Advice on Scheming
Now that David is properly fleeing from Saul, he concocts an interesting plan with Jonathan. Part one of the plan: David is absent from two consecutive dinners at Saul’s household. The first night Saul, thinks David’s just “unclean” from a seminal emission. The second night, he asks Jonathan where David is. Jonathan answers as they agreed: David has excused himself to go back home for a sacrifice. If Saul is ok with it that’s fine, if he’s angry then this was a bad sign according to the plan (presumably because he just wants David near so he can kill him).
Part two of the plan: Saul flies into a rage, presumably because so Jonathan must now communicate to David the warning to flee. Jonathan goes into the field for archery practice with his attendant. He fires some arrows into the distance and gets the attendant to go fetch them. David is meant to be hiding in the field so he can hear. If Jonathan’s message is to flee, he is to yell to the attendant that the arrows are beyond him and he is to go [further] away. If the message to David is that it’s safe to return, Jonathan is to yell that the arrows are nearby and he should get them. It’s a pretty ingenious plan in principle — but then turns out useless. Jonathan transmits his message to flee and then sends the attendant to carry the arrows back to town. He then goes to David’s hiding place and they meet further, discussing his escape! If they could have been alone and spoken safely regardless, it’s pretty superfluous to come up with a code.
Relationship Advice
In this chapter, the pair is described a bit more, and there are some further hints that their relationship might be romantic. Sure, they swear all sorts of fealty oaths but that doesn’t cut it as evidence. The most interesting quote is when Saul flies into a rage and accuses Jonathan of betraying him. “Thou son of perverse rebellion, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own shame, and unto the shame of thy mother’s nakedness? [20:30]” The plain meaning of the first part is that Jonathan has chosen David as an ally over his father. I checked the word for choose in a concordance and it doesn’t seem to be used in a romantic context (ie. to choose a partner) in the Bible. But the 2nd part is much more telling. If Saul is not talking about being disappointed in Jonathan’s sexual behaviour, why mention the shame of his mother’s nakedness? Whatever it means, it suggests sexual transgression. It’s no smoking gun but makes the romantic angle more probable than not. In my utterly uninformed opinion of course.
Advice on Narrative Plotting
David runs away. He meets a priest and pretends to be on a secret mission from Saul, so as not to alert the priest that he is fleeing and have it come back to Saul. This may just be one of the earliest cases of Chekhov’s gun (“if in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired”). So watch this space for when this particular gun is fired.
Advice on Saving Yourself
This is actually pretty useful. David comes to the palace of a Philistine king and his servants recognise him as the David who slew Goliath. This understandably scares David as it would mean his jig was up. So he saves himself by pretending to be mad. He froths at the mouth and lets go of all inhibitions. They kick him out (to his relief), disgusted and thinking he can’t possibly be the David who killed Goliath.
I think this is pretty true: in situations where you are threatened it might be more useful to get the perpetrator to be disgusted with you rather than to appeal to their mercy or fight back. Someone who pleads for their life might get killed. Someone who fights back will encounter resistance. But most people probably get an “icky” feeling when dealing with someone they think is crazy. There is great power in portraying yourself as unpredictable, those who might otherwise squash you if they thought you were a rational agent might step back and be careful.
See, the Bible is very relevant to today. If you’re about to get shot, do foam at the mouth first. Quoting some mad Biblical references like an apocalyptic preacher might help too.
0 Comments