NOTES for Sa1 1:14

When reading the Books of Samuel, one cannot miss David's careful and, one might say, reverent attitude toward Saul's anointing, that is, toward God's blessing of him to rule God's people. The easiest thing, of course, would be to see here the traditional ancient Near Eastern sacralization of the ruler, who in countries such as Egypt or Babylonia, for example, was regarded as specially sacred, as belonging to the world of the gods. Ancient Israel never knew such sacralization: nowhere in the Bible is anything said about any "sacred nature" of royal power. And even in the countries where such sacralization existed, one could speak more of the sacredness of the throne itself than of the particular people who occupied it, who were considered sacred only insofar as they occupied a sacred place.

David also had, no doubt, considerations of a purely political kind (and he was certainly not an "otherworldly" poet, as he is sometimes portrayed; he was a politician and a warrior, and therefore a realist fully and to the end): had he decided to kill Saul, in Saul's relatives (and Saul belonged to the same tribe as David, though to a different clan) he would have acquired irreconcilable blood avengers, and that hostility could easily have lasted for centuries. Yet the point is not the sacralization of royal power (which, incidentally, Saul dreamed of), nor political expediency alone. The point is David's own attitude toward God's plans, of which he is sure only insofar as they concern him personally. One thing was clear to him: in the life of Saul, who had become David's rival, there had been a moment of direct and immediate divine intervention, which, even if only for a very short time, had made him, in the words of the Book of Samuel, "another man." Even if that touch proved fleeting, even if Saul became different only for a few hours, for David that event from then on defined his attitude toward Saul as God's anointed.

David is by no means an idealist; he sees perfectly well what Saul has become, what megalomania and persecution mania have done to him. He understands that from the moment when God touched Saul's heart, Saul's fate is no longer in human hands. Even if Saul long ago forgot what happened to him at the moment of his prophetic initiation, his life and his death must now be disposed of by God Himself, without David's intervention. David waits for God's decision. When Saul dies, David does not rejoice: for him Saul's death is not so much a triumph over his political opponent and personal enemy as a chance given by God and lost by a human being. A chance that cannot be recovered. Never.