Scripture Daily

Context No. 2029 of 4322 · 2 Samuel

Context · Reflection

2 Samuel 1:1-5: in context

1After the death of Saul, when David had returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had stayed two days in Ziklag, 2on the third day, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul, with his clothes torn and earth on his head. When he came to David, he fell to the earth and showed respect. 3David said to him, “Where do you come from?” He said to him, “I have escaped out of the camp of Israel.” 4David said to him, “How did it go? Please tell me.” He answered, “The people have fled from the battle, and many of the people also have fallen and are dead. Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.” 5David said to the young man who told him, “How do you know that Saul and Jonathan his son are dead?”

After Saul's death, a man comes to David from the battle, his clothes torn and earth on his head, the signs of mourning and defeat. He falls before David, and David asks him what has happened. The people have fled from the battle, he reports, and many have fallen and are dead; Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also. So the grievous news reaches David: not only the death of his beloved friend Jonathan, but the death of Saul, the king who had hunted him for years and sought his life.

How David receives this news is worth attending to, for Saul had been his enemy. For years Saul had pursued David, thrown spears at him, driven him into the wilderness, sought relentlessly to kill him. By ordinary reckoning, Saul's death would be David's deliverance, cause for relief if not rejoicing; his hunter was dead, his path to the throne now open. And yet, as the chapter goes on to show, David does not gloat. He tears his clothes, mourns, weeps, and grieves, for Saul as well as for Jonathan, lamenting the fall of the king who had been his enemy. David refused to rejoice at the death of the one who had sought his life. There is a hard and searching example here. Our instinct, when one who has wronged us or opposed us falls, is a quiet satisfaction, even gladness: they got what they deserved; now I am delivered. David shows a different heart, one that grieves even an enemy's fall rather than gloating over it. And Scripture commends this. Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, the proverb says, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles. God himself, Ezekiel tells us, takes no pleasure in the death even of the wicked, but desires that they turn and live. To grieve rather than gloat over a fallen enemy is to share something of God's own heart. This searches us in our own conflicts and grievances. When one who has wronged us suffers loss, meets misfortune, falls, do we feel the quiet gladness of vindication, or can we grieve, as David grieved even for Saul? The call is not to rejoice at the downfall of those who have opposed us, not to let our hearts be glad at an enemy's stumbling, but to grieve loss even where the one lost had wronged us. David, told of the death of the king who hunted him, mourned rather than gloated; and his heart, refusing to rejoice at an enemy's fall, reflects the heart of the God who takes no pleasure in the ruin even of the wicked.

When one who has wronged or opposed me suffers loss or falls, do I feel the quiet gladness of vindication, sensing that they got what they deserved, or can I learn from David, who grieved even for Saul, the enemy who had hunted him, and refuse to rejoice at an enemy's fall, grieving loss instead, as the God who takes no pleasure in the death even of the wicked would have me do?

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