Set:
It is hard to believe that David felt not one twinge of joy when Saul died; after all, Saul had made his life miserable for nearly twenty years. The sad truth is that neither Saul’s life nor his death glorified God. For that, David was sad, and in his lament of the bow, a song of sorrow, he chose to remember Saul’s accomplishments. David could have chosen to focus on the cruelty Saul inflicted upon him. Instead he chose to view Saul’s death from a national perspective rather than a personal one. God and Israel were David’s primary concerns, not himself, and he realized that he was merely one individual in an entire nation. It was largely this “kingdom” mentality, a teamminded approach, that allowed him to maintain proper perspective.
