In II Samuel 1:1, 17-27, we have the lament offered by David over the death of Saul and Jonathan. 1After the death of Saul, when David had returned from defeating the Amalekites (I Samuel 30), David remained two days in Ziklag (I Samuel 27:6).
In II Samuel 1:17-27, we have the lament offered by David over the death of Saul and Jonathan. It demonstrates the deep sorrow of David over the death of Saul and Jonathan. It lacks religious or national motifs. It does not mention God. The expressions of grief relate to the deaths of Saul and Jonathan only, not to the defeat of Israel. The repetitions underscore the contrast between the courage of the leaders and their fate. The community needs to be able to lament as well as celebrate, bringing all of human life before the Lord. Hymns and songs of praise are uplifting, but we also need to give space within the community of faith that express the grief and despair that death and loss can bring. 17 David intoned this lamentation over Saul and his son Jonathan. 18 (He ordered that music leaders teach The Song of the Bow to the people of Judah. It suggests that at this point David views himself as only over Judah. We read it in the Book of Jashar.) Joshua 10:13 and I Kings 8:53 also refer to the book of the Just or Upright. It was a collection of documents in poetic form. The poem reaches special depth when David thinks of his friendship with Jonathan. David's lament for Saul and Jonathan is one of the most eloquent and timeless expressions of grief in world literature. It is a loving tribute to Israel's first monarch and crown prince, and a fitting conclusion to a relationship that was as resolutely political as it was profoundly personal. In addition, it also marks the end of the prologue to the history of Israel as a nation-state in the ancient Near East. It marks the beginning of its glorious and turbulent history under its most illustrious king. David's lament is at once one of the most private and one of the most public utterances in the Hebrew Bible. He said:
19 Your glory or splendor, referring to Saul, O Israel, David referring to Saul and Jonathan at least, but may also refer to the entire military retinue slain on Mount Gilboa. Saul, the glory of Israel lies slain upon your high places! He refers to the mountain plateaus of Gilboa at the southeast end of the Plain of Jezreel. However, the Old Testament does not use the expression to indicate simple hills or mountains; it became a technical religious term that always means a cult site.
How ('ek, was the original beginning of the lament, as the word commonly occurs at the opening refrain of biblical laments (e.g., Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 48:17; Lamentations 1:1; 2:1; 4:1, 2, etc.). In this case, the lament concerns how the mighty[1] have fallen! The refrain unifies David's lament (occurring also in vv. 25 and 27). In a sense, David is saying that these brave men have already consecrated the ground in their death on the battlefield. For Israel, this would mean providing an opportunity to preserve the nation to observe its covenant with the Lord. Nations rightfully honor those who have died to protect it.[2] The soldiers have offered the tribute of their lives. It falls upon David to offer a powerful tribute in these words. In doing so, he honors those who have died. He is also gently encouraging those who hear and read these words to aspire to a certain kind of life. David will stress the nobility of their actions on behalf of the nation.[3] 20 Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon. These were two important member cities of the Philistine Pentapolis and would have been natural venues for jubilation over the deaths of Saul and Jonathan. They stand for or represent the nation of Philistia. Further, or the daughters of the Philistines will rejoice, the daughters of the uncircumcised will exult. In these cultures, part of the role of women in war situations was to offer song and dance with the victorious return of the soldiers. The parallel between Philistines and uncircumcised is significant. It never occurs in the Old Testament apart from oracles and direction quotations and appears to be reserved for polemic (as in Judges 14:3; 15:18; 1 Samuel 14:6); "heathen" captures the nuance. 21 You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain upon you, nor bounteous fields! For there the enemy defiled the shield of the mighty, the shield of Saul, so that the shield made of leather that had to be oiled regularly could be anointed with oil no more. Typical of ancient mourners, David curses the scene of the tragedy. In the Ugaritic epic of Dan'el (which comes from the same Canaanite cultural background and predates this composition by half a millennium), the grief-stricken Dan'el curses the towns near the spot where his son was killed. 22 From the spilling of the blood of the slain, from the spilling of the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan did not turn back, nor the sword of Saul return empty. He recounts the military prowess of Jonathan and Saul, with typical war-song hyperbole. 23 Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely! [4] In life and in death they were not divided. This is a bit of fabrication, glossing over the stormy relationship between father and son - aggravated, if not precipitated, in large measure by the latter's infrangible bond with David (1 Samuel 18-20) - is a pardonable concession to circumstance and occasion - an instance, in the words of one scholar, of "elegiac generosity." The hyperbole continues, saying they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. He then offers a summons, 24 O daughters of Israel, calling for the convention of women singing dirges to continue, weep over Saul, balancing the obverse of the earlier prohibition against announcing the news in Philistia, who clothed you with crimson, in luxury, who put ornaments of gold on your apparel, all symbols of the prosperity brought by Saul.
25 How ('ek) the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! Jonathan lies slain upon your high places. 26I (the only occurrence of the first-person singular pronoun, making this verse the most direct and personal) am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. Having led Israel in a public elegy for Saul, David devotes the final strains of his lament to a passionately personal declaration of his feelings toward Saul's son and his friend, Jonathan. David acknowledges the great love he has lost with the passing of his friend.[5] David's relationship with Jonathan, described with care and poignancy in chapters 18-20 of 1 Samuel, reclaims with genuine human tenderness a story otherwise driven by personal ambition, political machinations, and theological posturing. The picture of David that emerges from these verses of grief for his dead friend does not find its equal in the subsequent story of his reign.
27 How ('ek) the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished! Military strength and the force of arms are not sufficient for the preservation of life. Here are the limits of warfare, which has claimed the life of the first king of Israel and his heir.
The story of the grief of David and his expression of it gives us an opportunity to discuss grief.[6] Have we in the church lost a sense of what it means to grieve? Are we reluctant to grieve publicly?
Grief is the normal and natural reaction to loss of any kind. Therefore, the feelings you are having are also normal and natural for you. Death of one close to us is a particularly significant loss. It may well be that increased life expectancy has meant that we are losing the art of grieving. We need to be willing to go through the wilderness to which loss brings us in order to bring us to fertile territory again.
In Greek mythology, Demeter is the goddess of grain who hooks up with Zeus and has a daughter named Persephone, a much-loved child. When the lord of the underworld snatched her daughter away, the disconsolate, downcast, desolate, and dolorous Demeter wanders the world in grief and allows all the fields of the earth to lie barren. The myth reminds us of how painful and destructive grief can be.
While conventional wisdom says we should "be there" for those who suffer loss or trauma, some experts are suggesting that they need time to process their grief alone. They need time to ponder the gifts they have received from those no longer present. They need to take time to connect the dots of their lives in ways that provide new meaning and purpose. The death of one close to us can provide a significant pause in our lives so that we can reflect upon matters of ultimate concern to us. Many people would benefit from prayer and meditation, Scripture reading and silence, time alone with God and time with members of the Christian community. Reconnecting with the rhythms and resources of the faith tradition can be a comforting choice when loss threatens to overwhelm us. Yet, we seem to assume that people do not have within themselves, their families, and their faith community the emotional and spiritual resources to cope with loss. However, it does not help us to grieve if forms of grief counseling make us subtly think that we are the center of the universe. At a time of devastation, our focus should be on the significance of the loss of a loved one. Our grief is not about us, but too often, we make it so. Grief is really about the significance to us of the one we have lost. We need to ponder what the person has contributed to our lives. We need to incorporate into our lives what they have taught us. On occasion, we need to give ourselves time to reflect on the pattern our lives have been weaving. Maybe death and loss are one of those times. Those whom we love keep leaving; keep journeying to "that land from which no traveler has ever returned." Think of death as a limit experience beyond the limits of normal life. We spend much of our lives avoiding, dreading, and defending ourselves against it. We think that beyond the limit is emptiness and loss. Yet, if we give ourselves time to reflect, we will also find creative love and courage that know no limits.[7]
Thus, I offer a word of caution. We must be careful not to make a pathology of every aspect of the human condition. Every time we experience an upset in our lives is not a disease that needs therapeutic attention. If we are not careful, we are fully capable of fanciful inventions of childhood trauma, for example, to justify our present lack of strength in facing the hardships and trials of life. If we are not careful, our therapeutic culture will lead to damaged people, divided families, distorted justice, destroyed companies, and a weaker nation. We run the risk of blaming parents or society for our failures as individuals. Frankly, most middle-class Westerners have not experienced anything like the genuine traumas of many war-torn parts of the earth. Yet, many of them show no signs of psychopathology. Societal thinking has become increasingly sentimental. The sentimental approach denies the harsh quality of life. It assumes that we can achieve good ends without effort, self-discipline, patience, or sacrifice. We elect politicians who feel our pain or turn to therapists who help us justify the failures of our lives as due to poor parenting.
I am urging a form of realism when it comes to the pain of loss and death. Such experiences are simply facts of a human life. Yes, they can be hard, difficult, and painful facts, but they are facts nonetheless. Life is easy for no one.
Let us realistically consider death. Fear of death pierces deep into life. It motivates us to unrestricted affirmation of ourselves. We grab for everything and everyone we can, clinging to the things around us as if doing so will keep death away from us. Death also robs us of the power to accept life, and thus we can see a close link between sin and death. The fact that we do not accept our finitude makes the inescapable end of our lives a manifestation of the power of death that threatens us with nothingness. The fear of death pushes us more deeply into sin. At the same time, as we live out our lives in time, we realize that our wholeness, fulfillment, and meaning are still ahead of us. We must link the ability to achieve wholeness to God, who is the only one who can bring to its wholeness the existence of our individual lives. Salvation means overcoming death. The wholeness that we seek cannot be our own act, for death is not our own act. We have to suffer it. Death comes upon us. The wholeness and sense of completion of our lives also comes upon us as a gift from God.
At the core of human experience are the mystery of both the grandeur and the misery of self-conscious mortality. Unlike animals, humans know they will die. Yet, if we have courage, we also learn that our awareness of death gives life its juice and joy. Precisely because our lives are so painfully transient, they can also be so achingly meaningful. Our humanity consists of facing loss. Our lives will never become an easy form of contentment. If death always haunts us, there is the need for character and courage to live with what we know is ineradicable. Too much of what passes for therapy today seeks to remove the need for moral virtue to face the hardships of a human life.
[1] tsebi, a metaphor to designate nobility, but literally “gazelle.”
[2] Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
[3] Plato, Menexenus.
[4] The only other uses of the Hebrew word translated "lovely" to describe a human being are in the Song of Songs (1:16; 2:14; 4:3) and II Samuel 23:1, where it describes David himself (translated loosely by NRSV as "the favorite").
[5] referring to one person's love for another, is found only here and in the Song of Songs (1:2; 1:4; 4:10), where it describes the entirely human, passionate and tender bond between the lover and the beloved, a bond described later in the Song as "strong as death" (8:6). The overlapping language used to describe the two relationships is not coincidental.
[6] Tana Dineen, Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry Is Doing to People (Robert Davies Publisher, 1998). These reflections need more on grief, but here is the beginning of what I hope will be a good essay.
[7] Paul Ricoeur on death as a limit experience.
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