This text is part of:
Search the Perseus Catalog for:
View text chunked by:
[209]
On the next day Jonathan came to Saul, as soon as he saw him in a
cheerful and joyful disposition, and began to introduce a discourse about
David: "What unjust action, O father, either little or great, hast
thou found so exceptionable in David, as to induce thee to order us to
slay a man who hath been of great advantage to thy own preservation, and
of still greater to the punishment of the Philistines? A man who hath delivered
the people of the Hebrews from reproach and derision, which they underwent
for forty days together, when he alone had courage enough to sustain the
challenge of the adversary, and after that brought as many heads of our
enemies as he was appointed to bring, and had, as a reward for the same,
my sister in marriage; insomuch that his death would be very sorrowful
to us, not only on account of his virtue, but on account of the nearness
of our relation; for thy daughter must be injured at the same time that
he is slain, and must be obliged to experience widowhood, before she can
come to enjoy any advantage from their mutual conversation. Consider these
things, and change your mind to a more merciful temper, and do no mischief
to a man, who, in the first place, hath done us the greatest kindness of
preserving thee; for when an evil spirit and demons had seized upon thee,
he cast them out, and procured rest to thy soul from their incursions:
and, in the second place, hath avenged us of our enemies; for it is a base
thing to forget such benefits." So Saul was pacified with these words,
and sware to his son that he would do David no harm, for a righteous discourse
proved too hard for the king's anger and fear. So Jonathan sent for David,
and brought him good news from his father, that he was to be preserved.
He also brought him to his father; and David continued with the king as
formerly.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.