David in Sunday’s first reading provides an example of nonviolence. This story happens while Saul is hunting down David, whose popularity has made Saul very jealous. In this passage David has a chance to kill Saul but will not kill Yahweh’s anointed king.
Interestingly, in the ancient southern kingdom of Judah, where God established David’s family as the royal house, kings became kings peacefully by right of family succession. In the ancient northern kingdom called Israel, new kings seized the throne by assassinating the former king.
David spares Saul.
Saul went off to the desert of Ziph with three thousand picked men of Israel to search for David. So David and Abishai went among Saul’s soldiers by night and found Saul lying asleep within the barricade, with his spear thrust into the ground at his head and Abner and his men sleeping around him.
Abishai whispered to David, “God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day. Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I will not need a second thrust!” But David said to Abishai, “Do not harm him, for who can lay hands on God’s anointed and remain unpunished?” So David took the spear and the water jug from their place at Saul’s head, and they got away without anyone seeing or knowing or awakening. All remained asleep, because the Holy One had put them into a deep slumber.
Going across to an opposite slope, David stood on a remote hilltop at a great distance from Abner, son of Ner, and the troops. He called out, “Here is the king’s spear. Let an attendant come over to get it. God will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness. Today, though the Holy One delivered you into my grasp, I would not harm God’s anointed.”
1 Samuel 26.2,7-9,12-13,22-23
- What experience have you had of nonviolent acts like David’s leading to new stability?
- What experience of violence escalating violence have you had?