1 Samuel 20:2 Commentary and Bible Study

Well Jonathan replies in similar vein. ‘He said unto him, ‘God forbid. Thou shalt not die.’ My father wouldn't dream of doing something like that without first telling me, and if he told me I would have let you know. David had gone straight to Jonathan as the only one he can trust in this situation. Does he think that Jonathan knows about this, but is hiding it for some bad reason? Is he being betrayed? Is it possible that Jonathan is unaware of what his father has just being doing to try to take and destroy David? He cannot believe it, but he wants reassurance on the subject. Jonathon, in turn, is anxious to assert that he knows nothing about this and to express his commitment still to their friendship. ‘It is not so.’ I am in my father’s confidence and he does nothing without letting me know. Why would he hide this from me?’ But that is evidently what Saul had done. But even if Jonathan has not been aware of this latest development, he knows about his father’s behaviour in the past (1 Samuel 18:11), but he plays it down. The only explanation for this is that he thinks it is his father’s mental health; that he is not serious; that he can be talked out of it; that it is only passing phases. ‘It is just his outbursts of temper’, he might almost be saying. ‘He is good at heart.’ So Jonathan is also failing; he too has lost his spiritual view. For the moment he has forgotten the depravity of the human heart, and what it is capable of, and what his father could do. He is following the modern outlook of our day: everybody is good at heart. Saul couldn't possibly do this to you, and he would tell me anyway.