Hear the word of God:
When David had returned from defeating the Amalekites, David remained two days in Ziklag. On the third day, a man came from Saul's camp, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. When he came to David, he fell to the ground and did obeisance. David said to him, "Where have you come from?"
He said to him, "I have escaped from the camp of Israel."
David said to him, "How did things go? Tell me!"
"The army fled from the battle, many of the army fell and died; and Saul and his son Jonathan also died."
David asked, "How do you know that Saul and his son Jonathan died?"
"I happened to be on Mount Gilboa; and there was Saul leaning on his spear … He said to me, 'Come, stand over me and kill me; for convulsions have seized me, and yet my life still lingers.' So I stood over him, and killed him, for I knew that he could not live after he had fallen. I took the crown that was on his head and the armlet that was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord."
Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them; and all the men who were with him did the same. They mourned and wept, and fasted until evening for Saul and for his son Jonathan, and for the army of the LORD and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.
David said to the young man, "Where do you come from?"
He answered, "I am the son of a resident alien, an Amalekite."
David said to him, "Were you not afraid to lift your hand to destroy the LORD's anointed?" Then David called one of the young men and said, "Come here and strike him down."
2 Samuel 1:1-16 – NRSV
You have to wonder, what did this young Amalekite expect from David? Did he expect to be congratulated for living through such a brutal battle? Did he hope to be considered compassionate because he administered the coup de grace to a suffering king? Or did he believe that the surviving competitor for the crown of Israel would reward him for bearing the news and the crown?
Whatever he thought, he was wrong.
It’s not as if David killed the messenger for bringing bad news. David executed the Amalekite for doing the very thing that he had resisted doing for some time; killing King Saul so that he could claim the throne for himself. David was furious.
It’s not as if David had been having a great week. He’d been living in Philistine territory for a while now, hiding out from Saul. David was the right hand man of one of the Philistine kings, but most of the Philistines thought that he was a crazy man. He ought to know; he did his best to convince them of that.
So when the five Philistine kings set out to destroy Saul, David was in a hard place. Would he fight as a traitor against his people, or would his new masters discover his lack of loyalty and take his life? After they sort it all out, the kings go to fight Saul, and David gets sent back home to the women and children in Ziglag.
Only they’re not there. It seems that some Amalekites have come, stolen his property and livestock, and kidnapped his wives and children. Yeah, that’s right: Amalekites. Land pirates from way back in the time when Moses and the newly-freed Israelites wandered in the wilderness. (Some think that, over the years, they migrated to Somalia and learned how to sail ships …)
When his men discover what has happened, they want to do to David what Saul has been thinking about for years. But he manages to shut them up, band them together, and go fight a battle to reclaim what belongs to them. Only to have to put down another rebellion to make certain that all of the stuff was given back to its original owners, and not just the endurance athletes.
So he gets home to a burned-out city, gets a night’s sleep and then wakes up, only to find out that the king he who used to sing to sleep, and the friend who was closer than any brother, are dead. Yes, David is angry.
But is the anger really about Amalekites, or young men that claim to kill kings? (Read 1 Sam 31:1-6 and see if you think the Amalekite is a murder or a liar…) I don’t think that’s what all of the anger is about.
I believe that David is angry because David knew that David was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This won’t be the last time that this happens, but this is a particularly painful time for it to happen. David is on the wrong side with the wrong people fighting the wrong battle, and now he has terrible evidence of that reality. The only person David ever trusted besides his God is now dead. Jonathan is gone. Discovering that we’ve made a mistake may put us in a murderous mood, but anger can’t fix our problems. It can only signal to us that we have a problem.
Sometimes our anger rises, but not because someone else has been a fool. Sometimes our anger rises because we have been a fool, and we really don’t want to admit it. Or deal with it.
The next time we feel angry, what is that anger telling us? Are our expectations of someone else disappointed, or have we disappointed ourselves? Let’s keep our swords in their sheaths until we figure it out.
Grace, and peace,
Ron
