1 Samuel 20

Translator Notes

1. David's three questions — meh asiti, meh avoni, u-meh chattati — escalate from general action ('what have I done?') to moral failing ('what is my guilt?') to covenant violation ('what is my offense?'). The word avon denotes guilt or iniquity in its moral weight, while chattat specifically means 'sin' in the sense of missing a mark or violating a standard. David is not merely asking what happened; he is insisting that he has violated no law, no moral code, and no covenant obligation.
2. The verb mevaqesh ('he is seeking') paired with nafshi ('my life/soul') is a fixed Hebrew expression for intent to kill — Saul is not searching for David's presence but for his death. David has just fled from the prophetic protection at Naioth (19:18-24), where even Saul fell into prophetic ecstasy. That supernatural intervention has not changed Saul's underlying intent.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan's opening word chalilah is an oath-like expression of strong denial — literally 'far be it' or 'profane the thought.' It carries the force of 'God forbid' without explicitly invoking the divine name. His certainty rests on his assumption that Saul shares everything with him: lo ya'aseh avi davar gadol o davar qatan ('my father does not do a thing great or small'). The idiom 'uncover the ear' (yigleh et ozni) means to reveal something privately — literally peeling back the covering over the ear to whisper a secret.
2. Jonathan's confidence is genuine but mistaken. Saul has already attempted to kill David multiple times (18:10-11, 19:1, 19:10) and explicitly ordered Jonathan himself to kill David (19:1). Jonathan successfully intervened once (19:4-6), but Saul's subsequent attempts show that the king's intent has not changed. Jonathan's denial reflects the impossible position of a son who loves both his father and his friend.

Translator Notes

1. The double oath formula chai YHWH ve-chey nafshekha ('as the LORD lives and as your soul/life lives') is the strongest available assurance — David swears by God and by Jonathan himself. This formula appears repeatedly in the David narratives and always marks a moment of utmost seriousness.
2. The word pesa' ('step') appears only here and in a handful of other passages. Its concreteness is the point: David is not speaking metaphorically about danger. He is saying that death is literally one step away. The vivid physicality of the image — a single human stride — makes the abstract threat immediate and bodily.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan's response is total commitment compressed into a single sentence. The phrase mah tomar nafshekha ('what does your soul say?') asks not merely for David's wish but for the deepest expression of his inner being — nafesh here means the whole person, not just desire. Jonathan's ve-e'eseh-llakh ('and I will do it for you') is an unconditional pledge with no qualifications. This is the turning point where Jonathan stops defending his father and begins acting as David's ally.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The phrase hinneh chodesh machar ('tomorrow is the New Moon') establishes the calendar setting. The chodesh was the first day of the lunar month, marked by special sacrifices (Numbers 28:11-15) and communal feasting. The royal household observed it as a formal banquet where assigned seats mattered — absence would be noticed and interpreted.
2. David's plan involves three days of absence. The phrase ad ha-erev ha-shelishit ('until the evening of the third day') gives the test a defined timeframe. David will hide ba-sadeh ('in the field/open country') — the same word used for the place where Cain killed Abel (Genesis 4:8) and where Esau hunted (Genesis 25:27). The sadeh is the space outside the city, beyond the reach of walls and social order.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase paqod yifqedeni ('he will surely miss/notice me') uses the infinitive absolute of paqad — a verb meaning 'to attend to, visit, notice, muster.' Saul will not merely notice David's absence; he will actively register it as significant. David's cover story involves a zebach ha-yamim ('sacrifice of the days,' meaning annual sacrifice) for his entire mishpachah ('clan, extended family') at Bethlehem. This is plausible — clan sacrifices were real events — but it is a deliberate deception. The text does not moralize about the lie; it presents it as survival strategy.
2. The verb laruts ('to run') rather than lalekhet ('to walk/go') conveys urgency — David's story is that the summons from Bethlehem was pressing enough to override his royal obligation.

Translator Notes

1. The test is binary. If Saul says tov ('good'), then shalom le-avdekha ('peace to your servant') — David is safe. But if charoh yechareh lo ('he burns with burning,' another infinitive absolute construction for emphasis), then kaletah ha-ra'ah me'immo ('the evil is completed/determined from him'). The verb kaletah comes from kalah, meaning 'to be complete, to be finished, to be determined' — the evil is not a passing mood but a settled resolution. David is asking Jonathan to read Saul's reaction as a diagnostic of fixed intent versus temporary suspicion.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The word chesed is the chapter's theological anchor. It denotes the faithful, loyal love that covenant partners owe each other — not as sentiment but as binding obligation. When David says 'show chesed,' he is calling in a covenantal debt, not asking for a favor. The prepositional phrase al avdekha ('upon your servant') positions David as the vulnerable party who is owed protection.
2. The phrase berit YHWH ('covenant of the LORD') elevates the Jonathan-David covenant above a personal agreement. God is the witness and guarantor. David's willingness to die at Jonathan's hand rather than Saul's is both a test of loyalty and a theological statement: covenant justice is preferable to royal caprice.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan's chalilah lakh ('far be it from you') mirrors his earlier chalilah in verse 2, but this time it carries a different force. In verse 2 he denied that Saul intended evil; here he promises that if evil is confirmed, he will not withhold the information. Jonathan is shifting from denial to readiness — he is beginning to accept the possibility that David may be right.
2. The rhetorical question ve-lo otah aggid lakh ('would I not tell it to you?') expects a strong affirmative. Jonathan is binding himself to transparency. The verb nagad ('to declare, tell, report') is the standard term for official communication in covenant contexts.

Translator Notes

1. David's question is practical and urgent: mi yaggid li ('who will report to me?'). Even if Jonathan learns the truth, the intelligence must reach David in the field. The word qashah ('harshly, roughly') describes a severe or hard response — David anticipates that Saul's reaction might be violent enough that Jonathan himself could be in danger and unable to deliver the message. This prompts the arrow-signal plan in the verses that follow.

Translator Notes

1. The move to the sadeh ('field, open country') takes the conversation out of earshot — away from the royal compound where walls have ears. The narrator's repetition of ha-sadeh twice in one verse emphasizes the shift of setting. The phrase shenehem ('the two of them') highlights their solidarity; they move as a pair into the exposed landscape where their private covenant talk can happen without surveillance.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan begins a formal oath invoking YHWH Elohei Yisra'el ('the LORD, the God of Israel') — the full covenantal title. The verb echqor ('I will sound out, investigate') comes from chaqar, meaning to search deeply, to probe, to investigate thoroughly. Jonathan is promising a genuine intelligence operation, not a casual observation. The phrase galiti et oznekha ('I will uncover your ear') repeats the idiom from verse 2 — the same intimacy Jonathan assumed his father showed him, he now promises to show David.

Translator Notes

1. The self-curse formula is deliberately vague — koh ('thus') gestures toward an unspecified punishment too terrible to name. The phrase ve-koh yosif ('and may he add more') intensifies the curse beyond the unnamed first portion. This is the most solemn form of oath available.
2. Jonathan's blessing — 'may the LORD be with you as he was with my father' — is the chapter's most politically loaded sentence. It implicitly acknowledges that God's presence has departed from Saul and now rests on David. Jonathan the crown prince is pronouncing a transfer of divine legitimacy to the man who will replace his father on the throne. The word ka'asher ('as, in the same way') draws a direct equivalence between Saul's early anointing and David's current calling.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The syntax of this verse is difficult in Hebrew, with the negative particles creating a tangled conditional. Jonathan is asking David to extend chesed YHWH ('the faithful love of the LORD') to him — not ordinary kindness but the kind of loyal protection that God himself shows to covenant partners. The phrase ve-lo amut ('so that I do not die') reveals Jonathan's awareness that when David becomes king, Jonathan's life will be in danger. Ancient Near Eastern succession typically involved killing all potential rival claimants. Jonathan is asking David to break that pattern.

Translator Notes

1. The scope of Jonathan's request is remarkable. He is not asking for a temporary favor but for a permanent policy: ad olam ('forever, to perpetuity'). The mention of 'cutting off enemies from the face of the earth' uses the language of total military victory — the same vocabulary applied to God's destruction of the wicked (Genesis 6-7). Jonathan foresees a world in which David has won completely and every rival is gone. In that world, only David's chesed will stand between Jonathan's family and annihilation.
2. This verse will be directly fulfilled in 2 Samuel 9, when David actively seeks out Jonathan's surviving son Mephibosheth and restores the house of Saul's land to him, declaring 'I will surely show you chesed for Jonathan your father's sake.'

Translator Notes

1. The phrase 'cut a covenant with the house of David' is extraordinary because at this point David has no house — he is a fugitive. Jonathan is covenanting with a dynasty that exists only in prophetic anticipation. The language mirrors the Davidic covenant that God will establish in 2 Samuel 7, where YHWH promises to build David a 'house' (dynasty). Jonathan's covenant thus runs parallel to God's own future commitment.
2. The verb biqqesh ('to seek, to require, to call to account') when applied to God means divine reckoning. God will demand an accounting from anyone who breaks this covenant — the enforcement mechanism is not human justice but divine judgment.

Translator Notes

1. The verse is saturated with the language of love: be-ahavato oto ('by his love for him') and ki ahavat nafsho ahevo ('because the love of his own life/soul he loved him'). The word ahavah ('love') appears in both its noun and verb forms. The phrase ahavat nafsho ('the love of his soul/life') means Jonathan loved David with the same intensity that a person loves their own existence — this is total identification, not merely affection. The verb lehashbia ('to make swear') means Jonathan administered an oath to David, binding David to the same covenantal commitments. The love is the motive; the oath is the binding mechanism.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan confirms the plan's timing: machar chodesh ('tomorrow is the New Moon'). The verb nifqadta ('you will be missed/noticed') is the Niphal (passive) form of paqad — David will be attended to, his absence will be registered. The phrase ki yippaqed moshavekha ('because your seat will be noticed empty') makes clear that the royal New Moon feast had assigned seating. David's empty chair will be a visible, conspicuous absence that demands explanation.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase ve-shilashta tered me'od ('on the third day descend greatly/quickly') uses the verb shillesh ('to do on the third day') and me'od ('very, exceedingly') as an adverb of speed — Jonathan wants David to move fast. The reference to 'the day of the incident' (yom ha-ma'aseh) points to a previous meeting at this location, likely the events of chapter 19. The stone Ezel (ha-even ha-azel) may mean 'the stone of departure' or 'the stone that goes' — from the root azal ('to go away, to depart'). The name is fitting for a landmark that will mark David's permanent departure from Saul's court.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan introduces the arrow signal. The phrase sheloshet ha-chitsim ('three arrows') and the verb oreh ('I will shoot') set up the coded communication system. The word tsiddah ('to the side') indicates direction, and le-mattarah ('at a target') provides the cover story — Jonathan will appear to be practicing archery. The entire plan is an intelligence operation disguised as a routine training exercise.

Translator Notes

1. The na'ar ('boy, attendant, servant') is an unwitting participant — he will not know he is carrying a coded message. The key signal for safety: ha-chitsim mimmekha va-hennah ('the arrows are on this side of you and toward here') — meaning the arrows fell short, close by. If the arrows are nearby, David can come out safely. Jonathan seals this with chai YHWH ('as the LORD lives'), the same oath formula David used in verse 3.

Translator Notes

1. The danger signal: ha-chitsim mimmekha va-hal'ah ('the arrows are beyond you and farther') — meaning the arrows overshot, far away. The command lekh ('go!') doubles as both instruction to the boy and a warning to David. Most strikingly, Jonathan frames David's flight as divine action: ki shillachakha YHWH ('because the LORD has sent you away'). David's departure is not merely an escape from Saul; it is a divine commission. The verb shillach with God as subject carries the weight of prophetic sending.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan closes the oath with the definitive covenant formula: hinneh YHWH beyni u-veynekha ad olam ('the LORD is between me and you forever'). The preposition beyn ('between') positions God as the mediator, witness, and enforcer standing in the space between the two covenant partners. The phrase ad olam ('forever, to perpetuity') removes any time limit. This covenant does not expire when circumstances change, when one party gains power, or when the other dies. It is permanent because its guarantor is permanent.

Key Terms

Translator Notes

1. The narrative shifts from dialogue to action: vayyissater David ba-sadeh ('and David hid himself in the field'). The verb nistar (Niphal of satar, 'to hide') conveys deliberate concealment. The scene then cuts to the royal feast: vayyeshev ha-melekh el ha-lechem le-ekhol ('and the king sat down at the bread/food to eat'). The word lechem means both 'bread' and 'food' more generally — this is the formal New Moon banquet, not a casual meal.

Translator Notes

1. The seating arrangement reveals court hierarchy: Saul takes the seat by the wall (moshav ha-qir) — the protected position with his back guarded. Abner, the army commander, sits at Saul's side (mi-tsad Sha'ul). The phrase vayyaqom Yehonatan ('and Jonathan arose/stood') is puzzling — some read it as Jonathan standing to yield the seat beside Saul to Abner, others as Jonathan taking a different position. The Greek (LXX) reads 'Jonathan sat opposite' rather than 'arose.' The critical detail is the final clause: vayyippaqed meqom David ('and David's place was noticed empty'). The verb paqad appears again — the empty seat registers as a presence through its very absence.

Translator Notes

1. Saul's internal reasoning (ki amar, 'because he said [to himself]') provides a plausible explanation for David's absence: miqreh hu ('it is an accident/occurrence') — something unexpected happened, and bilti tahor hu ki lo tahor ('he is not pure, for he is not clean'). The word tahor ('pure, clean') refers to ritual purity required for participation in sacred meals. Contact with a corpse, bodily discharge, or other sources of impurity (Leviticus 11-15) would disqualify someone from eating the sacrificial food. The repetition — bilti tahor... ki lo tahor — suggests Saul is convincing himself. On day one, he accepts the innocuous explanation.

Translator Notes

1. The second day shatters Saul's ritual-purity theory — most impurities lasted only until evening (Leviticus 15:5-8), so a two-day absence demands a different explanation. Saul's question uses the patronymic ben Yishai ('son of Jesse') rather than David's name — a distancing gesture that reduces David to his family origin and strips him of the personal identity Saul once honored. The phrase gam temol gam ha-yom ('both yesterday and today') emphasizes the pattern: this is no accident.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan deploys the cover story exactly as David scripted it in verse 6. The infinitive absolute nish'ol nish'al ('he urgently asked, he emphatically requested') mirrors David's original phrasing precisely. The phrase me'immadi ('from me, from my presence') positions Jonathan as the authority who granted the leave — a subtle assertion of his own standing in the court hierarchy.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan embellishes David's script slightly — adding the detail that David's brother (achi) commanded his presence, which strengthens the cover story by making it about family obligation, not personal choice. The verb immaltah ('let me slip away, let me escape') is telling — it comes from malat, which means 'to escape, to deliver oneself.' Even in the fabricated speech, the vocabulary of flight bleeds through. The phrase shulchan ha-melekh ('the king's table') names the specific obligation David has violated: the royal table carries political and social weight far beyond a meal.

Translator Notes

1. The maternal insult is culturally devastating. In the honor-shame matrix of the ancient Near East, attacking a man's mother was the deepest form of personal assault. The phrase strikes at Jonathan's identity, legitimacy, and family loyalty simultaneously. Saul is not merely angry; he is attempting to shame Jonathan into breaking the covenant with David.
2. The word boshet ('shame') will later be used as a substitute for 'Baal' in Israelite names (Ish-bosheth for Ish-baal in 2 Samuel 2:8). Its appearance here in connection with ervah ('nakedness') creates a cluster of shame-vocabulary that reveals Saul's view of Jonathan's choice: it is not merely politically wrong but morally obscene.

Translator Notes

1. Saul names the political reality that drives his rage: lo tikkon attah u-malkhutekha ('you will not be established — you or your kingship'). The verb tikkon (from kun, 'to be firm, established, secure') is the same word used in God's promise to establish David's throne forever (2 Samuel 7:16). Saul perceives that David's survival means the end of his dynasty. The phrase ben mavet hu ('he is a son of death') is an idiom meaning 'he deserves to die' or 'he is marked for death' — it is a death sentence pronounced by the king.
2. Saul again uses ben Yishai ('son of Jesse') rather than David's name, three times in this exchange (verses 27, 30, 31). The patronymic is deliberate: Saul reduces David to his father's son, stripping him of the name and identity that Israel has come to honor.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan's response echoes David's own words from verse 1 — meh asah ('what has he done?') mirrors David's meh asiti ('what have I done?'). The verb yumat ('he shall be put to death') is the Hophal (causative passive) of mut — it refers to judicial execution, not casual killing. Jonathan is demanding legal grounds for a death sentence. By asking lammah ('why?'), Jonathan challenges his father to provide evidence that would justify execution under Israelite law. It is a brave and dangerous question to ask a king in a rage.

Translator Notes

1. Saul answers Jonathan's legal question with a spear. The verb vayyatel ('he hurled') describes a violent throw — the same action Saul directed at David twice before (18:11, 19:10). Now he turns the weapon on his own son. The spear (chanit) is Saul's characteristic weapon throughout 1 Samuel, functioning almost as an extension of his disordered will. The clause vayyeda' Yehonatan ki khalah hi me'im aviv le-hamit et David ('and Jonathan knew that it was a completed thing from his father to kill David') uses the same word kaletah ('completed, determined') from verse 7 — the very word David predicted. Jonathan now has his answer: the test is over. The 'completed' evil David feared has been confirmed by the spear that nearly killed Jonathan himself.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan's departure from the table ba-chori af ('in burning anger') mirrors Saul's anger in verse 30 — father and son now share the same emotional intensity but directed in opposite directions. Jonathan's refusal to eat (lo akhal lechem) echoes Hannah's grief in 1:7 — not eating is the body's expression of grief too deep for words. The narrator provides two reasons: ki ne'etsav el David ('because he was grieved for David') and ki hikhlimo aviv ('because his father had shamed him'). The verb ne'etsav (from atsav, 'to grieve, to be pained') is the same word David used in verse 3 when predicting Jonathan would be devastated. The verb hikhlimo ('he had shamed/humiliated him') comes from kalam, meaning to wound through public disgrace.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase le-mo'ed David ('at the appointed time of David') uses mo'ed — the same word used for the appointed festivals and the Tabernacle ('tent of meeting'). The scheduled rendezvous carries the weight of a sacred appointment. The na'ar qaton ('small boy') is deliberately chosen — young enough to be unaware of the signal's meaning. Jonathan has engineered the communication so that only he and David understand what is happening.

Translator Notes

1. The boy runs first, then Jonathan shoots — the arrow flies over the running boy and lands beyond him. The verb le-ha'aviro ('to make it pass beyond him') uses the Hiphil (causative) of avar, meaning Jonathan deliberately overshot. The signal is being transmitted: the arrow beyond means danger. The word chets (singular 'arrow') appears here though three arrows were mentioned in verse 20 — the singular may indicate the signal arrow that carries the coded message.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan delivers the danger signal: halo ha-chetsi mimmekha va-hal'ah ('is not the arrow beyond you and farther?'). These are the exact words from the prearranged code in verse 22. The boy hears an instruction about archery; David, hiding nearby, hears a death sentence confirmed. The double meaning is the chapter's most dramatic moment of dramatic irony — the same words carry two completely different messages depending on who is listening.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan adds urgency beyond the prearranged signal: meherah chushah al ta'amod ('hurry, be quick, do not stand still'). Three rapid commands — each one escalating the pace. These words serve double duty: they move the boy along so he does not linger near David's hiding place, and they communicate to David that the danger is immediate and flight must be swift. The boy gathers the arrows (ha-chitsim, plural — returning to the three arrows of verse 20) and returns to Jonathan with no awareness of what he has just participated in.

Translator Notes

1. The narrator makes the dramatic irony explicit: ve-ha-na'ar lo yada' me'umah ('and the boy did not know anything'). The word me'umah ('anything, at all') is emphatic — the boy's ignorance is total. The contrast is sharp: akh Yehonatan ve-David yade'u et ha-davar ('only Jonathan and David knew the matter'). The verb yada' ('to know') connects to the chapter's opening, where Jonathan insisted he would know if Saul intended evil (verse 2). Now knowledge has been confirmed, transmitted, and received — and a boy who carried the message remains completely in the dark.

Translator Notes

1. Jonathan hands over his kelav ('his equipment, his weapons') — the bow and arrows that served as the signal apparatus. The verb lekh havi ha-'ir ('go, bring them to the city') dismisses the boy and creates the privacy needed for what comes next. By surrendering his weapons, Jonathan is also symbolically disarming himself — he enters the farewell unarmed, vulnerable, stripped of the tools of the signal plan that has now served its purpose.

Translator Notes

1. The phrase ad David higdil is ambiguous — it could mean 'until David wept more' or 'until David could take no more.' Most interpreters read it as David's grief exceeding Jonathan's in intensity. The verb gadal ('to be great, to grow') in the Hiphil means 'to make great, to exceed.' David, the one being sent into exile, grieves more than Jonathan, the one returning to the palace. This asymmetry reflects their different futures: Jonathan goes back to a doomed dynasty; David goes forward into suffering that will eventually become kingship.
2. The combination of formal prostration followed by mutual kissing and weeping moves from protocol to raw emotion. The three bows acknowledge Jonathan's rank and sacrifice; the tears acknowledge the human cost of what is happening.

Translator Notes

1. The covenant formula in this verse is the chapter's theological climax. It mirrors Genesis 31:49 (the Mizpah benediction between Jacob and Laban: 'the LORD watch between me and you') but exceeds it by including descendants. This is a dynastic covenant — not merely a pact between two friends but a permanent treaty between two houses, guaranteed by the divine name.
2. The final narrative detail — 'David got up and left, and Jonathan went into the city' — is devastating in its simplicity. No further speech, no lingering. The two men go in opposite directions. David will spend the next decade as a fugitive; Jonathan will die with his father on Mount Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:2). They will never see each other again. The covenant they sealed in this chapter will be fulfilled posthumously when David shows chesed to Jonathan's son Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 9).