Dublin, OH
Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
17:55-18:5 Saul, Jonathan, and David. At first everyone loves David. Saul takes him into his service; all of Saul's officials (his potential rivals) love him; even members of Saul's own family love him. Jonathan, who had relied on the Lord in his own victory at Michmash, has an especially close relationship with David, despite realizing at some point that David will supplant him as king.
17:55-58 whose son is this youth? Even though Saul knew David from before, he would not remember the name of David's father. Saul is asking about David's background--his family and hence his social status or pedigree--so that he may ask his father to let him keep David permanently (see 18:2).
18:2 Saul took him--according to "the ways of the king" (8:11). His father's house refers to David's extended family (see 17:25-26).
18:3-4 he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan would eventually give up any claim to the throne for David's sake (23:17) and even risk his life (20:30-33) for David; see note on 2 Sam. 1:26. Jonathan . . . gave it to David. Primogeniture, whereby the firstborn son received the primary leadership role and a double portion of the family inheritance, was a tradition but not an absolute rule. Nevertheless, as the popular eldest son, Jonathan would have been accepted as Saul's heir (1 Sam. 20:31; 23:17; 2 Sam. 1:4). Since to all appearances the dynasty had just begun, however, David was considered even more of a threat to Jonathan than to Saul. No one seems to have viewed Jonathan's gifts to David as a sign of abdication, but Jonathan's actions (perhaps unwittingly) foreshadowed the transfer of the kingship to David. It is not recorded at what point Jonathan realized that David was God's chosen.
