CHAPTER 19 Jul. 7 
Jonathan Speaks for David 
Saul told Jonathan his son and all his servants to kill David. But Jonathan, Saul’s son, delighted much in David. 2Jonathan told David, Saul my father seeks to kill you. Now therefore, please take extra care of yourself in the morning; hide in a secret place and stay there. 3I will go out and stand beside my father in the field where you are and I will talk with my father about you, and if I find out anything, I will tell you. 4Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father, and said to him, Don’t let the king sin against his servant David, because he has not sinned against you and he has worked well for you; 5he put his life in his hand and struck the Philistine, and Yahweh worked a great victory for all Israel. You saw it and rejoiced. Why then will you sin against innocent blood, to kill David without a cause? 6Saul listened to Jonathan and took this oath: As Yahweh lives, he shall not be put to death. 7Jonathan called David and told him all this. Jonathan brought David to Saul, and he was in his presence as before.

David’s Successes Enrage Saul
8There was war again. David went out and fought the Philistines and killed them with a great slaughter, and they fled before him. 9An evil spirit from Yahweh came on Saul as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand, and David was playing his harp. 10Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, and the spear went into the wall. David fled, and escaped that night. 11Saul sent messengers to David’s house to watch him and to kill him in the morning. Michal, David’s wife, told him, If you don’t save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed. 12So Michal let David down through the window. He fled and escaped. 13Michal took an idol and laid it in the bed, put a pillow of goats’ hair at its head, and covered it with the clothes. 14When Saul sent messengers to take David she said, He is sick. 15Saul sent the messengers to see David, saying, Bring him up to me in the bed so that I can kill him. 16When the messengers came in, there was just the idol in the bed, with the pillow of goats’ hair at its head. 17Saul said to Michal, Why have you deceived me like this and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped? Michal answered Saul, He said to me, ‘Let me go! Why should I kill you?’. 18Now David fled and escaped, and came to Samuel to Ramah, and told him all that Saul had done to him. He and Samuel went and lived in Naioth. 19Saul was told, David is at Naioth in Ramah! 20Saul sent messengers to take David, and when they saw the company of the prophets prophesying and Samuel standing as head over them, the spirit of God came on the messengers of Saul and they also prophesied. 21When Saul was told, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. Saul sent messengers again the third time and they also prophesied. 22Then he went himself to Ramah, and came to the great well that is in Secu, and he asked, Where are Samuel and David? Someone said, They are at Naioth in Ramah. 23So he went towards Naioth in Ramah. Then the spirit of God came on him also, and he went on and prophesied until he came to Naioth in Ramah. 24He stripped off his clothes and he also prophesied before Samuel, and lay down naked all that day and all that night. Therefore they say, Is Saul also among the prophets? 

Commentary

19:5 Saul wanting to slay “innocent blood” = Mt.27:4; his persecution of David “without a cause” was exactly what the Jews did to Christ (Jn. 15:25). We see clearly David as a type of Christ and Saul as representative of the Jewish opposition to Him.
19:12 There are many connections between Saul and Paul; and Paul noticed them and was motivated by them (see on 15:17). The way Paul was let down through a window to escape persecution (Acts 9:25; 2 Cor. 11:33) was not of his own choice; God set up that situation to make him realize that he should not be as Saul, his namesake. And so, led by God in this, he purposefully changed his name from Saul to Paul, ‘the little one’, recalling how when Saul was “little” in his own sight, he was acceptable to God (15:17). We too are to look for the similarities between our lives and those of Biblical characters, and act accordingly; and God will work in our lives to make the similarities, differences and lessons the more apparent to us.
19:13 An idol- Although both Michal and David were in love with each other when they married and they were both members of God’s people, indeed Michal’s brother Jonathan was a very faithful believer, Michal was clearly not devoted to Yahweh as she should’ve been- for she had a large idol in the house. Ultimately the marriage didn’t work out. Being in love and both being nominally believers isn’t enough to make a marriage work as God intends; there must be on both sides a genuine love of God.