Testing is a recurring theme in Scripture. Israel is tested. Moses is tested. In the Lord’s Prayer we are instructed (in some translations) to “keep us from the time of testing” yet tests come again and again.

Our experience in schools lead us to imagine that testing is about teachers discovering what students are capable of. They are “assessments” where the students are assessed.

What if, instead, tests are given to us so that who we are, our deeper selves, our deepers stories are revealed to ourselves and the world? What if we are not fully the authors of our own stories but rather testings are those moments in which we begin to discover the role we will play in the story that is being told around us and through us.

This runs against the popular notion that we are masters of our own destinies. There is always some truth to that. Our agency is real and consequential, but our decisions are always just one small part of a much larger system that is moving, unfolding, developing, pursuing the future. We are real, but we are small, smaller than the broader, larger story of history.

Saul began as a rather dim but compliant hunk of a man chosen by God, anointed by Samuel to be the requested king who would save Israel from her in-house slavery. Saul’s introductory stories were early indicators that trouble was ahead, but all of the official sanctions were in place. The elders pleaded, God relented, Samuel warned, the best candidate was found, some leaders doubted, a brutal enemy was put down and the country united around the giant of Gibeah.

After Saul’s support was secured he would be tested. He would be called to conduct a holy war against the Amelekites. This tradition of a holy war also called “the ban” was not unique to Israel. Daily life in that day involved making a living by raiding and stealing from weaker neighbors. It was a brutal but effective economic system. The simplest way to multiply the amount of food you could acquire was to not only grow your own but to also raid your neighbors at harvest time. In this way your tribe increased, your kids were well fed and multiplied, your animals were well fed and multiplied, and your neighbors withered. “The ban” was intended to be an act of impartial justice. The soldiers would receive no plunder/compensation for risking their life in battle. Their family would not benefit from the weakness of their enemy. They were not allowed to profit from this transaction, it was to be purely devoted to God. The spoils normally taken would be a holocaust, a whole, burnt offering. The taking of Jericho was one of the most famous operations of this kind.

The LORD now through Samuel announced that Saul was to start earning his keep by conducting “the ban” against the Amalekites who had raided Israel when she was weak and vulnerable. The instructions were clear, the soldiers were not to benefit from this operation, the Amalekites were to fall under God’s pure judgment and the soldiers were to be motivated solely by devotion to God.

As the story goes Saul fails this test. The best of the animals just looked to good, and a whole burnt offering seemed like a waste of good animals. The people were destroyed but the king was left perhaps as a battering tool from which to try to extract a ransome or discover a secret cache of treasure. In any case Saul fails his test and this failure will begin a slide into the kind of dark tyranny the elders in 1 Samuel 8 were asking for. Israel would experience the tyranny of all of the other nations.

Testing in the Bible is common and always consequential. There is so much in this story that offends us so far. Why would God conduct “the ban”? Does God test us to destroy us? For those who know the words “Calvinist” or “Arminian” these testings become food for that debate. Could Saul have succeeded? Why are Samuel and Yhwh so categorical in predicting Saul’s future based on this one incident? Certainly that doesn’t seem fair! Isn’t God the God of second chances?

The book of Samuel brings all of these questions to the surface and allows no glib answers for any of them. Saul is chosen by God. Saul not only fails his test and is condemned for it, but Saul also seems to be a victim of the job itself. The character development of Saul in the story is central to both the book’s judgment of kingship as well as Saul’s weaknesses. Saul goes from being a dutiful, compliant but dim son of an important tribal elder to becoming a tyrant who rules Israel by terror and violence, just like all the other nations. While Saul is not sufficiently committed to conduct “the ban” authorized by Yhwh he conducts an unauthorized one against his own servants, the priests of Nob who served his constant need for divination. Saul is not committed to Yhwh out of personal loyalty to his God, he is fundamentally committed to his own self-interest and simply uses God as a tool in pursuit of his own desired outcomes. Saul becomes a king just like all the other nations have and just as the cult of Yhwh under Eli has become the kind of religion that all of the other nations have.

Into the story comes David, 8th son of Jesse, too young and inconsequential to be brought up by his father for the subversive Samuel “anointed-king-to-be” beauty pageant. David’s introductory stories are all promise. He’s the king-whisperer, dispelling the evil spirits sent by God to hasten Saul’s downfall. He’s Goliath-bait that slays the giant and Israel’s enemies. He’s a prince by virtue of one hundred Philistine foreskins. He’s Israel’s favored son whom everyone in Israel falls for including Saul’s own flesh and blood. David’s presence in Saul’s court makes the evil spirits plaguing Saul superfluous. Saul’s rage becomes paranoia and his threats become murder. Saul insanity will drive him to attempt to kill his own son to maintain his throne. He has become like the kings of all the other nations.

Despite the grace so clearly given to David he is forced to flee into the wilderness where he attracts the rabble, poor, discontents and outlaws of Israel and other nations. He keeps his miserable little village alive in the wilderness without the benefit of manna. Everyone in Israel knows he will be king unless Saul gets him first. According to conventional wisdom the path to the crown is obvious. Gain sufficient power to directly confront Saul and take his kingdom for himself. Then David too can be king like all the other nations have. Unfortunately Saul’s reign of terror preserves his power and David’s little band is not strong enough for a frontal assault and the rest of Israel has already done the mental calculation that switching horses midstream is probably not a good idea. They hate Saul, but they don’t hate him enough to risk their lives for this son of Jesse. Don’t believe me? Ask the good people of Keilah. They were grateful enough when David saved their crops from the Philistines raiders, but not grateful enough to side with David against Saul.

1 Samuel 24 finds Saul hunting David in desperate need of a latrine. We first met Saul on a frustrating search for donkeys that were quicker to find themselves than to be found by the bruising son of Kish. Now Saul in search of David can’t locate him but by seeming happenstance has his robe up and his guard down in clear shot of David and his faithful rebels.

David’s men suddenly become convenient Saul-like diviners. Surely this is the LORD’s doing handing David’s enemy over to him. Could it be more plain? David sneaks up to the squating Saul with sword in hand. Saul has numerous time had spear in hand in his own house ready to kill David who only held a musical instrument. Now Saul is helpless and David has, perhaps, the sword of Goliath.

Right here, in this moment is David’s test. Will he become Saul, the giant of Gibeah? Will he become Goliath, the giant of Gath? To the Arminians I ask, could David have failed? To the Calvinists I ask, was this a real test? This will be the first of numerous tests of David. Some he will pass, and some he will fail.

In a book with a lot of smiting, David’s heart smites him. He cuts off a piece of Saul’s robe and is guilt striken even from this. David’s men have seen enough. It isn’t just David’s life on the line here. For Saul to acheive his goal of killing David he’s got to go through them. When Saul gave excuses for his failure to faithfully conduct the ban against the Amalekites he blamed pressure from his men. They didn’t want to see good livestock go “to waste” as a whole burnt offering to their God. Now David is similarly tested. Can he not only not raise his hand againt the LORD’s undeserving annointed but can he protect the man who seeks his life from David’s own loyal men? David passes.

What follows is one of the most remarkable speeches of David’s rather wordy career. The Psalmist shows that he can not only write words for prayer and worship but he can frame his context in a way that will drive the madness from even Saul. David will respectfully, deferentially, make his case before this madman/king while also opening the king’s eyes to the unique revelation of what kingship means in God’s special world-saving kingdom.

David appears outside the cave portion of the robe in hand. This is of course the kind of bold or foolish move that we stand in awe of David for. This boldness sent him to fight a giant. Now he stands before Gibeah’s giant madman who is backed by a 3,000 member army and all David’s got behind him is a cave with a group of supporters who are both mystified and peeved. Now in this moment Saul and David are father and son who is regularly prodigal with his own wellbeing. We revisit a long line of difficult adopted father/son relationships in the book: Eli and Samuel, Samuel and Saul, and now Saul and David. They are bound together in God’s family full of rebels, madmen, liars and saints.

David in his speech is a humble and faithful servant/son of Saul. He is innocent and his innocence exposes Saul’s guilt without David having to accuse. David is nothing, not even a dead dog but rather a single flea. All that is, however, in David’s world as we saw when he faced the giant of Gath is the one judge before whom both master and servant are called to account. Saul has regularly regarded Yhwh as an unfaithful and difficult servant which has been Saul’s undoing. Yhwh is no one’s servant, yet he is generous and patient to both the just and the unjust. Saul has never been able to see Yhwh in the world around him, which is why David encountered Israel’s giant trembling in his royal tent while Philistia’s giant poured out insults on the field of battle. All of David’s chips, all of David’s hope, all of David’s life is held by Yhwh and David finds comfort in that thought. He understands that the birds of the air and the flowers of the field die every day, but he will take his chances on the generosity of Yhwh and trust in it more than he will the skill of his hand and the power of Goliath’s sword.

David’s faith is so stark, so brilliant, so uncommon, we are dazzled, confused, attracted and mystified by it all at once. Saul’s madness and military power is no match for it. Saul repents and for the moment relents and acknowledges what he has always known but hasn’t been able to admit even to himself. Yhwh is king and Saul is his rebellious servant. David will be king for exactly the qualities Saul lacks. Saul has no one to blame but himself, and David has no one to thank but Yhwh.

Right here, outside the cave holding Saul’s steaming pile of poop and David’s confused lieutenants, David has overcome evil with good.

In this case Yhwh’s test of David brought David to a moment and into a place he could likely have never been without it. This leads me to consider that Yhwh’s testings are very different things than mere processes of information discovery. Yhwh isn’t looking necessarily to learn himself from testing us, but for us to learn from him.