeth. He was trembling all over, his eyes rolled upwards in his head until only the whites could be seen. Then in a moment he leaped away from me, leaping high off the ground, waving his arms and singing with a strange, wailing voice I had never heard before. It was as if he was no longer Saul, my master's son, my friend and playmate in so many tricks and games. He had become a different man.
I hoped that what had happened before my very eyes would remain a secret: I certainly would never have told anyone about it, would have forgotten it and pretended it had never happened. But the bands of prophets never performed their rites in a corner: there were always witnesses, bystanders and hangers-on who supported them and spread the word of their doings far and wide.
By the time their frenzy had burned itself out, and Saul had regained his breath and put his clothing in order, and we had made our way home to Gibeah, the neighbours and others were already gossiping about Saul's strange behaviour, and the saying was going the rounds, "Is Saul also one of the prophets?"

3. The King-Making	

My name is Ner, of the tribe of Benjamin. Brother of Kish, and uncle of the Messiah Saul, the prince of the people of Israel.
You ask me for my memories of my nephew, this hero beloved by Yahweh, and chosen by him but then just as suddenly rejected, and cast out from his presence for ever? I remember as if it were yesterday, the time when Yahweh's choice first pointed to my nephew.
It was just at that famous time, that the maidens and the singers sang about for months and years afterwards, of the Quest of the Lost Donkeys. They made it out to be some heroic saga almost, like Yahweh's battle with the Chaos-Monster Leviathan! But I remember the day the two of them came home to Gibeah, Saul and that scapegrace servant of his, who had spent three whole days marching around the hill country of Ephraim as if they were searching for the lost fruit of Eden. I blamed that servant boy, who was always up to all kinds of pranks and mischief, leading Saul astray; probably thinking this was a chance for a holiday, three days without having to do a stroke of work!
When they came home - and it had all been a complete waste of time, the donkeys had been found the very evening they set out, happily munching the new shoots in Kish's neighbour's field - and wasn't he furious when he found them! - I met them in the gate, for I knew that my brother Kish was too soft to deal with them as they deserved.
"Where in all creation have you two been?" I demanded.
At this both of them looked shamefaced, as well they might, and Saul began to make excuses for them. "You know, uncle, we went looking for my father's donkeys; and when we couldn't find them, we went to Samuel to enquire of him. You know how it is with these men of God: ask them a simple question and they keep you there all day telling you the whole will of Yahweh. We came away and came home as soon as ever we could."
But they weren't going to get off that lightly. "All right," I said. "If Samuel did detain you, what was it he said to you?"
Saul flashed that most winning smile at me, the smile that turned the heads of all the girls, and answered, "Just that the donkeys had been found, uncle, that's all." I knew it wasn't all; but I knew it was all I would get out of him, no matter how hard I pressed him.
I soon found out what it was that Samuel had spoken to him about. A few weeks later, messengers were sent throughout the tribes of Israel, with word that Samuel the seer, Samuel the judge of the people of Israel, was summoning all the tribes to gather to him at Mizpah, where he would appoint a prince over them, as they desired.
Not everyone went, of course: the whole land would have been emptied of its inhabitants if all had gone. But enough of us gathered at Mizpah to make it a bigger throng than I had ever witnessed for any festival or holy day in all my life. Whole families and households travelled from all over the twelve tribes, and camped out on the hillside before Mizpah, spreading out their blankets on the ground. Young men in groups stood laughing, or playing, casting their eyes all the time at the similar crowds of maidens who both returned, and avoided, their glances. Sellers of sweetmeats and bread and wine passed back and forth among the crowds, peddling their wares. There was a mood of celebration and high expectation, as everyone asked who was the one Samuel would name as king.
At last the aged seer appeared, walking as stiffly upright as he could manage, with his sons following behind, watching him warily, and ready to steady him if he should stumble. When he stopped on top of the rock facing the city, his voice though full of years was as strong and compelling as it had ever been.
"Hear, O Israel!" he cried, and the talking of thousands of tongues ceased immediately. "This is what Yahweh says: 'I brought you out of slavery in Egypt, I set you free from all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.' But you have rejected your God, your saviour, and have asked for a king to rule over you instead. Very well: pass before Yahweh now by your tribes and your clans, and he will show you whom he has appointed to be your prince and governor."
This was all part of the long and elaborate ritual of choosing by lot. Each of the tribes passed before Yahweh, like troops passing in review before their commanding officer, only there were more of these than in any army of the Israelites that had ever marched, since the days of Moses and Aaron who led them out of Egypt. And Samuel said, It was the tribe of Benjamin that Yahweh had chosen. So then the tribe of Benjamin marched past again, family by family, and Samuel said it was the family of the Matrites that was chosen. And finally that family passed by, man by man, and Samuel said, my nephew Saul, son of Kish, was the one chosen by Yahweh. But Saul was nowhere to be seen.
Immediately a cry went up from hundreds of voices "Where is Saul?" It was passed from mouth to mouth, and the children took it up like a  game of hide and seek, hunting excitedly for the missing king. It didn't take long to find him, with so many seekers, and the cry then changed to, "He's here, hiding with the baggage!"
It was true: this strapping young man, for some reason I simply could not guess, had taken it into his head to be overcome with nerves as if he were some blushing girl. It seemed to me that the Saul I had known would have revelled in the attention and the glory, would have used the moment to impress his friends and all the girls. Something had happened to him, when he met Samuel in Ramah. Some new spirit had entered him, he had become a different man.
They brought him out from among the baggage, a cheering, laughing, whooping crowd, and brought him to Samuel. He towered above the old man, just as he stood a head and shoulders taller than all the people. A kind of low sound ran around the crowd: it was the sigh of thousands of women, and a murmur of admiration from the men.  The seer placed his hands on Saul's shoulders and pressed him down so that he was kneeling in front of him. Then he kissed my nephew's head, made him stand again, turned him round to face the crowds of the gathered tribes, and said in a ringing voice, "Behold the man! Behold Yahweh's Messiah!"
And now, for the first time in the long, bitter, sweet story of Israel, the cry rose from the people as one man: "Long live the king! Long live the king!"
Singing and celebration went on far into the night, and in the morning the crowds began to disperse, returning happily to their homes, talking and retelling the story of events as they went their way. As in any crowd, there were the inevitable grumblers: Who does this Saul think he is? A man of Benjamin, of all things, the smallest of all tribes! How can this man save us? We do not want this man to be prince over us!
But when Saul returned to Gibeah, he was carried on his way by a band of young men who felt a movement in their hearts they had never known before. Who were happy to pledge their strength to serve him, delighted to be a part of the new thing Yahweh had wrought, on which Israel had pinned such hopes, that would redeem them from the hated Philistines, and from all their other enemies round about.
Me? I was left musing, wondering what it could mean to have the Messiah as my nephew.

4. A Prince of Israel	

Jabesh-Gilead is a town like hundreds of others among the tribes of Israel. Our forefathers chose to settle here when the tribes first came out of Egypt. After they had wandered forty years in the wilderness, the whole generation that Moses constantly denounced as rebellious and stiff-necked, died, and their sons and daughters came to the east of Jordan and stood poised on the edge of the Land Yahweh had promised them. But some still remembered why their fathers had refused to march on into the Land in the first place. It was the spies' report of the Land's inhabitants: that they were ferocious giants, living in walled cities we would never be able to capture. In comparison with them, our fathers felt like grasshoppers, and so they seemed to the giants in that Land.
So when the children of the rebellious generation came to Gilead, and found the land pleasant and fertile, the inhabitants no bigger and stronger than ordinary men, and the cities quite able to be captured by our armies, they decided it would be good to settle there. Joshua, our general, reluctantly agreed, on condition that the armed men should not enjoy their possession, until they had first helped the other tribes in their conquest of the Land beyond, and west of Jordan.
So it came about that the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, live east of Jordan and away from their Israelite relatives, to this very day.
Yes, Jabesh-Gilead is like those hundreds of towns; with this exception alone. It is dangerously near to the lands of the Ammonites, our bitter foes. Some of the old stories call them kin, the descendants of our Father Abraham's nephew Lot, born to one of his own daughters after Yahweh burned the Cities of the Plain with fire and brimstone from heaven. Me, I never believed that disgusting legend. But kin or no, they certainly did not behave like it, at the time when Yahweh appointed Saul as his Messiah, to deliver his people from their enemies.
The king of the Ammonites at that time was one Nahash, a cruel, blood-thirsty warrior greedy for gold and women. He delighted to lead his raiding parties into the territories of Reuben and Gad, to plunder their silver and their livestock, steal their women and humiliate the men who failed to defend them. His favourite torture was to round up the captured men of a village, gouge out their right eyes, and cast them out in the fields, screaming and bloody. To avoid this shame and dishonour, thousands of the men of fighting age fled from the Ammonites, abandoning their homes and villages, and came to Jabesh-Gilead, hoping they would be safe here.
But a man like Nahash can never be content with terrorising his victims and plundering their possessions. He must always be coveting more, reaching out for more wealth, more plunder, more humiliation of his enemies. And so it was he came to Jabesh-Gilead, in the strength of his might and overweening pride.
I remember to this day, how we rushed up on the city walls at the ringing of the warning bell, and the watchman's cry: "The Ammonites! The Ammonites are coming!" Women and children screamed, running hither and thither through the streets. Men stood grim-faced and silent, looking over the ramparts at the armed warriors ranged along the hillside, while others hurried to bring in the last of the flocks through the city gates, and to shut and bar the gates.
Then Nahash sent out his herald: a  greasy fellow who looked like some rabid beast slavering and licking his fat chops in anticipation of the feast he expected soon to be devouring. He called up to the men on the walls and to the elders, to open the gates and submit to the inevitable. Their conqueror, Ammon, had come.
The elders of our town begged for mercy. "Make a treaty with us," they pleaded, "and we will become your servants. Only spare us, our children and our womenfolk."
The herald laughed, a coarse, mocking laugh that struck fear into the hearts of all of us. "My master says this to you: I will make a treaty with you, to spare your lives and let you live as my servants, when first I have gouged out the right eye of every male among you; and so I will put disgrace upon all Israel. Accept these terms, or die!"
There was a horrified silence, followed by an outburst of everyone talking at once, while the crying of some of the men was added to the weeping and lamenting of the women. Outside the walls, the herald began to pace impatiently up and down, tossing his head and leering lustfully at any of the women who happened to peer over the wall. Further off, the main body of Ammonite warriors began to chant their obscene war songs, and beat their spear shafts on their leather shields.
After what seemed like an age, one of the elders shouted their decision to the herald. It was a request for a week's respite, so that they could send messengers throughout the whole territory of Israel, to see if there were any who would champion us in Jabesh-Gilead, any at all who would come to our aid and deliver us from our oppressors, and the disgrace they threatened us with. If, within that time, there was no champion, we would open the gates of the city and submit to Nahash and his terms of shame.
He must have been very confident of his might, and of the terror his army inspired in the hearts of the Israelites, for he agreed to this request and withdrew far enough from our city, promising safe passage to the messengers the elders might send. I, young as I was, was one of those sent with the other chosen men to carry the word and the plea to all the tribes of Israel. Never since the nation of Israel came to be, had such a threat and such a challenge come upon us, and the elders hoped and prayed that seeing one as young as me would bring home to those who heard it the horror and urgency of our need. What each of us knew and feared, and did not know whether or not Nahash knew it, was that the loss of an eye made an Israelite unclean, unholy, unfit to enter the Presence of Yahweh and share fully in the worship and the sacrifices. Having his eye gouged out was not just a shameful defeat and terrible physical maiming, it also stripped him of his identity as a true descendant of Abraham, a full member of the people of Yahweh.
Travelling as light as we could, without weapons or baggage, we made a forced march to take the message to Gibeah; for we had heard that Yahweh had chosen Saul as his Messiah, to save his people from their enemies. It was not until the third day that we reached Saul's city, and then the word spread rapidly among the inhabitants, and the streets were filled with men and women talking loudly, wailing and lamenting.
Then Saul came into the midst of the crowds. Not from a palace or a rich house, not from campaigning or weapons practice with his fighting men, but from his fields. From Kish's farmland, where he had been ploughing with the oxen like any common farm boy. I thought when I first saw this that I would despise him, and be sure that such a man could not be prince of Israel. But no: in a moment my heart filled with love and went out to him. The Messiah whom the people had asked Samuel to give them, the Messiah chosen by Yahweh himself, was one of us, a man of the people not much older than I was. I knew, that instant, that I would follow him to the ends of the earth; that I would willingly shed my blood with him to fight for Yahweh's people; that nothing could stand against the love and loyalty that he awoke in men's hearts.
The next thing I saw confirmed all that I had felt in that first rush of devotion. As soon as Saul heard the message we had brought from Jabesh-Gilead, his face changed and darkened, his whole body began to tremble, and strange sounds issued from his lips, like words in a tongue I had never heard before. I heard one or two of the bystanders whispering in awe-struck tones, "The Spirit of Yahweh! It is the Spirit of Yahweh coming upon him, as it did on the road from Ramah!"
I had heard of the kind of things that the prophets did, when that spirit came upon them: strange things that went beyond the bounds of reason, that seemed mad, yet proved to be a true sign from Yahweh. And now I saw it for myself: Saul took up a great blade and cut the throats of the very yoke of oxen he had been driving before him. He slashed the beasts into twelve pieces, one for each of the tribes of Israel, and commanded his father's servants to carry the pieces to every tribe, to Asher and Dan, to Naphtali and Zebulun, to Issachar, Manasseh, and Ephraim, throughout all Judah and as far as Simeon, to Reuben and Gad and little Benjamin that knew of it already, and there to proclaim Saul's terrible call and curse: "If anyone will not come forth with arms, and follow Saul and Samuel, let this be the fate of his oxen!"
And at once he buckled on his sword and armour, and marched northward, followed by all the men whose hearts Yahweh moved to follow him, making swiftly for the rallying-point of Bezek, west of the Jordan from Jabesh-Gilead. I followed with them,  my heart swelling with pride and warlike dreams as I saw my prince striding out at the head of us all, while the other messengers came puffing along behind.
On the third day - the sixth day of marching for me, though I scarcely felt the weariness and pain, for the joy of following my prince - the men of Israel were numbered at Bezek: three hundred thousand men, armed and ready to strike in vengeance against the Ammonites, and seventy thousand from Judah alone. Then Saul sent the messengers home - though I remained with him and the army - saying, "Say this to the people of Jabesh-Gilead: Before the sun is hot tomorrow, I, Saul, will give you your deliverance. Yahweh will strike your enemies, and you will be free."
As we camped for the night, Saul himself walked among us and gave his orders to each company and band of the Israelites. I have called us an army; but in truth we were nothing more than a mass of men, spoiling for a fight. We were not formed as divisions or companies, we were nothing more than haphazard bands of men from the same town or village or group of villages, or men who just happened to have been marching together on the way, and had come to know and like each other. But even without the leadership of trained captains, we responded to Saul's orders and encouragement. He divided us into three divisions, and gave the first orders of battle he had ever given as king. The smallest of the three companies was to advance directly on the Ammonite camp, while the two larger, equal companies set off before first light in flanking movements to attack them from the sides and the rear. After eating whatever we had with us, and snatching a few hours of sleep, we hurried to obey.
That was my first battle for Saul. Anyone who has never fought an enemy hand to hand, with naked sharp blades, flesh against flesh, cannot know the tempest of feelings that sweeps through a man before, during and after the battle. There is a surge of exhilaration as he is carried along with his comrades, the excitement of preparing to fight which moves him forward as if his feet are raised up off the ground, on wings, rather than still stirring up the dust or mud. And with it the fear: of pain, or death, or of turning out to be a faint-heart and running headlong from the fray. A grim, tight-lipped determination to do what must be done, to support his friends on either side in the line, to defend his home and family and avenge himself on his enemies, to take life if he can or to die if he must. Once the fighting begins, there is so little time to think or feel, that the whole of his concentration of mind and body is taken up with the need to defend, to survive, to hold together, to strike and wound and kill if possible. It is as if he has eyes all over his body, senses heightened to the utmost to detect an approaching enemy, the swing or thrust of a blade, or a flying spear or arrow, any threat to himself or his comrades. And afterwards the elation of having survived, the tales to share, the boasts of enemies killed, or near escapes from death, the sadness of friends taken from him, that he will never see again.
On the field before Jabesh-Gilead, the cry to attack went up. A great shout greeted the command, that was then taken  up by thousands of Israelites, and we poured down on the Ammonite camp like the flood in  a dry wadi, following a sudden storm. Our enemies fought like men, and died like cattle. Those who were able, fled, every man for himself; and there was wailing and lamenting in all of Ammon that day.
But in Jabesh-Gilead there was rejoicing, and in the camp of Saul, and throughout all Israel. Never since the days of Deborah, Gideon and Jephthah, had there been such a victory for us against our enemies. At last Yahweh had heard our prayers, and raised up a Messiah to lead us to victory!
In the elation and celebration, some of Saul's own band, the men who had first been moved to follow him on the day he was chosen as prince, began to cry out against those who had grumbled against. "Where are the men who said, We do not want Saul to rule over us? Bring them here! Kill them! Let their name perish with them!"
In the midst of their angry shouting, and a tumult that was beginning to infect the companies and bands round about them, Saul stood up and shouted for silence.
"Enough of this! No Israelite shall die today at the hands of another, for this is the day that Yahweh has given victory to his people. Let us give thanks to Him, give Him the glory and the praise!"
The celebrations of victory and thanksgiving went on for days. The tribes gathered again to Gilgal, where they renewed their pledge of allegiance to the king who had saved them, and offered sacrifices and offerings to Yahweh.
That was not the last battle I fought with Saul, but it was the one I remember most vividly: the battle that saved me and my family and my whole town from the humiliating defeat and shame that Nahash the Ammonite had sworn he would inflict on us. My townspeople never forgot their debt to the Messiah Saul. Years later, after the disaster of Mount Gilboa, where he fell in battle against the Philistines, because David had betrayed and abandoned him, we were finally able to discharge that debt. The Philistines - may Yahweh reward them as they deserve! - had found the bodies of Saul and his sons Jonathan, Abinadab and Melchishua among the piles of the slain. They cut off their heads, stripped them of their armour which they dedicated in the temple of their vile whore-goddess Astarte, and hung up their bodies on the wall of Beth-Shan.
When we in Jabesh-Gilead heard this, the best men - and I among them -  armed ourselves with our weapons and marched through the night to Beth-Shan. We took their bodies down, in spite of the threats and curses of the Philistine garrison looking down on us, and it was well for them they did not try to prevent us, for our blood was up and tempers running high. Then we wrapped them in linen, took them back home and burned them with prayers and full honours. We buried their bones under the sacred tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted with mourning for seven days. It was the least we could do for the Messiah who had redeemed us.

5. Saul and Sons At War	

It was just after my father's first, great victory against Nahash king of the Ammonites, and his deliverance of the people of Jabesh-Gilead, which gave the Israelites their first real taste of victory since the time of Jephthah, that my mother conceived me. And so it was that when I was born, a first-born male to open my mother's womb, my proud father gave me the name Jonathan. It means, Yahweh has given. In his first flush of the knowledge that he was Yahweh's Chosen, he saw every day, every blessing, as a gift specially for him, by which he could be Yahweh's man in the world, to serve the chosen holy people, and to bring glory to the Name of their God.
I grew up in the knowledge that my father Saul, the man I called abba with the familiarity that no one else could, was the king of Israel, Yahweh's Messiah. We did not live in a great palace like the kings of the nations around us. There were no courtiers, no secret rooms full of wives and concubines, no gossiping and conspiring factions. When my father was first anointed king, he returned from the feasting and celebration to till his own fields, to work on the land which still belonged to his father Kish. It was from those same fields that he returned to hear the news of the humiliation that threatened the people of Jabesh-Gilead, and set out to deliver them so successfully, with the result that confirmed him in his kingship and made the whole assembly of the tribes of Israel love and follow him.
It was a heady atmosphere for a boy to grow up in. From a very early age I began to learn the use of arms, more than the use of the plough. The other boys of my age admired and respected me, not for my own sake, but for my father's. We all longed for the day when we would reach manhood, and be able to take our part in the bands that followed Israel's Messiah, whenever they were called upon to help him defend us against our enemies.
For in those days there were many tribes and nations surrounding our ancestral lands, that hated us and longed to wipe us off the face of the earth. It was their belief that we had stolen their land when Joshua led our forefathers out of the wilderness and over Jordan into the hills and valleys, the towns and villages of Canaan. Yet even the youngest Israelite boy or girl learns from their mother's breast, that this Land was promised to our forefathers by Yahweh himself. It was promised to Abraham, before ever the people went down into Egypt and slavery. The promise was renewed to Isaac, and to Jacob who received the name of Israel, and to all his twelve sons. This is our Land, the land flowing with milk and honey that is our promise and our birthright as the children of Israel.
No wonder the nations around us look with envy on all these blessings that we enjoy, the favour of Yahweh our God, and the Promised Land itself. To the north, the Sidonians and Arameans; to the east, the Ammonites and Moabites; to the south, the Edomites and the Amalekites. And to the west, between us and the Sea, and the worst of them all: the Philistines. They have long been the fiercest and most dangerous, because they possessed one thing that we lacked: the knowledge of iron. No one knows by what devilry or magic they acquired this skill with the black ore from out of the earth, and how to transform it into the hard, sharp metal which can shatter the bronze of our blades, and slash through flesh and bone, to sever a man's soul from his body. They say, it was the gift of their vile idol Dagon; but how could such an abomination reveal to men such a complex and mighty artistry? Perhaps it was Yahweh's punishment upon us for turning away from his word in the days of the earlier judges, when the Philistines first came from the Sea and planted their settlements upon these shores?
By the time I was growing to manhood, the knowledge of iron was the one thing that kept us in thrall to the Philistines. Certainly, there had been times when we had gained victory over them. Samson had wrought terrible carnage upon them in the days of his strength, and even after they tricked and captured him, and robbed him of his strength and put out his eyes, still he slew more of them on the day of his death, than he had slain in all his life. Later, in the time of Eli, Yahweh Himself smote them with plague and suffering in all their cities, when they captured the sacred Ark in battle; and he would not hold back his hand, until they sent back the Ark to its rightful place among the tribes of Israel.
But for these defeats, the Philistines hated us all the more and were determined to keep us in chains. They kept the secret of iron from us, and charged extortionately for the very few iron implements they were prepared to sell us. That was a few ploughshares and other farm tools, which only the wealthiest among us could therefore afford. When these needed repairing or sharpening, there was no smith in the whole of Israel who knew how to do the work, so we must go time and again to the Philistines and suffer the humiliation of having to ask them to do the work. They might or might not agree to do it; and even if they agreed, our people were entirely at the mercy of their whim, for the price they would have to pay.
A very few iron weapons fell into our possession. My father Saul had one, which he had captured from a slain enemy on the battlefield, and there were a few others like it. Our craftsmen studied them, tested them, tried to divine the secret of their making. The best of them worked on this project for months and years, but were no nearer discovering the truth. And so the Philistines continued to hold us in their power, like an enemy who has your manhood in his fist, and squeezes until you submit to whatever he demands.
It was the year I turned sixteen, by now a youth with my coming of age behind me, and many of my friends were already married with children, though I had yet to find a maiden who took my fancy. It was my first real campaign, yet my father showed his supreme confidence in my - though there were many seasoned men who grumbled against him and me - by giving me command of a thousand of his trained warriors. There were just three thousand of these in all, the core of an army, the men on whom the Messiah could call at a few days' notice to leave their homes and farms to come and fight for Israel's cause. Two thousands were with Saul in the hills around Bethel, while my thousand were in Gibeah itself, the city of Saul.
The nearest Philistine garrison was at Geba, some three miles away. The very existence of that garrison, so close to my father's city, was a standing insult, a constant offence to our nationhood and a reminder of our weakness. At the same time, it was not always a strong garrison, so arrogant and self-confident had the Philistines become about their strength. The supremacy of their wonderful iron. They sometimes forgot that even more powerful than the metal, is the spirit of the man who wields it.
On that memorable day of my first command, I led my thousand out against the Geba garrison, and almost without thinking, found myself giving the order to advance and attack. Whether they were lazy, or drunk, or just the dregs of the Philistine fighting men, we took them completely by surprise, and our superior numbers and sheer rage enabled us to inflict a stinging defeat on them. We killed a dozen or so, half of the rest fled into the hills and back to Philistia, and the remaining twenty men took refuge in the garrison stronghold.
In all this, I had not acted with my father's full knowledge and agreement. For good or ill, I believed in my youthful zeal for the work of Yahweh and his Messiah, that I saw a perfect opportunity and seized it. My father would probably have waited until the opportunity was even riper, when it would have been possible to destroy even more of the enemy's forces. But he could not find it in himself to rebuke me, when he saw my joy and pride, and the infectious excitement that spread to the rest of the men: the Messiah's son was now also a leader and a warrior, able to inflict shame on those who had for so long shamed us.
What I had not foreseen, though my father had, was the effect this small defeat would have on the Philistines. When those who fled from Geba reached the cities of the Philistines and told what had happened, their kings and people were filled with fury. They determined to teach a lesson to these upstart Hebrews, that they nor their children would ever forget. They raised the biggest army that they had ever brought into the Land, thirty thousand chariots, six thousand cavalry, and troops more than we could count. They marched up from their coastal plains, driving a wedge between the northern and the southern tribes, and camped at Michmash, driving my father and his men further east to Gilgal, just four miles from the Jordan.
In spite of the jubilation my little victory had caused, the Israelite tribes were now filled with terror, and especially those towns and villages close to where the Philistines made their camp. Those iron chariots, and the black armour of their drivers and bowmen, seemed like some fell spirits from the underworld of Sheol. At the sight of them, the people of the villages fled to the hills and hid themselves in caves, in holes in the rocks; even in empty tombs and water cisterns that were almost dry by that time of the year. Others even crossed over to the east bank of the Jordan, and took refuge in the land of Gad and Gilead.
What I did not learn until much later, was the division that occurred at that time between my father and Samuel. Samuel had a great love for Saul. Even though he had first been bitterly opposed to the whole notion of a king for Israel, fearing as he did that by asking for a king like other nations, they were rejecting Yahweh as king over them, he had been won over. First by that mysterious Voice of Yahweh, which brought him knowledge of the will of his God, and second by the sheer charm and grace of the one Yahweh chose to be his Messiah. Saul, my father, had some gift of making men as well as women love him. Even before the hour when the spirit of Yahweh came upon him, and he became a new man, he had had that gift; but afterwards, it was even more powerful.
It seems that at some point in the many conversations Samuel and my father had, and the messages that passed between them, Samuel had foretold that Saul would be at Gilgal and facing some terrible threat or danger. It had been part of the sign that Samuel had told him, to prove the truth of his Messiahship. My father had not understood this mysterious sign when he first heard of it, but now it all came back to him.
"Wait for me at Gilgal for seven days," Samuel had said, "until I come and offer burnt offerings and sacrifices, and then I will tell you what you must do."
But now Saul had waited seven days, and still Samuel had not come, and even his chosen, picked warriors, were beginning to desert and slip away from him. When the seventh day ended, Saul decided he could wait no longer. He called for his officers to bring the animals for the burnt offering and the peace offering, and he sacrificed them himself on the altar that was at Gilgal. He reasoned that though he was not a priest, still he was the Messiah, and the need was pressing.
No sooner had the burnt offering been consumed on the fire of the altar, than Samuel appeared. When he learned what Saul had done, he was furious. In his mind, the offering of sacrifice was the privilege of the priest alone; anyone who presumed to do so without being of the priestly caste, was guilty of sacrilege or worse. There was no hint of an explanation or apology for his delay. He was the one who had failed to honour his promise to my father, that he would come after seven days. No, he upbraided my father, called him fool and rebel, told him he had disobeyed Yahweh's express command. And now, when Yahweh would have established his kingdom over Israel for ever, he would instead seek another man, a man after his own heart, to rule over them. As if Saul were not a man after Yahweh's own heart! as we all well knew. But Samuel went off in a sulk, back to Ramah, leaving us to face the Philistines without his aid. Those that remained at Gilgal with my father came up to Gibeah and we joined forces, by now only about six hundred strong.
Perhaps I was just headstrong in my youth, but this was the first time in my life that I began to doubt my father's wisdom, and military skill, and began to believe that I knew better what needed to be done to fight our enemies. My father was surrounded by old men, as they seemed to me, as his advisers. There was Abner his cousin, the chief captain of his warriors. He was a good and honourable man, valiant in battle and the one man whom more than any other you would want at your side in a tight place, in the heat of battle. Many a time he and Saul had saved each other's lives, and there was no man my father trusted like him. And then there was Ahijah the priest, the bearer of the sacred ephod. He was the great-grandson of Eli the priest at Shiloh, whose fame we were constantly being told about, because he had been the master and teacher of old Samuel, whom my father set such store by. Not an old man, then, yet he had all the boring solemnity and caution of the old. Whenever he used his precious ephod to seek Yahweh's guidance, you could be sure of only two things. It would take for ever for him to get any kind of answer out of the thing; and when he could it, it would be nothing good for our cause. It would always be, Wait, or Not yet, or The time is not right. I and the young men, my comrades, were sure it was not Yahweh who delivered these messages - for is not Yahweh our God the Lord of Battles? It was dull, cowardly Ahijah, who dreamed up these answers for the oracle, and passed them off as his own.
Many a time, in our hot-headed drinking and swaggering, we would talk about knowing better what Yahweh's plans might be, or what he might accomplish. What did it matter if we were only six hundred, in my father's whole army? Against these uncircumcised dogs of Philistines, a handful of men, with the help of Yahweh, could win a crushing victory.
In our growing frustration with the old men's cautions and delays, some of us resolved to strike a blow against the Philistines, with or without their permission. Early on the second day of the month, I crept out of Gibeah with my armour-bearer Elizur, to spy out the Philistine garrison at Michmash. The plan was, that if we spied out any weakness in their positions, we would return with all the young men in arms and exploit that weakness to win a great victory before the older men were even aware of it. We were already dreaming of the glory that would be ours, and the way the girls would swoon and fawn over us when we came back in triumph from the battlefield.
Things did not turn out the way I had planned or expected. When we first got near the pass at Michmash, my heart turned to water in my breast. The Philistines had chosen what seemed the perfect place for their outpost. It was in a commanding position, with an unhindered view in all directions, of the steep paths by which any attacker could reach them. Two rocky crags overlooked those approaches. On the north in front of Michmash was the crag Bozez; while to the south, facing Geba, rose the crag called Seneh. We squatted in the shade of a tall rock at the foot of Seneh, looking up the steep defile that led to the Philistines' garrison, and it seemed there was no way even a host of warriors could get up that way and attack the enemy.
But as we hid there, occasionally peering around the edge of the rock to see the enemy position without being seen, something happened to me which I have only experienced a half a dozen times in my life. It was as if I heard the Voice of Yahweh speaking as clear as Elizur my friend. "A host of warriors could not do it; but doubtless Yahweh will act for us, for nothing can hinder Yahweh from saving by many or by few."
Elizur seemed to catch the same inrush of faith, or inspiration, or whatever it was; for his whole face was lit up with a boyish grin, his teeth flashed at my in his joy, and he said, "Go on then, and I am with you! My heart is as your heart, and may Yahweh fight for us, if he will!"
We stood up then, no longer caring whether the Philistines saw us. For this would be our sign from Yahweh. If the Philistines called out to us, and told us to come up to them without shooting their arrows at us or warning us off, that would be our sign that Yahweh was giving them into our hands.
We heard the sentries talking to each other as they watched us begin to toil up the path. The sun was already high in the clear blue sky, the heat shimmered all around us, the sweat ran down from the rim of my leather helmet, and under my breastplate. There was not a sound in all creation, but the scuffing of our sandals on the stony ground, and the foul jabbering of the enemy soldiers. I heard their words, and understand them, for we had been forced to learn enough of their barbarian tongue to have dealings with them.
They laughed as they said to each other, "Look: Hebrews are coming out of the holes in the ground where they have hidden themselves like rats." There was much more besides, typical coarse soldiers' talk, concerning our mothers' virtue, our fathers' manhood, and what they intended doing to our sisters, when they finally took possession of our villages. All accompanied with their gross, sickening laughter, until my blood boiled and it was as if I saw everything through a red veil before my eyes. But I held my peace, and climbed nearer to their position.
Then they started shouting to us, in the kind of loud pidgin language always used by conquerors when speaking to their despised subjects - as if we were too stupid to understand their perverted tongue.
"Hey, you little Hebrew-boys! You comee up here to us, pretty damn quick like. We showee you some pretty thing, something you likee." More guffaws and snorts of contempt.
"Come, Elizur," I said. "It is the sign! Yahweh is giving them into the hands of Israel today."
We clambered up the rest of the way on our hands and knees, and stood on the level ground at the top, with the Philistine sentries clustered around us, and the rest of their camp no further away than the length of half a furrow in an acre of land.
For a few short moments, Elizur and I stood drawing breath, and pretending that we really were the simple, innocent farm boys they seemed to take us for, looking forward to seeing whatever pretty gewgaw they were going to show us. Their jeering and their jibes continued, becoming ever more disgusting and obscene to us, and hilariously amusing to them. Several of them were almost doubled up with laughter at the antics of one of them, who was miming the prodigious size of his male member, and the fright and pleasure of my younger sister when it penetrated her virginity.
That was the last straw for me, the final proof that Yahweh had given these men to us to exact his judgement on them, for they were too vile to live. I felt the surge of rage, strength, and courage flow through my whole being, that I have always imagined is what is meant when the stories tell us, as they do about Samson and Gideon and others, that the spirit of Yahweh came upon them. That was exactly what it felt like to me that day, when we climbed to the top of Michmash below the crag of Seneh. I drew from my tunic the blade I had hidden there, my iron sword that had been taken from one of the Philistines we had slain at Geba , and swung it in a wide arc at the dog who would ravish my Michal. With one blow it almost severed his head from his shoulders and he fell without a scream. Two more blows, and the nearest of the others, still almost paralysed with their lecherous laughter, lay dead on the ground. Some of the others shouted and fumbled for their weapons, but surprise was completely on our side. Elizur had drawn his sword too and was laying about him with the same swift strength that empowered my righteous arm. Together we were the hand of Yahweh, wreaking vengeance on his enemies.
We swept forward like a wave of the mighty sea, leaving no man standing in our path, advancing towards the edge of the camp. In that space of half a furrow's length, twenty men lay dead by our hands, and the camp was shaken with panic. Enemy soldiers were running in all directions, unsure whether they were running out of or into danger. It seemed impossible for them to believe that only two men could be responsible for this slaughter, and in the confusion some began to turn on one another, while others ran onto our blades, thinking they were escaping from an imaginary main body of attackers, and fell dead before us.
Later I heard from my friends, who remained with Saul in the camp at Gibea, how they first learned of the slaughter. Looking out in the direction of Michmash, they saw the tumult and heard the shouting, the screams of the dying. They called the roll of the warriors, and realised that Elizur and I alone were missing. Saul sent for Ahijah, to bring the Ark of Yahweh into the camp and lead the main mody in the attack. But as the noise and clamour on the opposite hill continued to grow, at length even Saul would not wait for the priests to move slowly into action. He commanded the horns to be sounded, giving the signal to attack, and the little army of Yahweh surged forwards onto the killing field.
As the battle continued, the men of Israel who had gone over to the Philistines, to serve them in the garrison, rose and turned against their alien lords. News of the reverse the Philistines had suffered, quickly spread to nearby towns and villages, and Israelites who had formerly lived in dread of the enemy, and cowered from them in unmanly dread, now rose up in anger. They came from all their towns, even from east of Jordan, to join in the rout. Wherever the Philistines had posted a garrison, small or large, the Israelite tribes turned on them with a rage that the Philistines could not withstand, and throughout the whole of the hill country of Ephraim, our vengeance against the occupier and the oppressor, the hatred master of the black iron, went on.
That day might have seen the utter annihilation of the Philistine army, a defeat so total that they would not have dared venture into our territory again for the rest of Saul's reign as king, if it had not been for my father's rashness and foolishness with regard to the Curse. As he led his troops from Gibeah into the fray, he thought to urge them on, to encourage them to the utmost zeal for blood, by uttering a solemn oath and curse.
"Cursed be any man who holds back his hand from the killing, and eats any food or drinks any drink, before it is evening and I have been fully avenged on my enemies," he cried, in the hearing of all - and the word was passed to all those who followed him.
Only, Elizur and I were not with him when he uttered the curse. We did not hear his words. And so, when we came in our pursuit of the fleeing Philistines to the Wood of Bees, where honey was simply dripping from the bees' nests in the trees, and falling to the ground, I dipped the tip of my staff in the sweet honey, and ate it. We had not eaten or drunk since before dawn, and killing is always thirsty work, especially in that kind of heat. I thought that honey was the sweetest, the most delicious food I had ever tasted. My flagging strength was renewed, my feet became swift again in pursuit of those who fled.
But some of the men were quick to rebuke me and tell me about my father's curse. In my fear, and foolhardiness, I spoke rashly so that many around heard me find fault with my lord the king: "My father has brought great trouble on the land, with this curse. Look how my strength was renewed when I tasted a little of the honey. If he had only allowed the men to eat some of the spoil of the Philistines, the slaughter today would have been greater; but now many of them will get away."
These words were taken up, repeated around the different bands, and when the pursuers were ready to faint with thirst and hunger they turned on the captured sheep and oxen and calves they had taken from the enemy as they fled. They slaughtered them on the ground, wherever they were, and ate them with the blood still in the flesh, which is strictly forbidden by the Law that Moses gave us.
When Saul came up and saw the orgy of killing, roasting and eating that was going on, he commanded a proper altar or killing stone to be set up, and for the animals to be killed according to the Law, so that his men would not sin by eating them with the blood. But it was too late: the harm was done, and Yahweh in his fickle anger had withdrawn the might of his right arm from us.
After that night's feasting and heavy sleep, we awoke to a cold grey dawn. The corpses of those who had fallen the previous day, still lay scattered across the hills, along the whole route of the Philistines' flight. Our own camp was a confusion of men who were weary after the bloody work they had done, some eager to continue the pursuit into the midst of the Five Cities themselves, some grateful to have survived, and ready to return to their homes and families, others ready to follow their Messiah for as long as he commanded, but all looking to him for Yahweh's instruction. No longer the six hundred, the faithful remnant who were with him in Gibeah, the host had now grown to nearer ten thousand in number, all in hope of vengeance and plunder.
My father stood up in the midst of his troops, and though I had publicly disputed the wisdom of his curse of the previous day, my heart still went out to him in joy and love.
"Men of Israel!" he cried. "Today is the day of our great victory! Let us pursue these uncircumcised dogs of Philistines and strip them of their weapons and their spoils. Let us not leave one of them alive to crawl back whimpering to his womenfolk!"
The cry of agreement and approval went up from thousands of throats. We would have pursued them; we would have routed them so thoroughly they would never have dared to return. But at that moment that pusillanimous runt of a priest, Ahijah, stepped forward.
"It would be wrong to begin this great work without prayer,"he said. "Let us seek Yahweh, and inquire of him."
And he began his priestly mumbo-jumbo with the Urim and the Thummim that he took from his sacred breast-piece. "Ask your question, my lord."
My father thought for a few moments, his face serious. The Urim and the Thummim are tricky, elusive ways of seeking guidance: just the kind of thing the priests love, because they alone have authority to inquire of them and to manipulate them. It is part of their arcane craft. It's easy to get a deceptive or misleading answer, unless you are quite precise in the way you frame the question. Questions with a simple Yes or No answer are the best.
As soon as my father spoke, I felt my blood run cold, for in his haste and eagerness he asked not one question but two; and this is just the kind of thing the Urim and the Thummim so often balk at.
"This is what I ask of Yahweh: Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will you give them into the hand of Israel?"
The priest Ahijah raised an eyebrow; but he continued to mumble over the stones in his hands, and to do whatever it is the priest does with them.
The Urim and the Thummim can answer in three ways. That's to say Yes, or No, or to give no answer at all. This time there was no answer. Saul commanded the priest to try again. The same: still no answer. A low murmur of grumbling and muttering began to spread around the host. No answer was common enough; but it always seemed like very ill chance, a sign of God's disfavour or judgement.
Some of the warriors began to call out that we should ignore the oracle and pursue the enemy anyway. Others, the more superstitious among them, were already making their signs to avert the evil they felt so sure was coming on us. My father was clearly furious, gnawing his lip in his anger. But he would not go against the will of the God he loved and served with all his heart, the God who had appointed him Messiah. He strode restlessly up and down, consulted urgently with Abner and the other leaders, and reached his decision. Yahweh's silence, Yahweh's failure to answer, was because of some sin that his people had committed. Find out the guilt, and punish the offender, and Yahweh would smile on us again and give an answer.
Saul proclaimed in a solemn oath, that whoever was found to be responsible - even if it was himself or me - would surely die. Placing the two of us on one side, and the rest of the people on the other, he commanded the priest to consult the oracle. And this time, the accursed lots gave a clear answer: Urim, meaning that the guilt was with Saul and me. The lot was cast again, between the two of us, and the priest looked up nervously as he pronounced, "Thummim, my lord. The guilt is with your son, Jonathan."
The most profound silence I have ever experienced fell over the host. I swear I could hear the blood pulsing in my temples as my father stared at me in horrified anger. He strode up to me - he towered over me, as he did above all the rest - seized me by the shoulders and looked down into my eyes.
"Tell me what you have done," he demanded.
I looked him full in the face. I knew I had done nothing to be ashamed of, even if I had offended against his curse. If I had to die for it, then so be it. I told him about the honey I had found and eaten, how it had revived my strength and enabled me to go on pursuing and striking down our enemies on the previous day. That he had troubled Israel by his decree; that I would do the same again, if Yahweh spared me.
In my father's face I saw a procession of emotions, passing over his handsome features. Fury, disappointment, unshakeable trust in Yahweh, love, regret, grief, and yet a grim determination to honour the oath he had taken before God and all the people. With his left hand he seized me by the hair at the back of my head and bent it backwards, forcing me to my knees with my bare neck exposed to the blade he held in his right hand. It was the knife of sacrifice, the very blade the priests used for their sacred slaughter of the burnt offerings.
"As Yahweh lives, Jonathan, you have proclaimed the sentence upon yourself. You shall surely die for your sin!"
For a brief second it seemed that time stood still, or formed itself into a loop, and I saw myself in one of the stories from our history, that every Israelite child learns from its mother's knee. I was Isaac on Mount Moriah, bound with rope and laid upon the wood on the altar, where his father Abraham raised the knife over him to slay him, and offer him as a sacrifice to Yahweh. Why had Yahweh required such a thing of him, to give up the child of Promise, the one he had prayed and waited for so long? How many children have wondered and asked that same question, and been told by their parents, "It was because Yahweh was testing Abraham, to see if he really believed God's promise." I had never really believed that explanation. To me it had always seemed another evidence of Yahweh's remorseless and inscrutable mystery. But in a shimmering change of view, I was no longer the screaming terrified lad on the stone altar, but the one standing over him, with my arm raised ready to destroy what I most loved in all the world.
All of this flashed through my mind in an instant, less time than it takes to draw in a last gasp. And I thought it would be my final breath. But Abner and the others with him leaped forward and seized my father's arm, holding him back from striking the fatal blow.
The men at arms were shouting too, crying out that Jonathan should not die, that I had wrought a great victory for Israel. They would ransom me, so that not a hair of my head should fall to the ground.
The priest Ahijah stepped forward again, for this too was his craft, the holy mystery that he alone could minister. There are rituals and procedures for ransoming people or animals that have been promised in sacrifice or placed under the ban; and like all priestcraft, they take hours if not days to perform. The ablutions, prayers and offerings that Ahijah decreed were necessary to ransom the king's son, lasted from morning until evening. When at last they were finished, and Yahweh deigned to give answer by the Urim and Thummim to the question Saul had put, the answer was No, he was not to pursue the Philistines, Yahweh would not give them into his hand. But we knew this already. The enemy were long gone, fled to the safety of their walled cities. We would never catch them now; the triumph of Israel would only be half accomplished.
We returned to our homes, f��ted as victors and conquerors, celebrated as heroes. But sick at heart, too, at the thought of the final victory that might have been.
My relationship with my father, and my campaigning with him, was never quite the same after that day.

6. Rejected	

Of all the daughters of Benjamin, I am the most honoured. For it was I, Ahinoam daughter of Ahimaaz, whom the Messiah Saul chose to be his bride. When we were young, growing up in Gibeah and its villages, I was already proud that he chose me from among the other maidens. At that time there were many girls who set their eyes on him. He was the most comely youth among all the families of Benjamin, already at the age of fifteen, taller than any of the grown men, standing head and shoulders taller than any of them. Yet for all his stature, and his darkly handsome beauty, he was not proud like many of the other young men who came nowhere near to matching him. He was quiet, shy, sensitive. He often preferred his own company to that of the noisy crowd. He would wander alone into the hills, to be with his thoughts and commune with Yahweh under the wide sky. We were betrothed by our parents, because we pleaded with them and would not let them rest until they gave in to our request - though secretly they were all glad, for it was a good match for both our families - when he was fifteen and I was thirteen.
Then came the Adventure of the Lost Donkeys, which the people of those parts still tell of as if it was a legend of ancient heroes. In a way it is, though many laughed about it at the time, for it was the occasion on which my beloved first met with the seer Samuel, who anointed him as Yahweh's chosen. And as my Saul returned at the end of that adventure, it was then that the spirit of Yahweh first came upon him, and he became a new man.
What did that mean? people have often asked me. What difference did it make, when Saul received his anointing and was turned into a new man? I thought at the time that he would no longer love me or want to be my husband; that he would set his heart on marrying foreign princesses, and having many concubines, as the kings of other nations have always done, and as the bloody man David did, who took the throne after my Saul was slain. But no, if anything he became more loving and more attentive to me; more content to take as his wife a girl who was the daughter of his neighbours in Benjamin.
He became, over the months that followed, less reserved, more confident of himself and of the fact, surprising to him at first, that men did indeed love and respect him, and trusted him to lead and command them. Most of all, he lived for what he called sometimes the Glory, sometimes the Beauty or the Mystery, sometimes just Him. The God Yahweh, who was always a terror to me who never sensed or felt him in any way, and only had the word of the men who served him and spoke for him. Saul knew him in the same sort of way as those men of God claimed; yet when he spoke of his God, it never terrified me as it did whenever Samuel or Ahijah or the other priests spoke in his Name. For Saul, the God was as present as me, or any of his children - more so, I often thought. But when he spoke of him, it was with tenderest love, with the deepest respect which seemed then to shine from his eyes and be reflected in all his relations with the people around him. I had never known anyone love God, but also other men and women, as Saul did.
It was after he returned from the Adventure of the Donkeys, and before the king-making at Mizpah, that Saul and I were wed. We lived in the house of his father Kish, in his home town of Gibeah, for the first five years of our marriage, until the men of Israel began to complain, and say it was not fitting for their king to be living still in his father's house, as if he were no prince of his people. Then they built him a house of his own to live in, though Saul insisted it should be no different, no richer or bigger than the houses of his neighbours. By then I had born his first three children: Jonathan, that precious gift of Yahweh, Ishui, and our first daughter Merab.
Through all those early years of his kingdom and his campaigning, the victories he won against our enemies round about, the Ammonites, the Philistines, the Amalekites, the Moabites and Edomites, and the kings of Zobah, it was I who supported the Messiah, who watched and waited and prayed for him when he was away with the warriors. Each time he went away, I smiled and promised to keep the house, and to have a special feast waiting when he returned. And each time my heart was filled with dread even more than pride, in case this was the last time I would see him alive, that this time Abner or one of the others would bring word that he had fallen in battle. And that I would see his dear body, that I had held so often in my arms in the passion of our nights together, carried back on an ox cart, torn with gashes and wounds and with its life snuffed out. It is a bitter and a sweet thing, to be the wife of a king and a warrior.
And then came the day that changed the Messiah's life, just as much as the day when he met Samuel. But where that was a day of hope, of promise, of joy, this was a day of abandonment. The day Yahweh rejected him.
We had been enjoying a summer of peace, for the nations our enemies had learned enough of Saul and his prowess, and the battle skills of his mighty men, not to come troubling us or raiding within the borders of the tribes. It was like a second honeymoon. Saul was enjoying being a simple farmer again, in the bosom of his family and held in respect by all our neighbours. Whenever he could, he liked to try to forget that he was king and Messiah, and live as any man of Benjamin, the smallest and least significant of the tribes of Israel, might live. When he came in from the fields at evening he would play or talk with the children, then sit with me after we had eaten until it was time to go to our bed, where we enjoyed many nights of sweet love. Saul was a strong and vigorous man, and though I knew in my own soul that we would not have any more children, it did not diminish his or my ardour, or the pleasure we had in one another.
I was sitting outside our door, milking the goats one morning, when I looked up and saw Samuel; and knew at once, as if it was an arrow piercing through my soul, that the time of our happiness was at an end. The withered, bent old man came slowly and shuffling up the street and stopped before me, asking for the Messiah. Saul heard  and recognised his voice and hurried from the house to greet him, welcomed him, bade him sit down and brought him some food and wine from our store. But Samuel waved it aside: he had an errand from Yahweh, and would not eat or drink, until he had discharged the commission.
Saul bowed his head, and heard the words that would decide his fate.
"Yahweh sent me to anoint you, to make you king and Messiah over his people. Here, then, the word of Yahweh. This is what Yahweh of armies says, 'I have determined to punish the Amalekites for what they did when they attacked my people as they came up out of Egypt. Go now and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy them. Man, woman and child, beast and cattle: all shall die. Show them no mercy, neither spare a single soul alive.' This is the word of Yahweh."
In the silence that followed, I became aware that Saul was clutching my hand, so hard that I almost cried out, and was breathing heavily as if it were he who was in pain.
"Do you understand what this means?" he asked Samuel. "To destroy their women and children, as well as their armed men and animals? How do you know that this is the word of Yahweh?"
Samuel's face, already red from the effort of walking from Ramah, grew even darker in anger. "And should I not know his word?" he exclaimed. "Should I not know the Voice that first spoke to me when I was a boy of eight, serving before Eli in the tabernacle at Shiloh?" He seized Saul's arm, thrust his face into Saul's face, and spoke harshly and excitedly, "It is the same Voice that commands you to annihilate the Amalekites! It is the Voice of Yahweh of armies!"
"I hear and obey," said Saul, bowing his head.
Samuel stared hard at him, turned on his heel and went back the same way he had come.
Late in the night, or early in the morning long before first light, I woke from a troubled dream and found that Saul was tossing and turning beside me.
"Have you not slept?" I asked him.
"Not for a minute," he replied. And sitting up in the darkness, he drew me to him and, his arm around me, said, "I cannot believe it, Ahinoam, my sweet love. I have known Yahweh all these years, too. Not for as long as Samuel has known him; but I have known him too, since that day his spirit came upon me and I prophesied with the rest. He is Darkness, Silence, Mystery - often, always. I do not comprehend his ways; if I thought I did or could, I would know he was no God. But he is Beauty too, and Mercy, and Love. Not cruelty and terror! I would not bid my warriors kill women and children! Surely Yahweh of armies would not, either?"
"Then - this is some invention of Samuel's? But why?"
He shook his head in an agony of uncertainty; it felt as if he was being torn apart as he wrestled with what he knew of his God, and what the great prophet, his guide for so many years and the religious guardian of Israel, claimed that he knew.
"What will you do?" I asked him.
There was a long silence. Then, "I will do what I must."
It was many days before Saul was able to leave for this new campaign. His officers and men needed to be mustered and prepared, their weapons sharpened and their armour polished and put in order, their provisions gathered. Eventually the Israelite army numbered two hundred thousand men, or so the tellers of tales afterwards claimed; this would be because of the popularity of the cause, for the Amalekites were indeed the ancient, hated enemies of Israel. It may also have been because of the hope of spoil: if an enemy was placed under the decree of total destruction, it seemed that there were always rich spoils to be had, even though the priests claimed that everything was to be dedicated to Yahweh by slaughter and burning. And while the troops were gathering together from all four corners of the territory of the tribes of Israel, Samuel kept sending messengers to demand how the preparations were going, and how long it would be before the word of Yahweh, decreeing the destruction of Amalek, would be fulfilled.
At last the day came when Saul and the army marched away from Gibeah towards the south. I and the women and children waved them farewell, with shouts of blessing, and with weeping. In one way it was just as bad as all the other times I had seen him march away to do battle with our enemies; in another way it was worse, for there was that grim sense of foreboding, which I could not put into words, that something evil hung over the whole of this expedition. Not just the fear that he would be brought back maimed or dead; but that somehow his soul would also be forfeit.
It was only later, of course, that I learned from Saul's own lips what had happened.
The army marched away to the south, and camped in the valley in front of the leading city of the Amalekites. Saul then sent messages to the Kenites, who were living in the midst of Amalek at that time. The Kenites were our kin, and had shown kindness to the people of Israel, when we came out of Egypt, when the Amalekites had resisted us and tried to destroy us. So Saul warned them to flee from the coming battle and save themselves, for the sake of the love their forebears had shown to ours; if they did not, they would be wiped out together with the Amalekites. Most of them heeded the message, and quickly moved away into the wilderness, for they were always a nomadic people, preferring the life of following the flocks and herds, to the life of the city.
Then the attack began. Saul attacked the Amalekites in their chief city, and in all their towns and villages from Havilah as far as Shur, on the borders of Egypt. They could not stand against the anger and the might of the Israelites under their Messiah. But Saul had determined in his own mind that Samuel's word, concerning the will of Yahweh, was a lie. He did not describe it as such to himself: he would probably have called it a mistake or a misunderstanding. He gave orders that all the warriors should be killed - though of course many escaped and fled into the wilderness of the southern desert. And a token number of women and children should also be slain, so that it would look as if the whole population had fallen victim to the armed might of Israel. But most of the unarmed people of Amalek were allowed to slip away into the hills and the desert, or were taken captive and brought into slavery, when they became Israelites by virtue of being Israelite property. And Agag, the king of Amalek, who surrendered in the battle, was taken captive and spared, together with the best of the sheep and cattle, so that they might be offered to Yahweh at a victory festival.
So Saul returned in triumph, confident that he had obeyed the will of Yahweh as it should be obeyed, rather than in the way a vindictive old prophet said it should. And there his last, fatal, tragic, confrontation with his old mentor took place.
The army was gathered at Gilgal, to celebrate their victory with feasting and with sacrifice. Saul was told that Samuel was coming, and he went out and stood alone, in the posture of a humble supplicant, to greet the man of God.
Samuel stopped in front of him, leaning on his staff, and looked him up and down.
With bowed head, as if he were a servant or an underling, rather than the Messiah king, Saul said, "May Yahweh bless you and give you peace, my master. I have fully carried out the will of Yahweh."
Samuel spat in his face. "Then what is this bleating of sheep in my ears? And what is this lowing of cattle that I hear?"
"Master, these are the beasts we captured from the Amalekites. My warriors spared them and brought them here to Gilgal, in order to offer them to Yahweh our God. The rest we utterly destroyed; the best we bring for the holy sacrifice."
"Enough of your whining and lies!" cried Samuel. "Hold your tongue, and listen to what the Voice spoke to me last night."
Saul fell on his knees before the furious old man, and did not raise his eyes, as he listened to the sentence of the God he loved and served so passionately.
"Do you really think yourself so small and of no account? Though you are from the smallest tribe of Israel, are you not the head of all the tribes? It is Yahweh who made you his Messiah! He sent you on a holy mission, a task just as sacred as if you were one of the priests in the sanctuary. He commanded you to destroy the Amalekite sinners, to fight against them and wipe them from the face of the earth, until not one of them remained alive. Why then have you not obeyed Yahweh's voice? Why did you take the spoil, and do what is evil in Yahweh's sight?"
Then Saul looked up and spoke in his own defence and in the defence of his God. He did not believe that Yahweh willed the absolute bloody destruction that Samuel wanted. He believed it even less when, in a show of obedience, he had permitted the slaughter of some of the Amalekite women and children and the old. Even this had turned his stomach, and convinced him that God was a God of mercy, not sacrifice. And so he looked the man of God in the face, and lied.
"I did obey the Voice of Yahweh! I have gone on the mission on which Yahweh sent me. I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites and have brought Agag their king for you to deal with. But the people, in their devotion to Yahweh, brought the best of the beasts and cattle, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to offer to Yahweh here in the holy place of Gilgal."
Samuel bent forward and grabbed a lock of the Messiah's head, pulling it towards him. Standing, he was only a little taller than the kneeling Saul, and he thrust his face almost into my husband's and hissed his venom at him. "Do you think Yahweh cares about sacrifices and burnt offerings? Is it not obedience that he demands? Rebellion like yours is as bad as the sin of divination, or witchcraft or idolatry. Saul, Saul! You have rejected the word of Yahweh. And he now rejects you from being king."
He pushed Saul away from him; but it was not the old man's feeble strength that sent Saul reeling, falling full length on the ground. It was the shock of the prophet's words. Rejected by Yahweh! Rejected from being Messiah and King over Yahweh's people! That was the moment, I know it, that his strong, manly, passionate, sensitive heart was crushed and broken in two.
Saul pleaded with him, confessed that he had sinned and disobeyed the Voice, cast the blame on the people who followed him, claimed that he was afraid of them and had yielded only to their demands. I think he was a little mad already, begging with tears that Samuel would intercede for him, would tell him that Yahweh forgave him and would not carry out the dreadful sentence of rejection. That Samuel would return with him and join him once again in worshipping Yahweh.
But Samuel, that twisted old man who had probably never changed his mind in his life, set his face like adamant. Again he spoke, loud enough for all to hear, "I will not return with you, and I will not worship with you! For you have denied and rejected the word of Yahweh. And now he rejects you from being king over his people."
He turned to walk away, and Saul in desperation lunged after him and caught the hem of Samuel's robe, tearing a strip from it as he did so.
Samuel stopped and turned. The wild look of prophecy came into his eyes, and he spoke in that peculiar chanting tone in which he so often uttered his oracles. "As you have torn my robe, so Yahweh has torn the kingdom from you, this very day, and given it to one of your neighbours, to a man who is a better man than you. Do not suppose that the Glory of Israel will change his mind. He is not a thing of flesh and blood, a mortal man, that he should change his mind."
But my dear husband's humiliation was still not complete. Still he pleaded with the relentless old man of God, that he would at least not disgrace him, but honour him in the sight of his men and his followers, by returning with him so that Saul might worship Yahweh according to the proper form, together with all his warriors. To this, at last, Samuel consented.
When the sacrifices had been offered, and the feasting begun, Saul stood up and commanded that Agag, king of the Amalekites, be brought before him.
He was a fat, vile, greasy man with curled black hair and a beard, according to the height of the decadent courtly fashion of Israel's neighbours. You know the kind of thing, for the sons of the bloody man David have now started aping it, in their attempt to appear wise in the ways of the world. He minced into Samuel's presence, more like some effeminate dancing boy, than a captured warrior. Wracked with fear, he yet hoped that by an unwarrior-like show, he would avoid the penalty of death that his officers and men had suffered. But if he thought to charm Samuel, he was mistaken.
The prophet addressed him as a man under ban, condemned to die: "Dog of Amalek: your sword has made many women childless; so your mother shall now be childless among women!"
And with a speed and strength that staggered all who saw it, so unexpected was it in a man of his holiness and years, he swung the sacrificial axe above his head and brought it down on Agag's skull. There was a ghastly thud, as gobbets of bone and blood and brain spattered the clothes of the nearest bystanders, and the light which an instant before had shone pleadingly in the king's eyes turned dull and was extinguished. He fell, as Samuel with the the same preternatural strength wrenched the axe out of his head and proceeded to hew the head from the shoulders, and the whole body limb from limb. As he toiled at his grim butchery, he chanted over and over again: "Yahweh, for you! For you, Yahweh!"
When the work was done, he wiped his bloody face with a bloody sleeve of his garment, dropped the axe, took up his staff, and walked calmly away. He left Saul and the warriors aghast, speechless, trembling. The feast was ended.
My dear Saul came home to me the following day, and I knew as soon as I saw him that something in him had broken. He was not wounded in his body, in spite of the hard campaign and battles he had fought. I searched with my eyes and my gentle fingertips, night after night as we lay in bed together, to see if there was some hidden scar that I had missed, some place where a secret blade might have entered his flesh and left a poison or infection that was consuming him from within. But there was none. It was in his mind, or his heart, or his spirit, or in all three at once, that he had sustained his most grievous hurt; and he would never recover from it.
When he first spoke of it, days or weeks later, he said simply, "Yahweh has taken his spirit from me."
He had never talked about it before, never described what it was like when Yahweh's spirit filled him and moved him; but now he began, from time to time, to talk about what the spirit's absence was like. They say that if a man survives the loss of an arm or leg - which I have only heard of two or three times in my life - he often still feels pain even in the limb that is no longer there. Perhaps it was like that for my Saul. It was when the spirit was no longer with him, that he felt most keenly the pain of no longer having it.
He would say, "It is as if all that I have ever loved had been torn away from me with one blow."
"What do you mean, beloved?" I would ask. "I am here, your children are all here in the house, Abner and your men are still here with you."
But he would shake his head, as if it were impossible for me to understand what he meant.
Or, "I look for Him every morning, every night; I listen for the Voice; but always it is as if He has just left the room, and when I run after Him, He is moving away from me faster than a horse can run, and I can never never catch Him."
Or, "It was an ecstasy such as I have only known in you, beloved, when you say it feels as if I am filling your whole being with the strength and joy of my manhood, and you cry out if I withdraw for a moment, to tease you and pleasure you all the more, and then I enter you again. But He, who filled me with an ecstasy even beyond what I have known in our love for each other - He has withdrawn from me, and gone away, and will never enter me again."
And he would shudder, and turn his face to the wall, and sometimes I could see that his strong body was wracked with sobs, and if I took his face in my hands it would be wet with bitter tears.
But he never saw Samuel, or spoke to him again, until after the terrible old man's death.

7. For the Love of David	

Yes, I loved my father Saul, as I have told you, as every dutiful son must love his father. I loved him beyond duty, even; I was proud of him and loved him with the devoted love of hero-worship, even after the episode of my great victory at Michmash, and Saul's intemperate vow and curse which robbed us of the total victory which would have removed the Philistine threat from our land forever.
I had loved women too, drawn to their beauty, and filled with imaginings about the perfect Israelite maiden whom I would one day marry, and who would share my life and my dreams just as my father Saul and my mother Ahinoam were one flesh and one heart. I could not have imagined that when I did at last marry the maiden of my choice, and we lived together as man and wife, it would turn out to be far from the idyll I expected.
But by then I had met David.
David had first come to my father's house when I was away on some mission or patrol, and did not see him. At that time Saul was already troubled by an evil spirit of dark despair, and his counsellors and physicians recommended music as a cure for his heart-sickness. They inquired after musicians who could play sweetly, music that could soothe a troubled heart, and someone spoke of David son of Jesse son of Obed son of Boaz, from Bethlehem. He was, they said, a youth skilful in playing the lyre, and blessed by Yahweh in all that he undertook. They sent for him and brought him to the king's house in Gibeah, and had him play his lyre, and sing the sweet psalms for which he was well-known, just as much as he was known later for his prowess as a fighter, and lover, and leader of men. And Saul, who moments before had been sunk in bitter anguish, or raging in sullen hatred of himself and the whole world around him, would suddenly become calm, would relax, begin to smile and talk peaceably to the people about him. Saul's servants and officers would also relax, with smiles of relief, to see their lord and master so much improved. It was as if he had had some kind of evil spirit, possessing or infecting him; and David's sweet playing drove the evil away, and set Saul free again. And so it was that David was appointed to be court singer and musician.
But this lasted only a few weeks, the shortest period of time. When the Philistines again invaded our territories, and Saul had to take to the field again for more hard campaigning, there was no longer any room for the luxury of music, and the boy David was sent home to his father Jesse, and to his older brothers.
The first time I set eyes on him, was during that campaign. It was the day of his first great victory over the Philistines, that eclipsed even my victory and ever afterwards captured the imagination of every Israelite child. The day that David killed Goliath.
I was with my father in his tent behind the main battle-lines. I could see nothing, but heard the enormous shout that went up from the whole army when the giant champion of the Philistines crashed to the ground in death. Immediately afterwards there was pandemonium as the enemy turned and fled, with our soldiers in pursuit, harrying and plundering them as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron. It was another rout, like the one on the day of Michmash, but with bodies scattered over even more miles of hills and woods.
Then the young hero David brought back the grizzled head of his defeated foe, and laid it at my father's feet. He looked impossibly slight and young, little more than a twelve year old boy, though in fact he was some years older than that. David always looked younger than his age. His face was round and ruddy, grinning like a schoolboy who has got away with some prank against a dull and boring teacher, and his hair was a tangle of close curls on his head
"Here, my lord king," he said. "And may all your enemies perish, like this uncircumcised Philistine."
My father asked the formal question that a chief of men was supposed to ask of a victorious champion, even if he well knew the answer - as he did now.
"Tell me your name, my son. Who are you, and who is your father?"
David said laughing, "My lord king, you know well I am David your servant, the son of Jesse of Bethlehem."
I suppose I might have hated him for his impudence, his beauty, his victory that was so much greater than my own. But I did not hate him. My heart went out to him in a rush of sheer love. That day my soul was knit to the soul of David, and I loved him then and ever after, as my own soul. I made a covenant with him and stripped off my own robe and put it on him, with my armour, my sword, my bow, my belt. It was the soldier's pledge of brotherhood, but it was more than that: much more. David used to laugh about it, and tease me about my love for him. He made up songs about it, which he used to sing irreverently, when we were alone together, to the tune of the hymns that were sung in the sanctuary: "Jonathan, your love for me is wonderful, passing the love of women."
I rejoiced when my father appointed David to his household, for it meant I could see him and be with him every day, and later when Saul made him one of his chief captains, so that we could be comrades in arms, wherever my father's campaigning took us.
There was only one dark cloud that blighted my joy in my new friend; and that was that my father, the man I had loved and respected all these years, was no longer the man he had been. It was as if a part of his life had been torn away; as if his heart had been broken in pieces. I often asked myself, when the change had taken place, and could only think it was about the time of the campaign against the Amalekites, when Saul spared so many of the women and children, or allowed them to escape into the hills, and when Samuel hewed their king Agag in pieces, claiming it was an offering to Yahweh. Whatever it was he said to my father, seemed to cause a sorrow from which he never recovered.

The defeat of the Philistines that followed the death of Goliath, gave us one of the longest periods of peace we had ever enjoyed. We had more iron weapons than we had ever had before, that we had either captured from the slain, or that the enemy had simply thrown away in their headlong flight. We still did not know how to make new ones, but we were beginning to learn how to sharpen the ones we had, and keep them in trim; and for some time the Philistines did not dare come raiding into our territory.
The unexpected blessing of peace, and the rejoicing that went with it, led to much telling and retelling of the stories of the prowess of the warriors who had achieved such success. Certainly there were many stories of Saul's victories, and of my own great day on the field of Michmash. But now there was a new hero: beautiful young David, my dear one, and the dear one of most of the women and maidens of Israel. They began to make songs about him: "Saul has slain his thousands; but David has slain his tens of thousands!" It went to a catchy tune, with much skipping and dancing, tossing of heads, clapping of bejewelled hands, and clashing of timbrels. The fighting men liked to watch that kind of thing, and that was probably what started them humming and singing the words too; so that it was not long before they came to the ears of my father, too.
He had been quite well since the victory, as if peace had returned to his troubled spirit, as it had returned to the Land. But all that changed when he heard what the women were singing. I was with him at the very moment, sitting with him in his room when the sound of the voices of two women passing by in the street came floating through the window.
Saul did not need to ask me or the others in the room to repeat what the words had been: he knew at once that what he thought he had heard, was indeed correct. His face darkened, his brow furrowed, his teeth ground together. "Do you hear that?" he muttered. "They ascribe tens of thousands to David, and only thousands to me? If this is how it is, what more can they give him, but the kingdom itself."
He went to the window to call out after the women and rebuke them; though it would have been a fruitless effort, for they were only foolish girls. But he never said a word, for as he reached the window, he saw David coming from the house opposite, and walking down the street towards the town gate. Seldom have I seen such a look of hatred pass over a man's face, a glare just as clearly suppressed when David looked at my father with his boyish grin, and waved his hand. Saul nodded in acknowledgement, with a grim smile, and turned from the window swearing sullenly under his breath. From that time he began to hate David with a passionate and growing intensity, fuelled by fear and envy.
The next day Saul was in one of his distempers, and we had sent for David to play the lyre for him as he was becoming accustomed to do on most days. I was watching carefully, these two men whom I loved more than anything else in the world, for I was afraid of what might happen. At first, my fears were lulled by the good effect that David's playing seemed to be having. My father, who had been in a truly black mood while he ate, complaining about the food, swearing at those who had prepared it and were bringing it to table, raging about the villainy of his enemies and the treachery of his friends, calmed down and was breathing deeply and gently. I thought he might sleep peacefully and awake in a better frame of mind the next day.
I never knew what made David do what he did next. He was always a skilled player, mixing well-known old tunes with his own compositions, and often improvising melodies as he played. Out of some boyish mischief or devilry, he suddenly began to play with the melody to which the women sang their new song: "Saul has slain his thousands; but David has slain his tens of thousands!" I looked at him, desperate to catch his eye and warn him of his danger, but it was too late.
Suddenly my father sat bolt upright in his seat. He exhaled deeply, as if all his spirit were leaving him in a rush; then breathed in again with a jarring, shuddering gasp. His eyes rolled up in their sockets until only the whites were visible, and when they returned, they looked as if they were flashing with the fire of Sheol. He reached out with his right hand and picked up a spear that one of the guards had leaned against the wall behind his seat, and with a shriek of rage, hurled it at David as if he were trying to pin him to the wall.
It was the merest chance that David, who usually looked at the strings of his lyre in total absorption in his music, looked up at the moment that Saul grabbed for the spear; and even as the weapon left the king's hand, he threw himself backwards off the bench on which he was sitting, and sprawled on the ground. Then he was up on his feet and running. A second spear struck the wall inches behind him, and he was gone, out of the door.
After the first stunned silence that followed, there was an outcry of voices and shouting. Saul was on his feet, while Abner and I grappled with him to stop him from pursuing David, or from doing any further harm to anyone else or to himself. My two sisters ran out after David, to see if he had been wounded.
But there was no need to restrain my father, for the fit had already passed and he had slumped to the floor with a groan, while tears gushed from his eyes. "He has taken His spirit from me, and sent an evil one in its place!" he cried. "God forgive me! David, my son, my dear one, forgive me! I did not mean it. You are dearer to me than my wife, my sons, my daughters; than my life itself."
I was never able to forget that moment and its pain. Which was worse? That the father I loved should have fallen so deeply, so overwhelmingly, into madness, as to try and kill the man to whom I had pledged my very soul? Or that he had confessed - and I knew at once he had spoken nothing but the plainest truth - that he too loved David more than he loved his own kin, the love of his life and his own seed? He would have been content if I, or one of my sisters or brothers had died, if only he could be well again, if only Yahweh would give him His spirit again, if only he and David could again be as one.
But now all that could never be. What Saul now felt for David was as changeful as the weather in Galilee. One moment a passionate love and admiration, the desire to give him one of his daughters in marriage, not as a reward for David, but so as to feel that the warrior he loved with such intensity was united with himself, through this union with his daughter's flesh. The next a black, murderous, raging fury that would have crushed him like a beetle and consigned his soul to a thousand hells. Then again, genuine regret and repentance as he begged David for pardon, and assured him of his undying regard. Then, constantly renewed promises that David should live and inherit his kingdom: that David should rule Israel, rather than his own flesh and blood! Through all of this maelstrom of passions, the one sustained note was fear. Saul feared David, because the spirit of Yahweh had departed from him, and now was with the son of Jesse.
All of Saul's family, friends, and counsellors tried to keep the two men apart; or to stand between them whenever they had to be together. Often David was sent on various tasks and missions that the king assigned him, it may have been, to try to expose him to dangers that might kill him. But David was invulnerable, Yahweh saw to that. The more danger he was exposed to, and the more risks he deliberately chose to run, the greater was his success and the fame that accompanied it. All of Israel and Judah loved David, though often it made me mad with jealousy to see it, for in my own love for him, I wanted him all to myself, not to have to share his love with everyone else in Israel. Then at the next moment I was glad for it, because I thought in my folly that if everyone loved David, he would perhaps be safe, and would not fall a victim to my father's schemes to bring about his death.
David was preserved, but not without my efforts, and those of many others who loved him, including my beautiful sister Michal. We laboured mightily to reconcile the two men, the Messiah my father, and the Messiah I loved, and who was to come, who had already been anointed by Samuel, but could not yet come to his power as long as his predecessor still lived.
The first of those times came when David was out with a patrol in the hill country of Judah, following reports Saul had received that a small Philistine raiding party had been spotted down near Ashnah. While we waited for news of the expedition, my father was taken with one of those fits in which, as he described it, an evil spirit from Yahweh came upon him and he knew, with total clarity and unassailable conviction, that David was plotting against him, would return with a Philistine army, seize the kingdom from him and put him and all of us to death.
He summoned a council and harangued us, denouncing David for his treachery, accusing us of cowardice because we were afraid to defend our Messiah, accusing us of wanting David as king instead of him, urging that if we were men, we would not hesitate to murder David. I could hardly bring myself to meet the eyes of the others as we were forced to listen to this, and all the rest who loved Saul as well as I did felt the same. Not all of them had been there on the day when Saul tried to pin David to the wall with his spear, and for them this was the first time they had seen for themselves the depth of the sickness of mind that was overwhelming my father. Several times I glanced at Abner, who was my father's closest friend as well as his cousin, as we tried to exchange glances about what we should do. It would have been futile to try to argue with Saul in this state, and persuade him that his words were untrue, that he was imagining all of it. His rage was simply too great, he would have turned on us, possibly violently. Instead we tried to calm him with gentle words, assuring him of our love and devotion, agreeing with him, as far as we could, that David needed to be watched, and that we would support the Messiah in whatever he decided to do.
When we were dismissed at the end of that terrible council, Abner and I spent hours with the other men who had been there, explaining to those who did not understand, swearing them to silence, promising that all would be well, it was a passing sickness. I do not think any of them believed it; and we too, however much we hoped, dreaded that it was not to be.
But the following day my father's mood seemed brighter and I risked talking to him about David. I urged him not to sin by seeking David's death. I reminded him that, whatever his fears and suspicions might be, David had not in fact committed any treason against him, but rather, all that he had ever done had served my father well. David had risked his life against the Philistines, most notably in his single combat with Goliath, which had led to such a notable victory. Surely Saul, who had rejoiced in that victory as much as all of us, would not sin against innocent blood by seeking David's life?
My father was always a passionate man, unafraid of expressing what he felt. Just as he had not stinted in his raging against David the day before, so now he did not hold back his remorse, and the shame he felt at the mistake he had made. He burst into tears, asking forgiveness - my forgiveness - for his folly, promising that he would not threaten David's life, or try to incite any of us to kill him again.
"As Yahweh my God lives," he said, "David shall not die. I love him, I will have him by my side to play to me, to share with me in the leading of our armies."
I did not know which was the greater: my relief that I had persuaded him to change his mind about David, or my shame that my father had become as changeable and fickle as the weakest-minded girl that ever loved.
But as events soon proved, this change of heart was no longer lasting than the previous one. Whatever soul-sickness afflicted my father, whatever madness or evil spirit from Yahweh - if that is what it was - it soon turned him back again to that murderous frenzy from which we had with such difficulty dissuaded him.
The new thing that happened, was that my father became more devious about his plots against David. He had come to realise that my soul was knit to David, that my love for David was greater than my love for family and kin. And, fearing that even I his son had become part of the conspiracy he imagined against him, he concealed his next plans from me.
David had better judgement than I, and a deeper insight into how things really stood. I was still fondly imagining that my father and my soul-friend were truly reconciled, and that all was well. But David, who had fled to Naioth in Ramah to evade Saul's latest attempt on his life, came secretly to me and told me how things really stood.
"Jonathan, my love," he said. "Tell me what I have done? What is my guilt? How have I sinned against your father - a man to whom I owe everything - that he should seek to take away my life?"
I refused to believe what he was saying. "It is not so!" I cried. "Far from it: you shall not die. My father the king opens his whole heart and mind to me, he does nothing without telling me. And he has sworn to me, as Yahweh lives, that you shall not die."
"Alas," rejoined David, "you are deceived. Your father knows of your love for me, and he has made up his mind that Jonathan shall not know of his plans, for fear you will be grieved and try to dissuade him. But this is the truth: as Yahweh lives, and as you yourself live, there is but a step between me and death."
It was as if scales fell from my eyes, and suddenly I saw it all. The silences that had fallen in the last few days, when I entered the room where my father was talking. The sidelong glances and searching looks. I knew it was true; and immediately promised David that I would do anything for him, anything that he wanted me to do. What we agreed was, that I would test my father to find out what his plans really were. It was purely to convince me, for David was already convinced. If I found out for sure, then there could no longer be any doubt of my father's murderous madness, and I would no longer be able to try to mediate between them.
The day after this meeting was the New Moon Festival, a day of special, holy observance in the house of Saul when he and his highest officials and closest friends shared in the feast that followed the monthly sacrifice. He would surely expect David to be present, especially if he suspected him and wanted to test his loyalty, or was looking for an excuse to cause him some harm. As I took my seat at table in the house, I watched my father closely, studying his every move and word, every flicker of emotion that crossed his handsome face, to see how he would react to David's absence. It was obvious that he noted it, with some impatience; but the talk among those around him, as they speculated about it, was that some ritual uncleanness had probably befallen David, making it impossible for him to share in the sacred meal. Saul seemed to accept this explanation, and the rest of the meal passed without incident.
But on the following day, the second day of the month, David's place was again empty. And this time, Saul did not remain silent. "Where is the son of Jesse?" he demanded. "Why has he not come to the feast, yesterday or today?" As he spoke, his brow darkened, and it was obvious that anger rather than simple curiosity lay behind his question.
I stood up to answer him, as David and I had agreed between us. "My father, my lord king. David urgently asked for leave of absence to go down to his father's house at Bethlehem, because his family is observing the sacrifice and his brother commands him to be present. I felt sure my lord the king would permit him, so I let him go. That is why he is not at your feast."
Saul rose to his feet, reeling as if he had been stabbed between the ribs from behind. "You son of a whore, of a slut and a faithless bitch!" he shouted in rage. "When did you turn against your own father who begot you, and give your love to my enemy? Have you also become his whore? Do you not realise that as long as David lives, you will never inherit the kingdom? As you value your life and your mother's honour, send messengers to David now, and command him to return, for he shall surely die!"
It was not wise, but sheer shock and horror made me answer him back. I could not believe what he had said about my mother Ahinoam, whom I knew he loved better than his own life. I could not believe that he was also rejecting me and the love I bore him.
"My lord king! Why should David die? What wrong has he done you, who has always been faithful to you, and has fought your battles since he was a youth?"
With a hoarse cry of frustration and fury, my father grabbed a spear - probably the very one with which he had already tried to kill David - and threw it at me. Something still remained, no doubt, of fatherly feeling, for it was more a gesture of anger than a genuine attempt to kill me, else I would not be here to tell the story. But what was clear was that David had been right: my father had resolved that David should die. In bitter anger at the disgrace my father had laid on me, and at my grief for my friend, I could not eat a mouthful of food but immediately left the room.
The following morning was the third day, when according to the plan I had agreed with David, I would give him word of how my father reacted to his absence. I took my boy servant, and went out into the fields as if to practise my archery by shooting at a target. The signal we had agreed was this: I would order the boy to run and collect the arrows I had shot from my bow. If I called out to him, "Not so far, the arrow is on this side of you," it meant that David was safe and could return to Saul's house. But the order, "The arrow is beyond you," would mean that he should flee without delay, for Saul had definitely resolved that he should die.
We reached the place where I had always practised with the bow. It was full of pleasant memories for me, for in happier times this was where my father himself, and his cousin Abner, had taught me to shoot. In the best times of all, David and I had also spent hours there, in practice and in play together. Archery was the one martial art in which I excelled over my friend, for he had grown up as the son of a herdsman, and had not learned the bow until he became a man. His weapon of choice was the shepherd boy's sling, and with it he was without equal; but I had been already the son of a king, and my father's men thought it proper that I should learn the bow. So David and I would compete with our different weapons. We would shoot at the target, or sometimes at birds, or deer, or conies. For every one that I brought down with an arrow, David would kill one with his slingshot.
And now, on this perfect early morning of springtime, I was standing in the same field, knowing that David was hiding somewhere watching, while I delivered my father's sentence upon him. In the anguish of my soul, I feared that I would never see my beloved again, unless I somehow did the unthinkable, and fled with him instead of staying with my father and what we all believed was my destiny as the king's firstborn son.
The boy looked up at me in eager expectation. I could see hero-worship written in his face: he was full of childish dreams that he would one day be a warrior like the king's son, and a bowman without peer. I pointed out to him the stunted tree that I had selected as my first mark, and loosed swift arrows at it without pausing to see where they fell: one, two, three. One of them actually hit its target, the others disappeared somewhere in the scrubby undergrowth. I didn't need to see where they went: that was what I had brought the boy for. He looked up at me again to make sure I had finished shooting, then ran off in search of the arrows. He pulled the first one, the easy one, from the tree, then began to move around in circles looking for the other two.
As he went I swallowed hard, for a lump had come into my throat, and shouted after him in a voice that I hoped was loud enough for David in hiding to hear. "Look over there! Isn't the arrow beyond you?" And then, because my voice cracked and broke at those words, I repeated them. "Beyond you! Hurry, be quick, do not linger!"
The boy found the arrows and brought them back with a puzzled expression, for the arrow had not been where I said, but