by Brian Godawa
The Shade paused again. It was an uncomfortable silence. Saul shivered. He noticed the Ob was on the floor in an epileptic seizure. White foam came from her mouth and her eyes were rolled up inside her head.
The voice of the Shade changed from the bellicose bellowing to a low breathy calculating whisper. “You want glory and honor and power? Yet, another rivals your throne.”
“I know not who it is, my lord.”
“I can help you find out.”
“Mighty Nimrod, what shall I do?”
“Open yourself to me.”
“I do. I do open myself to you. Whatever wisdom, whatever advice, I promise to heed your words and do all as you say.”
Saul felt dizzy again. The phantom’s eyes penetrated into his soul. He felt the distinct sensation of unity with the elohim. He felt intimate, as if the spiritual king were becoming one with him. A gust of wind washed over Saul and he fell to the ground unconscious.
Saul awoke to the gush of a breath filling his lungs. His eyes opened to see the Ob pressing her lips passionately on his. She was breathing life back into him. Had he died? He barely remembered what had happened.
He felt her tongue exploring his mouth. When she pulled away from him, he thought it felt split like a snake’s tongue. He coughed and sat up, rubbing his head. He had a hangover like the kind he had after one of his nights of heavy drinking.
A sharp pain went through his skull. He groaned.
She said, “Your bodyguard awaits outside.”
He said, “What am I supposed to do? Nimrod did not explain.”
“He is with you. He will explain.”
Saul looked at her confused. “He is with me?”
She nodded. But she would not explain.
“Return to your palace and you will know what to do.”
Saul wondered if the entire trip had been a waste of time. He had traveled to find wisdom from the first potentate of history, the Mighty Hunter Nimrod. But all he got was a vague, “he is with you.” That was hardly enough to rule a kingdom with glory and power.
But it was all he had. He picked himself up and left for Gibeah.
The Ob immediately called for her apprentice.
The young girl awaited her instructions. The Ob said, “I have an urgent message for you to bring to my son, Ishbi ben Ob in the city of Gath.”
Chapter 20
On the way home to Gibeah, Saul had felt the strange sensation of being followed. They stopped several times to prepare for battle, only to discover his feelings proved false. His bodyguard saw him nervously glancing around and displaying an occasional nervous tick in his eye, along with twitching in his neck, shoulders and arms.
When he returned to his palace in Gibeah, he went immediately to his bed chamber and slept for an entire day.
He was awakened on the evening of the second night. He could see the bright light of the full moon coming through his tower window onto his bed.
He felt a presence in the room. He jerked around to see the figure of a nine foot tall shadow beside his bed. He gasped.
He knew who it was.
“King Nimrod?”
“Yesss,” it whispered, drawing out the ‘s’ like a hiss.
“You are with me.”
“Yesss.”
“Was it you who followed me back here?”
“Yesss.”
“What do you want?”
Saul heard the next whisper from behind his ear. “I have much to tell you.”
Saul turned to see the source of the voice. The shadow had mysteriously jumped from one side of the bed to the other.
Then from the foot of the bed, he heard, “Listen closely.”
He saw the phantom shade, smaller now, standing at the foot of the bed. Though the figure’s specific features were indistinguishable and bathed in shadow, Saul thought he looked in posture and form like Saul himself. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks in the moonlight shadows.
When Nimrod spoke he could hear the words as if they were inside his head rather than coming from the shade.
“I have waited millennia for this opportunity.”
Saul said, “Will you help me achieve my ambition?”
“You will help me achieve my ambition.”
Saul felt confused.
“The tyrannical deity who rejected you and is replacing you with his Chosen One did the same to me in ages past. This messiah you speak of, I know of his Seedline. I sought for it in the days after the Flood, during the Confusion of Tongues and the Great Division.”
Saul interrupted, “The Tower of Babel?”
“Shut your mouth, puppet, and listen to me.”
Saul felt the malevolence seize him. It was frightening. He was in the presence of something sinister and out of his control. He began to wonder what he had unleashed.
“You must seek out this Chosen One. You must find him and kill him, or you will be damned as I was damned.”
“But I need your help,” complained Saul.
“Oh, I will help you. I will be your counselor, always by your side. And together, we shall destroy the Chosen Seed.”
Saul felt his limbs stiffen as if held by a giant’s grip. He saw the shade of Nimrod dissolve into his body.
His eyes turned up into his head. He twitched and jerked and spasmed on his bed. White foam bubbled out of his mouth.
His body stiffened and flew upright, defying nature, pulled by an unseen force.
With mighty strength, Saul tore apart his bedroom chamber. First, he ripped the sheets off his bed, then he broke the posts into pieces like they were mere toothpicks. He broke the several pieces of furniture, smashing them against the wall.
Two servants rushed into his room to see if he was alright. He beat them and ran out of the room and through the palace, emitting guttural screams that sounded like wild animals.
• • • • •
The sound of a madman screaming through the palace awakened Jonathan, Saul’s eldest son. A servant entered his room with a guard.
“Master Jonathan, it is your father.”
He pulled on a robe and ran out to the hallway. He found his father out in the atrium being held down by eight men under the full moon light. It took all eight of them because Saul’s strength was supernaturally enhanced.
Jonathan saw his upturned eyes and the spittle running down his beard. When Saul looked at him, Jonathan knew something else looked at him, something other than Saul. When Saul spoke, he sounded different, deeper, like another voice being filtered through Saul’s throat.
“You are the Saulide heir. You are without guile.”
Jonathan was indeed a pure soul who loved Yahweh with all his heart, and was disturbed by his father’s disobedience to Yahweh. Jonathan was a righteous man of faith and integrity. But he did not consider himself without guile. He saw himself as quite pathetic and faulty before his holy god.
The spirit added, “But you are not the promised one. You will not be king. You are swine seed.”
There could not be a more vulgar insult to an Israelite than being called the seed of an unclean animal.
Jonathan said, “Who are you that possesses my father the king?”
Saul hissed at Jonathan and said, “Would not you like to know, godlicker. I will see you again, when I evacuate my feces on your skull.”
Saul howled maniacally and struggled to get free from his captors. They held on strong, but it was not easy.
He then vomited, urinated and released diarrhea simultaneously from his orifices. The servants tried to turn their noses from the obnoxious smell and undignified sight. Some of them were splashed by excrement.
Saul fell unconscious in their grip.
After a few moments, Saul awakened. The spirit was gone.
“What happened to me?”
Jonathan said, “An evil spirit taunts you, father. It turns you mad with rage, but it will not reveal its identity.”
Saul knew precisely the identity of the spirit. But he was not
going to tell Jonathan. He was not going to tell anyone. It was the price he would pay for his personal ambition of greatness and glory.
His nose wrinkled with the stench of his body waste.
As time passed with several of these episodes of spiritual torment, Jonathan realized the spirit was not going to leave his father. He gathered the palace servants together to see if any of them knew of an exorcist familiar with such demonic activity and how they might treat it.
A manservant, Joash, stepped forward shyly. “My lord, I am not an exorcist, but my family knew one when I was a young child.”
“Can you find this exorcist for me?” asked Jonathan.
“He is long dead.”
Jonathan asked him, “Well, what can be done to calm the spirit?”
Joash replied, “It is said that heavenly music of praise to Yahweh tames the beast of chaos.”
“Go find me a musician then. Inquire of the palace minstrels.”
“My lord,” said Joash, “No ordinary musician will do. It requires someone who has special blessing upon them.”
Jonathan said, “Where can we find such a player?”
Another more timid servant finally spoke up, “I know of one.”
Everyone looked at him. “I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skilled at playing. He is also a young warrior of promise, though not yet of age. But Yahweh is clearly with him.”
“Find me this son of Jesse,” said Jonathan. Then he added, “On second thought, I am going with you.”
Chapter 21
On the journey to Bethlehem, Jonathan ruminated over what the evil spirit had said to him while it was in control of his father’s body. It dug deep into his soul. Such spirits could see what humans could not. They were unlike Yahweh who knew all things past and future. But they had some preternatural ability to know things humans could not. Just what and how much, Jonathan did not know.
But evil spirits also had a reputation for lying. Could he even trust what the spirit had said, or was it all part of a deception in order to ravage Jonathan’s soul as it had ravaged his father’s body?
Why would Yahweh allow such a thing? Why would he send an evil spirit to oppress his anointed messiah king? It perplexed Jonathan, but the ancient proverb transcended his doubt: “Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?”
It was the universal conundrum for the faithful and the topic of endless debate for the scribes. How could Yahweh be perfect and holy and yet sovereignly ordain evil? Did this make him the author of evil? But if he was not in control of evil, then how could he be the Almighty One, El Shaddai? If there were forces in the world that he had no control over, that could thwart his will, then how could he be trusted to accomplish his purposes?
The questions plagued Jonathan and it seemed the only thing that gave him some comfort were the sacred Scriptures themselves. He remembered the priests doing a public reading of the story of their patriarch Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his own brothers. Yet, when confronted with their evil, he said to them, “You meant it for evil, but Elohim meant it for good, to bring about the deliverance of his people.”
It was not that Joseph excused his brother’s wrongs, but rather he had stressed how Elohim could somehow be orchestrating the evil acts of men to accomplish his purposes, despite the evil intent of the human beings. Elohim was like a potter who molded the clay any which way he desired.
Yahweh has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills.
If Yahweh had sent such a spirit upon Saul, then it must mean the confirmation of Samuel’s curse. Yahweh had rejected Saul.
Would Yahweh reject Saul’s entire bloodline as well, including Jonathan?
Yahweh has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills.
He decided that he would support whomever Yahweh chose as his messiah king in place of Saul because he had no aspirations to greatness or glory. He only wanted to be good, and he knew that the great were rarely the good and the good were rarely the great.
He would accept the fate Yahweh had in store for him, good or bad, because Yahweh was the potter and he was the clay. Yahweh gives and Yahweh takes away.
He even suspected that the presence of the evil spirit was due to the fact that Saul did not accept this sovereign authority of their Maker over their lives. Frustration of his proud goals of glory could certainly lead him to a mad despair. And now Jonathan was here, leading a group of Saul’s servants to the small town of Bethlehem, searching out a humble musician who could help relieve that mad despair that was tearing apart the very soul of his father.
• • • • •
When David saw the entourage of five royal servants approach him on the hill, he sensed his life was about the change. He had been anointed by Samuel, but for what he did not know. Nobody knew. Samuel had said Yahweh would reveal its purpose in his own good time. But without that revealed meaning, it faded in everyone’s memory as a strange unexplained experience. David continued to serve his father as a common shepherd, and everyone in the village forgot about the holy but mysterious consecration of that day.
David had just stopped playing his treasured lyre. “Keep playing,” said Jonathan as they arrived.
“Whose presence do I have the honor of, my lord?” said David.
“I am Jonathan, son of King Saul.”
It struck David as odd that he did not call himself the heir to the throne. It was the usual proclamation of such royal successors.
“My lord,” said David. He bowed.
“Please, what were you playing when we just arrived?”
“Nothing, your highness. Mere triflings of a lackluster and obscure shepherd boy.”
“You wrote what I heard?” Jonathan was astonished. Joash had been right, this young man had undeniable blessing from Yahweh. He had never heard such skill with a lyre. The wooden stringed instrument was usually played with a plectrum but David used his fingers for a more personal touch. His voice resounded with unique character as well.
David said, “The life of a shepherd provides many hours of boring solitude. I have more songs than I can count. Unfortunately, they are not of much use to anyone else.”
“I beg to differ,” said Jonathan.
“My lord?”
“Please, finish your song.”
“I have been working on it. A song of kingly coronation.” said David and he picked up his lyre again and played more of the song.
The words were glorious to Jonathan.
I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron
and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
David stopped. The last note hung in the air, unfinished.
The entourage stood in spellbound silence.
Jonathan felt that he was in the very presence of the holy.
David interrupted their quiet hush. “I have not finished it.”
Jonathan said, “David ben Jesse, the King of Israel summons you to his presence.”
On the trip back to Gibeah, Jonathan queried David about his life. Though Jonathan was forty years old, and David only eighteen, he felt a spiritual connection with the lad that transcended their age difference. He could see that this young man had Yahweh’s favor.
He found David to be an interesting mixture of both earthly passion and heavenly devotion. He spoke with great affection and desire for marriage, and with zealous intensity for Yahweh’s holiness. He had trained hard and was impatient to serve in the King’s army when he would come of age. In fact, he had a sense of impatience about everything, as if the world could not keep up with all that David desired.
Jonathan was impressed with this young man of such talent
and zeal. When David told him the story of Samuel’s mysterious anointing, Jonathan immediately knew God’s hand was in all of this. Such anointing was reserved for royal occasions, eldership, prophets, priests or kings.
David suspected that this was the purpose of it all: to be a royal musician for the court of the king.
Chapter 22
When David arrived at the palace of Saul, he was speechless for the first time in the entire trip. It was a humble residence for so important a leader. He knew that the nation of Israel was only in its infancy of power with her first king. The people had, after all, suffered for four hundred years as slaves of the Egyptians. They had overcome insurmountable odds against the giants of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. They had struggled for hundreds of years under judges and a divided commonwealth. Now, for the first time in all those generations, they finally had a chance to unify under a single monarch who would establish their dominion of the land Yahweh allotted to them as his inheritance among the nations.
They passed between two pillars at the entrance of the brick building. David thought that the king’s palace should be made of stone, for a sense of greater permanence. But the Israelites were not as advanced as their neighboring enemy, the Philistines. He wished Yahweh would change all of that. He wished Yahweh would smash the Philistine dogs and establish his kingdom for a thousand generations.
When they arrived in the royal reception area, David gaped with awe as they approached the throne. Again, it was plain by Canaanite standards, a simple elevated wooden seat carved from a tree, with two lion Cherubim also carved from wood at each side of the arms. To David, it represented Yahweh’s messiah king, anointed by Yahweh’s holy Seer to bring heaven and earth into unity.
As in heaven, so on earth, he thought. They waited by the entrance for the king’s arrival.
Saul stepped out from the back of the room and approached the throne. He was attended by his wife and two lovely young women. He sat upon his throne with the women by his side and pronounced, “Approach.”
