An Empty Seat Reveals the Cost of Jonathan's Covenant

Saul was still lying stripped at Naioth (19:24), which may be what gave David the start he needed. His three questions use three words for wrongdoing, and they echo Jacob’s protest when Laban chased him: “What is my trespass? what is my sin, that thou hast so hotly pursued after me?” (Genesis 31:36).

“Great or small” means anything at all. Jonathan is sure his father confides in him, though in 19:1 Saul announced his intent openly and Jonathan had to warn David himself. “It is not so” is two words in Hebrew, “not this”, a flat denial.

“A step” is pesa’, a single pace, a word found only here. The double oath, by the life of the LORD and by the life of the listener, is used again by Abigail to David (25:26). David’s point is precise: Saul would hide the plan from Jonathan exactly because of Jonathan’s love.

“Thy soul” is nefesh, the word for Jonathan’s love for David “as his own soul” (18:1) and for the life Saul is seeking in verse 1. The reply is a blank promise: whatever David wants, Jonathan will do, before any plan is on the table.

The new moon was a monthly festival marked with sacrifices (Numbers 28:11–15), and the king held a meal at which his officers were expected. The Hebrew doubles the verb, “sitting I should sit”, to stress how certain David’s attendance was. He plans to hide through two nights.

“Earnestly asked leave” doubles the verb sha’al, to ask, the root of Saul’s name. A “yearly sacrifice” for the whole clan recalls Elkanah’s annual sacrifice at Shiloh (1:21). A family festival was one of the few reasons that could outrank a royal meal.

The test is set by the king’s temper. A calm “It is well” means peace; burning anger means evil has been “determined”, the verb kalah, to complete or decide. Saul will not need to say a word; his face will answer.

“Deal kindly” is chesed, covenant loyalty. David calls their pact “a covenant of the LORD”, putting God into it as party and witness. He also calls himself “thy servant” three times in one verse, speaking to Jonathan as a subject to a prince.

“Far be it from thee” repeats chalilah from verse 2, the strongest refusal Hebrew has. Jonathan’s sentence is broken and tumbles over itself; it ends as a hurt question. He is not only reassuring David but defending his own honesty.

“Who shall tell me?” is a practical question: if Jonathan is watched, how will word reach a man in hiding? “Roughly” is qashah, harshly, the word used when Joseph spoke roughly to his brothers (Genesis 42:7). Jonathan has no answer until verse 18.

Inside the town walls there were servants and listeners. The Hebrew repeats “the field” twice, and it is the place David will hide (verse 5), where the arrows will fly (verse 35), and where the two men now make terms without witnesses.

The oath begins abruptly with the divine name, “the LORD God of Israel”, and some translators supply “be witness” to complete it. “Sounded” is chaqar, to search out or probe, the word for testing a matter to the bottom. The sentence runs on into the next verse before it resolves.

“The LORD do so and much more” is the self-curse formula, calling down unnamed harm if the promise is broken (Ruth 1:17). To “send away in peace” was how a host honourably released a guest, as Abimelech sent Isaac away “in peace” (Genesis 26:29).

“The kindness of the LORD” is chesed of the kind God shows, loyalty beyond what is owed. “That I die not” names a real danger: new dynasties routinely killed the old royal house, as Baasha did to Jeroboam’s (1 Kings 15:29) and Jehu to Ahab’s (2 Kings 10:11).

The verse turns on the verb karat, to cut. David is not to “cut off” his kindness even when the LORD has “cut off” his enemies, and in the next verse Jonathan “cuts” a covenant. The same verb names the promise, the danger and the protection.

“The house of David” appears here for the first time in the book, spoken by the heir of Saul. The same phrase, bytdwd, is found on the Tel Dan inscription of the ninth century BC, the earliest mention of David outside the Bible. “Require it” means call to account.

The Greek reads that Jonathan swore again to David, rather than making David swear. The Hebrew explains the second oath by love, twice: he loved him, he loved him as his own soul. Love is the reason for the covenant, not a substitute for it.

The Hebrew puns on the verb paqad: “thou shalt be missed” and “thy seat will be empty” are two forms of it. An empty place at a royal table is itself a message, and Saul will read it.

“When the business was in hand” is literally “on the day of the deed”, probably the earlier hiding of 19:2–3. Ezel may mean “departure”, an apt name for the stone where a leave-taking will happen; the Greek reads “that mound” instead.

A “mark” is a target, the word Job uses when he says God has set him up for his mark (Job 16:12). Jonathan was known as an archer; David’s lament will say “the bow of Jonathan turned not back” (2 Samuel 1:22). An archer practising in a field drew no attention.

“On this side of thee” means short of the boy, between him and the archer. “No hurt” is literally “no thing”, nothing wrong. Jonathan puts an oath, “as the LORD liveth”, inside the signal itself, so the arrows carry a sworn word.

“Young man” here is elem, the rare word for a youth that Saul used of David in 17:56. “Sent thee away” is the verb Jonathan used of himself in verse 13; the second signal attributes the sending to the LORD. The same shout will tell the boy where to run and David where to go.

“The LORD be between thee and me” recalls Laban’s words at Mizpah: “The LORD watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another” (Genesis 31:49). Laban meant it as a warning; Jonathan means it as a bond.

“Meat” in 1611 English means food in general, not only flesh. The verse puts the two men in their places: David hidden in the field, the king seated at the table. The narrative will now stay at the table.

The king’s seat by the wall kept his back covered, an arrangement that looks different after two spears thrown at walls. “Jonathan arose” is puzzling in the Hebrew; the Greek suggests Jonathan sat facing the king. King, heir, general, champion: four places, one empty.

Sacrificial meals required ritual purity (Leviticus 7:20–21), and ordinary causes such as an emission made a man unclean until evening (Leviticus 15:16). Saul supplies an explanation for himself and repeats it: “surely he is not clean.” He is reassuring himself.

This is the first time Saul calls David simply “the son of Jesse”, refusing him his name. “Neither yesterday, nor to day” recalls “as in times past” (19:7), literally “as yesterday and the day before”. The old routine is broken, and Saul has counted the days.

Jonathan opens with exactly the words David scripted in verse 6, “earnestly asked leave”, down to the doubled verb. The script is followed faithfully, and in the next verse Jonathan adds to it.

Jonathan embroiders the excuse: a brother, probably Eliab, has ordered David to come. “Let me get away” is nimlat, “let me escape”, the verb used for David’s escapes from the spear and the window (19:10, 12). Jonathan uses the fugitive’s own word in front of the king.

The insult attacks Jonathan through his mother: literally “son of a perverse woman of rebellion”. “The confusion of thy mother’s nakedness” means the shame of the womb that bore him. “Chosen” may be “companion” in the Greek, which differs by a letter. Saul curses his own wife to wound his son.

“Established” is kun, the verb Samuel used when he told Saul the LORD would have “established” his kingdom for ever (13:13). Saul offers Jonathan the security he himself forfeited. “He shall surely die” is literally “he is a son of death”, the idiom David uses in 26:16.

Jonathan’s question is nearly the same Hebrew as David’s in verse 1, “What have I done?”, asked now on David’s behalf. It is the question of 19:5 again, without the speech this time. Jonathan still asks for a charge.

The verb for casting the spear is the one used when Saul hurled it at David (18:11). “Determined” is kalah, the word David used in verse 7 for the sign of evil intent. The test gets its answer in its own vocabulary, and from the javelin rather than the tongue.

“Fierce anger” is literally “burning of anger”. Jonathan fasts through a feast, eating nothing on the second day of the new moon. “His father had done him shame” leaves “him” open: it can mean David, whom Saul slandered, or Jonathan, whom Saul humiliated at table.

“The time appointed” is mo’ed, the word for the set time Saul failed to keep at Gilgal (13:8, 11). Jonathan keeps his. The boy is called a “little lad”, perhaps chosen because a child would ask no questions, though that is an inference.

One arrow is enough; the plan of three arrows in verse 20 is quietly reduced. “Beyond him” is literally “to make it pass over him”, the verb of crossing. Jonathan shoots while the boy is still running, so the arrow lands beyond him.

Jonathan phrases the signal as a question, “Is not the arrow beyond thee?”, which sounds to the boy like a helpful hint. For David, hiding within earshot, it is the verdict of the new moon feast in one short question.

“Make speed, haste, stay not” are three commands for a child fetching arrows, far more urgency than the errand needs. They are for the man in hiding. The boy obeys the words; David hears their meaning.

The Hebrew says the boy knew “not anything at all”. Only Jonathan and David knew “the matter”, the same word for the thing “which thou and I have spoken of” in verse 23. The secret stays between the two men who swore it.

Jonathan hands the boy all his weapons and sends him home. The prince who gave David his sword and bow in 18:4 now empties his hands of bow and arrows before the meeting. The boy walks back to Gibeah alone, taking the only witness with him.

The Hebrew has David rise “from beside the south”; the Greek reads “from beside the mound”, matching its reading in verse 19. Bowing three times is the deference of a subject to a prince. “Until David exceeded” is obscure, perhaps meaning David wept the more, or recovered himself last.

The oath now reaches both men’s descendants, and 2 Samuel 21:7 records David sparing Mephibosheth “because of the LORD’s oath that was between them”. In the Hebrew Bible, “And he arose and departed” begins chapter 21, so the chapter break falls between the two men walking apart.