Read Time: 9 minutes1 Samuel 20
The chapter is the covenant of Jonathan and David, sworn in the shadow of Saul’s settled intent to kill. David comes to Jonathan in distress — “there is but a step between me and death” — and Jonathan, still half-hoping his father will relent, agrees to test Saul’s heart at the new moon feast. The plan is simple and the sign is arrows: Jonathan will shoot, and the words he speaks to the lad fetching them will tell David whether to stay or flee. The friendship is now a matter of life and death, and Jonathan binds himself to David by oath even as the cost becomes plain.
What makes the covenant remarkable is that Jonathan swears it knowing it costs him the throne. He says it openly: “thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee.” The rightful heir not only yields the crown but asks only to be second, and pledges David to deal kindly with his house for ever — “thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever.” This is the deliberate, loving surrender of natural succession to the man Yahweh chose, and it is the opposite of his father’s grasping. Jonathan loves the anointed more than his own right to reign; he is the friend who decreases that the chosen may increase. It is the very posture John the Baptist will take toward the greater David — “he must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30) — the forerunner-friend who points away from himself to the anointed and gladly takes the lower place. Jonathan, the king’s son who should have inherited, asks only to stand at David’s right hand; the Baptist, sent before the King, asks only to be the friend of the bridegroom who rejoices to hear his voice.
The feast confirms the worst. David’s place is empty, and when Saul asks after him, Jonathan gives the agreed excuse — and Saul erupts, cursing his son, naming the truth he has long known: “as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom.” And then Saul casts his javelin at Jonathan himself — the same spear he threw at David now thrown at his own son for loving him. Natural Israel’s king will destroy even his own heir to keep the anointed from the throne; the jealousy has become a fury that turns on everything, even his own house. Jonathan rises from the table in fierce anger and grief, “for he was grieved for David, because his father had done him shame.”
The parting in the field is one of the tenderest scenes in Scripture. Jonathan shoots the arrows beyond the lad as the sign that David must flee, then sends the boy away and the two friends weep together and kiss, “until David exceeded.” And Jonathan sends him off with the covenant sealed: “Yahweh be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever.” They part, the anointed to the wilderness and the years of flight, the heir back to his doomed father’s house. The love that clothed David with the royal robe now sends him away to live, choosing the anointed’s life over their own companionship — the friend’s love that lets go for the sake of the one loved.
This covenant-love of David and Jonathan is one of the most beautiful types in all the histories — the bond between the anointed King and those who love him, between Christ and his saints. It is a love sworn in covenant, not a passing affection; a love that gives away its own glory, its own robe, its own throne, for the sake of the beloved; a love that holds faithful through danger and exile and the threat of death; a love sealed with the oath, Yahweh be between thee and me for ever. It is the love David himself would later crown, lamenting Jonathan, as “passing the love of women” (2 Sam 1:26) — a covenant friendship deeper than the nearest natural tie, the strongest bond the heart can know. So is the love between the Lord and his own: he calls them no longer servants but friends (John 15:15), lays down his life for them, and binds them to himself in a covenant sealed in his own blood; and they, like Jonathan, love him above their own place and their own life, faithful to the hunted and rejected King through every danger, sworn to him for ever. The friendship in the field is a small window onto that great and surpassing love.
The heir swears away his own throne for love of the anointed, and the king throws his spear even at his own son. Love that decreases that the chosen may increase, and parts in tears to keep him alive — Yahweh between thee and me for ever.
Isaiah 64
The chapter is the great cry for Yahweh to tear the heavens and come down, the prayer of a people who can no longer save themselves. “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence… to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence.” It is the prayer the remnant of chapter 63 was already praying — return for thy servants’ sake — now risen to a cry for theophany, for Yahweh to break in as he did at Sinai when the mountains shook. The whole posture is the watchmen’s: a people unable to deliver themselves, pleading for the One who can to come down and do it.
The ground of the plea is Yahweh’s unmatched working for those who wait. “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.” It is the verse Paul takes for the things prepared for those who love God (1 Cor 2:9) — the unseen, unheard inheritance kept for the waiting ones. The plea rests not on Israel’s deserving but on Yahweh’s character: he “meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness,” he is the God who acts for those who wait.
Then the confession, as honest as anything in the prophets. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” Even their righteousnesses — their best, not their worst — are filthy rags; the whole nation fades like a leaf and is carried off by its own sin like wind-blown chaff. “There is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee.” It is the bottom of self-knowledge: not only the sins but the righteousnesses defiled, no one even rousing himself to lay hold of Yahweh. The confession of chapter 59 deepened — the wall of sin owned to its root.
And the chapter ends where it can only end, throwing the whole weight on Yahweh’s fatherhood. “But now, O Yahweh, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we are all the work of thy hand.” The clay cannot mend itself; it can only appeal to the potter who made it. “Be not wroth very sore, O Yahweh, neither remember iniquity for ever: behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people.” The prayer ends not in a claim of merit but in a plea of belonging — we are all thy people, the work of thy hand, do not abandon what thou hast made. It is the cry that the rent heavens of the chapter’s opening will answer: the potter coming down to remake his marred clay.
Rend the heavens and come down — for our righteousnesses are filthy rags and we fade as a leaf. We are the clay, thou the potter; remember not iniquity for ever, for we are all thy people, the work of thy hand.
Matthew 9
The chapter gathers more of the King’s authority and turns it pointedly toward forgiveness and the gathering of sinners. The palsied man let down before him hears first not rise and walk but “thy sins be forgiven thee” — and when the scribes murmur at the blasphemy, the Lord heals the body to prove the authority over sin: “that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.” The healing is the visible sign of the deeper work; the forgiveness is the point, the body raised to prove the inner man absolved. The King’s authority reaches where only Yahweh’s reaches — to the forgiving of sins.
Then the call of Matthew the publican and the great word about who the King came for. He calls a tax-gatherer from the receipt of custom, sits down to eat with publicans and sinners, and answers the Pharisees’ scandal with the heart of his mission: “they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick… I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” And he sends them to learn Isaiah’s lesson and Hosea’s: “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” — the same word as Isaiah 58’s true fast and Samuel’s to obey is better than sacrifice. The King gathers exactly the sick, the outsider, the sinner — the leper and the Gentile of chapter 8 now the publican and the sinner — for these are the ones who know they need a physician.
The middle of the chapter holds the new wine and the touch that flows both ways. The old garment cannot hold the new patch, the old bottles cannot hold the new wine — the kingdom is not a mending of the old order but a new thing that bursts the old forms. Then the ruler’s dead daughter and the woman with the issue of blood, woven together: the unclean woman touches the hem of his garment — the ribband of blue every Israelite was commanded to wear on his border (Num 15:38), the witness of God-manifestation she reached for — and is healed by her faith — “thy faith hath made thee whole” — and the dead girl is raised by his hand. The two are bound by a number: the ruler’s daughter is twelve years old and the woman has bled twelve years — the span of the tribes — the one beginning to die as the other comes to life. The flow of uncleanness that the law could only quarantine is reversed; his touch and even his hem carry life into death and cleanness into defilement, as the Servant bearing the infirmity rather than being defiled by it.
The chapter closes on blindness opened, dumbness loosed, and the King’s compassion for the shepherdless crowd. He opens the eyes of two blind men who cry “Son of David” — the kingly title, the first to name him so — and casts the dumb spirit out so the mute speaks. And seeing the multitudes “he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.” The failed shepherds of Isaiah 56, the greedy watchmen, the kings who fed themselves — all have left the flock scattered, and the true Shepherd is moved at the sight. “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few” — and he bids them pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers, the prayer that the next chapter answers in the sending of the twelve.
The Son of man forgives sins and proves it by healing; he eats with publicans, for the sick need the physician — I will have mercy, not sacrifice. His hem carries life into death, and he is moved with compassion for the sheep without a shepherd.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day binds together the love that lets go, the cry for Yahweh to come down, and the King who came for sinners. Jonathan swears away his throne and parts in tears to keep the anointed alive — a covenant-love passing the love of women, the beautiful type of the bond between the Lord and his own, who love him above their own place and are sworn to him for ever; the remnant of Isaiah 64 cries for the heavens to be rent, confessing their righteousnesses are filthy rags; and the Lord of Matthew 9 forgives sins, eats with publicans, and is moved with compassion for the shepherdless crowd. The friend who decreases, the clay that can only appeal to the potter, and the physician who came for the sick all confess the same thing — that salvation is not grasped by the strong but given to those who know their need and look to the One who comes down.
The confession of Isaiah 64 and the mercy of Matthew 9 answer each other exactly. Isaiah’s people own that their best righteousness is a filthy rag, that they fade like a leaf, that none stirs himself to take hold of Yahweh — and the answer comes in the King who says I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners, who will have mercy and not sacrifice, whose hem carries cleanness into the unclean. The clay that cannot mend itself is met by the potter come down in flesh, the physician who touches the leper and raises the dead and forgives the palsied. The cry rend the heavens and come down is answered in the Son of man who has power on earth to forgive sins.
The hope holds its shape — the heavens not yet rent, the harvest not yet gathered. Isaiah’s remnant still cries for the potter to come down; the things prepared for them that wait are still unseen and unheard; David is still in flight, the covenant sworn but the throne far off. The King of Matthew 9 forgives and heals and gathers, yet the labourers are few and the harvest still to be reaped, the prayer for reapers only now going up. The saint lives as the clay pleading with the potter, the sick come to the physician, the sheep found by the Shepherd — forgiven and gathered, yet waiting for the heavens to be rent and the harvest brought home.
So the exhortation gathers to the place of need and the love that lets go. Come as the sick to the physician, not as the whole who need no healing; own with Isaiah that your best righteousness is a filthy rag and throw yourself on the potter who alone can remake the clay. Be Jonathan, loving the anointed more than your own place, decreasing that he may increase. Learn the King’s own word — I will have mercy, and not sacrifice — and carry that mercy to the scattered sheep. And pray the Lord of the harvest for labourers, joining the cry that the heavens be rent and the King come down. He forgives sins; he came for sinners; he is moved with compassion. Come to him as you are, and let him remake the clay.
The friend who lets go, the clay that pleads with the potter, the physician who came for the sick — come as you are. Own the filthy rags, throw yourself on the potter, and learn the King’s word: I will have mercy, not sacrifice.