"Who speaks not needed truth, lest he offend,
Hath spared himself, but sacrificed his friend."
Jonathan's friendship was perfectly "free from selfishness." Had there been in him the taint of ambition, covetousness, or envy, he would rather have been inclined, like his father, to hate than to love the young shepherd. Jonathan was of royal descent, the eldest son of a king; he must have been accustomed from youth to hear the voice of flattery, and to receive the homage of respect. Few readily part with dignity; but the son of Saul, without a murmur, apparently without a feeling of regret, yielded place to the son of Jesse.
And Jonathan was not only a prince but a hero; he had deservedly won both popularity and fame. David eclipsed him in both. In the song of the women of Israel— "Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands," there seems not to have been even an allusion to the distinguished courage of Jonathan. How a proud heart would have chafed under such neglect! What drops of bitter jealousy would have poisoned the friendship of most men in the position of the prince! Can we see a friend of lowlier birth pass before us in the race of honour without an envious pang? Are we perfectly content to let his fame eclipse our own; and do we feel nothing but pleasure in listening to praises bestowed upon him? Then is our unselfish friendship worthy indeed of the name!
Jonathan's attachment to David was "firm under difficulties." The prince had duties to balance; he had to be submissive to the father who persecuted the friend. In a very remarkable manner Jonathan combined filial respect to Saul with fidelity to David. His mild but earnest, and for awhile successful, pleading with his father, his remaining with that guilty parent even after the tyrant had attempted his life, so that in death they were not divided, are beautiful traits in the prince. Saul was a persecutor—a murderer; his conduct must have wrung the heart of his pious son; but in life, as well as in death, that son seems to have kept near to his parent, without for one moment betraying the cause of his injured friend.
And, lastly, Jonathan's friendship was "tried in trouble." He was no summer-day lover, but a "brother born for adversity," who clung the more closely to David as the tempest raged the more fiercely around him. Jonathan's was love strong as death. If our hearts be warmed with friendship, is it holy, unselfish, generous, unchanging friendship such as his?
We are inclined, with David, to mourn over Jonathan, and feel that his fate was a hard one; that he suffered for sins not his own. But let us remember that the Lord reserves for those who love Him a far brighter crown than that which Jonathan was not permitted to wear, and that it was doubtless in mercy that he was called to close on Gilboa his brief but glorious career, so that he survived not to witness the ruin of his house. *
* It is interesting to observe that while the family of Saul may be compared to a blighted tree, the branch of Jonathan in later days bloomed into vigorous life. He left, as we know, but one little lame son; yet, centuries after Jonathan's death, we find his descendants numerous. The names of twenty-five of them are given in the Book of Chronicles, and of one of these it is written, "The sons of Ulam were mighty men of valour, archers, and had many sons and sons' sons, an hundred and fifty." It is very probable that the descendants of Jonathan may be living still upon earth. Is it quite impossible that Saul, the Apostle, the most illustrious of all the tribe of Benjamin, may have been descended from another Saul through the prince whom in his warm, self-denying affection he so mush resembled?
Jonathan's bow was as a type of himself. He was not as a weapon left to hang idle in a royal armoury, he was taken into the field of strife, he was bent in the hand of the Lord; but the hand that bent supported him still; his affections were strained like the tightened cord, but they were strengthened to bear the sore strain; and the bending and the straining were but to send the arrow of his hopes above an earthly sceptre or diadem, and fix them on higher joys, a crown that fadeth not away.
