Bad Theology

Text for today: II Samuel 1 i-xvi

As is His occasional habit, God has stood complacently by while the Philistines slaughter an entire army of His chosen, including all the sons of King Saul. The king has fallen on his sword, having been refused the coup de grâce by a servant who fears to lay hands on him. A man comes before David and states that he found Saul still alive and leaning on his spear, and that he killed Saul when the king asked him to end his suffering. David has the man executed.

Had God been interested in ending the king's suffering, He would have done it Himself, and the premature termination of Saul's pain is therefore the act of a blasphemer and usurper. The king's armour bearer, being presumably a Hebrew himself, having witnessed the gory scene on Mount Gilboa evidently takes the hint. Knowing better than to expect mercy, he commits suicide alongside Saul rather than face David's judgement.

Having torn his clothes to demonstrate his grief (and, no doubt incidentally, to absolve himself of complicity in Saul's demise), David asks the man who brought the news where he is from. When the man responds that he is the son of an Amalekite immigrant, David has him killed for showing compassion to the Lord's anointed when the Lord Himself had none. David's combination of xenophobia with murderous fanaticism prefigures the gospel of the Lord's anointed Son, whose biographers proclaimed Him David's spiritual heir.