There are few people in the Bible who loom as large as Saul the King. His importance both to the Biblical Narrative as it moves towards Christ, as well as his importance in his immediate context cannot be underestimated. He was, for all the criticism that can be, rightly, leveled against him: strong, brave, intelligent, and he legitimately was concerned for Israel — indeed he was EXTREMELY zealous for Israel.
David’s lament for Saul and Jonathan makes it plain that Saul brought security and prosperity to the 12 Tribes. But for all the good we can, and should, say about Saul if we want to draw an accurate sketch of his character, we must be up front about the deep deficiencies in his total personality. And as we study Saul we see that there is a difference as fine and sharp as a razor between modesty and false-humility.
Now, without going too deeply into the weeds, it is important to know that humility is THE key concept in Samuel! I’ve preached and taught before that Hanna’s prayer gives us the major themes and concepts in I Samuel — chief among which was humility. This, naturally, gives us the opportunity to interpret the patterns of behavior between Saul and David. And Saul, as we all know, is the personified (or at least ONE of the personified) examples of pride.
However, Saul appears to be humble at first. When Samuel tells Saul he will be King, Saul says he’s too unimportant and then refuses to tell his uncle what Samuel said. When Samuel holds a national assembly to choose a king, Saul is hiding among the baggage. Saul refuses to rebuke those who despise him. And he refuses to later take vengeance on those who despised him. At the beginning of the Saulide narratives, we are left to think that he’s a humble man.
But he isn’t. We later see that his “humility” was little more than cowardice and self-loathing masquerading as humility. He gives in to the crowd on several occasions because he’s afraid of losing the support of the nobles and officials and people. This shows that despite his courage in battle — which was prodigious — he was very afraid of losing the favor of his people.
Saul, later in the story, after repeatedly disobeying Yahweh is told that his dynasty will not only not last continually, but that it would be actively taken from him and given to another. Interestingly, hear Saul’s response to the terrible news Samuel gives him — and it is a request that Samuel will honor Saul before the elders and the people! Saul’s concern is his appearance and his ability to curry favor.
After this, of course, we learn that Saul begins his descent into madness. An evil spirit torments him and the only thing that can sooth him in his misery is the music of David. I doubt we will ever know to what degree Saul’s own behavior led to his madness and to what degree the demonic oppression did; what we know is that both narcissism and demonic influences contributed to his madness. But, here I want to focus on the narcissism.
Saul, after calling his favorite son Jonathan a “son of a whore” and trying to kill Jonathan and David, Saul begins to hunt David, hounding him and seeking his death. Saul goes to Nob and kills the priests because Ahimelech had aided David. Saul’s own men will not carry out the murder, so Saul has his shepherd Doeg, a foreigner, do it.
What is particularly striking about this bloody episode is what immediately PREcedes is. Saul is frustrated in his search for David and vomits out this little soliloquy: “Listen, men of Benjamin! Will the son of Jesse give all of you fields and vineyards? Will he make all of you commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds? Is that why you have all conspired against me? No one tells me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is concerned about me or tells me that my son has incited my servant to lie in wait for me, as he does today.” (NIV)
Notice Saul’s language — it’s the language of self-pity. It’s the manipulative language of the narcissist. Saul is full of self-pity, believing that nobody cares about him, no one appreciates him. Saul reminds these soldiers and officials that he is the one who made them commanders and gave them wealth. Saul is both reminding his soldiery of what they owe to him and attempts to make himself pathetic, at the same time.
While all this warrants a much fuller treatment than I can give here I think we can draw several meaningful conclusions:
1. Saul’s humility may never have been true humility but may have always been self-loathing. Or perhaps if not outright self-loathing, then false-modesty.
2. Saul, to some degree, contributed to his own descent into madness. Like Nebuchadnezzar later, Saul’s loss of rational mental agency comes hand-in-hand with his arrogance and refusal to be properly humble.
3. Saul, especially later in life, evinces textbook narcissistic behavior. The arrogance and self-pity, as well as his responses to David’s rebukes, his murder of the priests, his assaults on Jonathan, his mix of braggadocio, and cowardice, his refusal to face Goliath and his galled pride at hearing the refrain that David had slain tens of thousands, but Saul only thousands, all these things point to some degree of self-loathing.
Saul is not a “simple” character. He is complex, because he’s real, and it is impossible to give a concrete and clinical diagnosis of everything going on in Saul’s personality — especially since I’m not qualified to MAKE such a diagnosis. But I can say with confidence that Saul would have been much better off if he’d have discovered how to be truly humble and obedient rather than relying on his ability to gain popular approval and impress others.
Saul may have ended very differently if he’d simply humbly obeyed God instead of trying to stroke his ego.