And dead on Mount Gilboa. David waits in Ziklag for two days. And if you find yourself in a situation where you're in that waiting period, and you're not sure what to do next, often it's a good move to just simply wait. And see if the Lord brings a messenger, brings new information, brings clarity.
And to that point, on the third day after he's waiting, this messenger comes. And we're told that this messenger is a sojourner, an Amalekite. So David has just come from killing the Amalekites, and then an Amalekite messenger comes to him. Now, the Amalekite doesn't know that, and so he doesn't realize what a disadvantage he is in this conversation.
As he comes forward and bows down before David with his clothes torn, and looking as if he's come from the battle, he tells this tale which we can now — having read the previous chapter — we all know is a lie from the beginning. He's trying to make it look like he is worthy of a reward. He brings the crown and the armlet from Saul, and he tells this tale that he just happened to be on Mount Gilboa, you know, in the thick of the fighting. And Saul, he says, told him, "You know, I got hit by this arrow — please finish me off." So he says that he did it. "I finished off the king because he asked me to, and he was clearly gonna die anyway. And so that's what I did. But aren't you proud of me? I brought you his stuff to prove that, you know, I did the right thing, that I was actually there, and that you should reward me for being a good messenger."
And what David does at that point is surprising. This guy expects him to say thank you for the message, here's a reward for bringing back these objects that would have been stolen by the Philistines — you saved, kind of, the relics, if you will, of the kingdom. But he doesn't reward him. Instead, what does he do?
Verse eleven and twelve:
Then David took hold of his clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him. And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.
And all the commentators agree — this is what the text wants us to know — that David's grief takes center stage here. And that's important, because it wants us to see that David is a tearful king. That he is willing to be emotionally expressive in front of the people, and that he is willing to mourn even his enemy Saul.
This is incredibly helpful for us when we think about our own grief. Here is this warrior with six hundred other warriors, just coming back from their raid, and they are weeping. They're not afraid to do that together. It's also surprising because Saul was so mean to him and has been chasing him — the whole reason he's down in the Negev is because he's been chased down there.
And it shows us a couple of really important things. Number one, that we ought to be less wary of intense negative emotions — especially grief. For some reason we tend to be wary of grief. Just imagine a parallel scenario as an illustration. Think about World War Two. Think about General Eisenhower in the European theater, and he hypothetically hears that General MacArthur in the Pacific theater has lost the battle, has been killed, his soldiers are in disarray. Would he pause? Would Eisenhower just wait, tear his clothes, and cry in front of all his men and say, "Today we're gonna fast and not do anything and just let our emotions be"? You — inconceivable, right? This is not the pragmatic thing to do. And yet that's exactly what David does.
And this is kind of the interesting biblical corrective to our sense of negative emotion. I had a pastor one time say one of the most profound things that stuck with me for years: it's good to be sad about sad things. Such a simple truth and so powerful. It is good to be sad about sad things. And these men are not just sad — they are weeping, they are lamenting, they are loud, they are tearing their clothing.
Herman Bavinck, the Dutch theologian, notes that this is typical of what you get in the Bible, typical of the Hebrew people. Israel, he says, is not primarily a nation of thinkers. It lacks that sharp dialectic of reason, the philosophical disposition that characterizes the Indo-Germanic peoples. It is rather a people of the heart. The eastern character is lively, passionate, cheerful, susceptible to all kinds of impressions. It is never indifferent or neutral, but loving or hating with the entire soul, blessing or cursing, cheering or lamenting. In all of this, their character was formed by God.
And what he's saying there is that there's a biblical pattern of intense emotions. I mean, Jesus is so okay being angry in public. He's okay weeping in public. He's okay giving public rebukes. He's okay talking about hard things. He's okay being sad. And that is because, I think in part, they have a view of God that is not dispassionate. They think of God as having these strong loyalties that evoke something from him. We would say their emotions are not the same as ours — we don't talk about God as if he has emotions like ours — but the Bible uses emotional language to describe God.
A great example is Zephaniah 3:17.