Video Transcript: Case Study of Saul

Welcome back to mental health integration, week four, part one. I'm excited  you're back in this week, we are going to start doing something quite a bit  different. We are going to go through a case study of Saul, then we're going to  go through a case study of David, then we're going to talk about some other  biblical characters as well, but these two stories, they're going to dictate a lot of  what we talk about in this section, because it's the first two kings of Israel, the  first two kings who suffer with depression, and their stories are juxtaposed right  up against each other and are so incredibly different. They're also two of my  favorite characters in the Bible. I absolutely adore the story of Saul because it  reverberates with so much of my own struggles that I've experienced. And I just  love how that's juxtaposed against David and how, though they go through some similar things, in some ways, it's so different. A couple notes before we get too  far into this. As your homework, you had to do a reading, and I hope you've  done it so far that talked about the diagnosis of Saul, and it's from a psychiatrist  who looks back and looks at Saul's symptoms and some of the things that he  goes through and says, I think this would be Saul's diagnosis. I am not going to  spend a lot of time discussing that in this because, as we talked about at the  very beginning, symptoms are like the shadow of a person, and it's really hard  from symptoms to draw conclusions on exactly what their diagnosis would be  more than 2000 years after the fact. However, there's some interesting debate  and conversation about that, and in some ways it can be really helpful for people to be able to embrace this is this is my own diagnosis, and there's people that  understand me in the Bible and look at this. There's psychiatrists making  diagnosis of these people who've been dead for 2500 years, but they were just  like me, and they're in my Bible, and that's a big deal. So I don't think it's a bad  thing. It's just not something that one, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not comfortable  doing and two, that it's really easy to miss some of the points of the story if we're taking little tiny pieces out of a person's story to try and figure out what their  diagnosis is. That's not the purpose of our time here. So we're just not going to  discuss a whole lot that said, I'm excited to jump into these two stories of David,  but first of Saul, the first king of Israel. So we are going to kick this off with Saul  right here. There was a Benjamite, a man of standing, whose name was, whose  name was Kish, son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bekorath, the son of  Aphiah of Benjamin. Kish had a son named Saul, as handsome a young man as can be found anywhere in Israel. He was a head taller than anyone else. Now,  the donkeys belonging to Saul's father, Kish, were lost, and Kish said to his son,  Saul, take one of the servants with you and go look for the donkeys. So he  passed through the hill country of Ephraim and through the area around  Shalisha, but they did not find them. They went on to the district of Shaalim, but  the donkeys were not there. Then he passed through the territory of Benjamin,  but they did not find them. When they reached the district of Zuph Saul, said to  the servant who was with him, Come, let's go back, or my father will stop 

thinking about the donkeys and start worrying about us. But the servant replied,  look, in this town, there is a man of God. He is highly respected, and everything  he says comes true. Let's go there. Now, perhaps he will tell us what way to  take. Saul said to His servant, if we go, what can we give the man? The food in  our sacks is gone. We have no gift to take. The man of God. What do we have?  The servant answered him again. Look, he said, I have a quarter of a shekel of  silver. I will give it to the man of God, so that he will tell us which way to take.  (Formerly, in Israel, if someone wants to inquire of God, they would say, Come,  let us go to the seer. Because the Prophet of today used to be called a seer)  good, Saul said to His servant, come let's go. So they set up for a town where  the man of God was. So this is the dramatic setup to the story. Saul is this  incredibly dashing man. He's a head taller than everyone else in the area. He is  the most handsome guy around, like if David Beckham was taller, apparently, I  don't, I don't know, but he is everything that you would hope for in a guy. And his father has lost his donkeys, and Saul is in hot pursuit. He is trying to find these  donkeys, and he is absolutely dumbfounded. No way he knows where they're at. So they're trying to find out where are these donkeys. And the only thing they  can think of is, well, there's a prophet here, so maybe he can ask God where the donkeys are, because we don't have a clue, and that's our setup this story. Saul  has no inclination that anything is changing in his life. The only thing he knows is he's out looking for donkeys, and he can't find them. And this is where we  continue. As they were going up the hill to the town, they met some young  women coming out to draw water, and they asked them, is the seer? He is?  They answered, He is ahead of you. Hurry now. He has just come to our town  today, for the people have a sacrifice at the high place. As soon as you enter the town, you will find him before he goes up to the high place to eat. The people  will not begin eating until he comes, because he must bless the sacrifice.  Afterward, those who are invited will eat. Go up now you should find him about  this time they went up to the town. As they were entering it, there was Samuel  coming towards them on his way up to the high place. Now the day before Saul  came, the Lord revealed to Samuel about this tomorrow, about this time  tomorrow, I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, anoint him ruler over my people Israel. He will deliver them from the hand of the Philistines. I have  looked on my people for their cry has reached me. When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the Lord said to him, this is the man I spoke to you about. He will govern  my people. So we have Saul and we have Samuel, and the meeting is on. God  is in the midst of this, he is saying to Samuel, this is the guy you're going to  anoint. Him, He's going to lead the people. But there is no interest at all from  Saul at this point that he wants to be king. There's no ambition to be king. There  is just a kid looking for donkeys, and he's still just looking for donkeys. So we  continue. Saul approached Samuel in the gateway and asked, Would you  please tell me where the seer's house is I am the seer, Samuel replied, Go up 

ahead of me to the high place. For today, you are to eat with me, and in the  morning I will send you on your way and will tell you all that is in your heart. As  for the donkeys that you lost three days ago, do not worry about them. They  have been found. And to whom is all of the desire of Israel turned, if not to you  and your whole family line, Saul answered, but am I not a Benjamite from the  smallest tribe in Israel, and is not my clan the least of all the clans of the tribe of  Benjamin? Why do you say such a thing to me? So immediately, Saul has this  reaction. Samuel says, Well, you were a kid who was looking for donkeys, but  now the desires of the entire nation of Israel, they're set on you and on your  family line. He Saul knows what this means. Saul knows that Israel wants a king bad. They're saying to the rest, to God, that the rest of the nations around us,  they all have kings. They're all doing great. We really want this king. And God is  saying maybe, maybe. And then he is now giving them the desire of their own  heart, and He is giving it to them in the strongest, most handsome man in all  Israel. But there is one problem. The dude who God is giving the job doesn't  want the job. Saul was interested in chasing donkeys. He is not interested in  being king. And his answer reflects that, am I not from the smallest of the tribes  of Israel, from Benjamin? And is my clan not the smallest of Benjamin? Who am  I that you should give this to me? This is supposed to be an honor that comes to the greatest of the great Why would you give it to somebody in the smallest  house, in the smallest clan? It just doesn't make sense. So from the very  beginning, we have this person who's about to be thrust into a position of power, who feels so unworthy of that position of power, so insecure in that position of  power, and he's about. To be put as head of Israel from a position that he  doesn't think he's worthy of. This is going to get interesting continue. Then  Samuel brought Saul and his servant into the hall and seated them at the head  of those who were invited, about 30 in number, Samuel said to the cook, bring  the piece of meat I gave you the one I told you to lay aside. So the cook took up  the thigh with what was on it and set it in front of Saul. Samuel said, here is what has been kept for you eat because it was set aside for you for this occasion.  From the time I said, I have invited guests. And Saul dined with Samuel that day after they came down from the high place to the town, Samuel talked with Saul  on the roof of his house there. Rose about daybreak, and Samuel called to Saul  on the roof, get ready, and I will send you on your way. When Saul got ready, he  and Samuel went outside together. As they were going down to the edge of  town, Samuel said to Saul, tell the servant to go on ahead of us. And the servant did so, but you stay here for a while so that I may give you a message from  God. And here we have it. This is going to be the new king, the man who is  running for donkeys, who just sent his servant away so that Samuel could give  him some incredibly powerful news. Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured  it on Saul's head and kissed him, saying, has not the Lord anointed you ruler  over his inheritance. When you leave me today, you will meet two men near 

Rachel's Tomb at zelzah on the border of Benjamin. They will say to you, the  donkeys you set out to look for have been found, and now your father has  stopped thinking about them and is worried about you. He is asking, What shall I do about my son? Then you will go on from there until you reach the great tree  of Tabor. Three men going up to worship God at Bethel will meet you there. One  will be carrying three young goats, another three loaves of bread and another a  skin of wine. They will greet you and offer you the two loaves of bread which you will accept from them. Saul is not only promised that he will be the next king, but now he has tasks as the next king that he must perform in order to step into this  new place. This is complete disorientation. He was supposed to be chasing  donkeys. Now, all of a sudden, he is being anointed king, and now he's going  with three prophets. This is just unfathomable. After that you will go to Gibeah of  God, where there is a Philistine outpost. As you approach the town, you will  meet a procession of prophets coming down from the high place with lyres,  timbrels, pipes and harps being played before them, and they will be  prophesying. The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will  prophesy with them, and you will be changed into a different person. Once these signs are fulfilled, do whatever your hand finds you to do, for God is with you.  Go down ahead of me to Gilgal, I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt  offerings and fellowship offerings, but you must wait seven days until I come to  you and tell you what you are to do. In one day, Saul is thrust into a brand new  life and told he is going to be a brand new person and the Spirit of the Lord is to  come upon him. And I can imagine Saul is feeling so much, so much pent up  anxiety about this. I am supposed to be least in the kingdom. My family is the  least, my clan is the least, and now I'm going to be a different there's so much  confusion and so much disorientation that he can't even find his feet. He can't  find where he's supposed to go or what he's supposed to do next, and the  narrative just continues plowing forward upon Saul. As Saul turned to leave  Samuel, God changed Saul's heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day,  when he and his servant arrived at Gibeah, a procession of prophets met him.  The Spirit of God came powerfully upon him, and he joined in their prophesying.  When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the  Prophets, they asked each other, what is this that has happened to the son of  Kish? Is Saul along? Is Saul also among the prophets, a man who lived there  answered and who is their father? It became a saying, is Saul also among the  prophets? After Saul stopped prophesying, he went to the high place. Now,  Saul's uncle asked him and his servant, where have you been looking for the  donkeys? He said, But when we saw they were not to be found, we went to  Samuel Saul's uncle said, Tell me what Samuel said to you. Saul replied. He  assured us that the donkeys had been found, but he did not tell his uncle what  Samuel had said about the kingship. Continuing. Samuel summoned the people  of Israel to the Lord at Mizpah and said to them, This is what the Lord, the God 

of Israel, says, I brought Israel up out of Egypt and delivered you from the power of Egypt and all the kingdoms that oppressed you. But you have now rejected  your God who saves you out of all your disasters and calamities. And you have  said, No, appoint a king over us. So now present yourselves before the Lord by  tribes and clans. When Samuel had all Israel come forward by tribes, the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. Then he brought forward the tribe of Benjamin, clan  by clan and Matri's clan was taken. Finally, Saul, son of Kish, was taken. And  when they looked for him, they could not he was not to be found. And they  inquired further of the Lord, has the man come here yet? And the Lord replied,  Yes. He has hidden himself among the supplies. They look to take lots. And Saul knows what's happening. He knows he's about to be named the king. He knows  that everyone is gathered, that everyone has come together. This is the public  ceremony. He's going to be picked and then he is going to be anointed as the  king. So what does he do? He hides among the supplies. In some translations, it says he hides among the baggage, literally hiding in the suitcases and in the  bags that people carried. Right? He's just piled himself in there to make sure  that no one else finds him. He's trying to make sure that no one can actually  anoint him because he's not available. Yes, I went to the ceremony, but I didn't  get anointed king because I didn't want to be king. You can see the insecurity  that rises up in Saul his his lack of confidence, even after he sat with the  prophets and prophesied, even after he has walked through and been anointed  by Samuel himself, he still doesn't think this is his space. And so all of the  expectation, the weight of the expectation of the kingdom, starts to rest on Saul,  and he can't take it. And you can see it, even before his ordination, that he's  already struggling with all of it. They ran and brought him out, and as he stood  among the people, he was a head taller than any of the others. Samuel said to  all the people, do you see the man the Lord has chosen? There is no one like  him among all the people. Then the people shouted, long live the king. Samuel  explained to the people the rights and duties of kingship. He wrote them down  on a scroll and deposited it before the Lord. Then Samuel dismissed the people  to go to their own homes. Saul went to his home in Gibeah, accompanied by  valiant men whose hearts God had touched. But some scoundrels said, how can this fellow save us? They despised him and brought him no gifts. But Saul kept  silent. Even if he didn't want it. Saul ends up being anointed because God told  people he was hiding in the luggage. And this begins his kinship, this feeling of  inferiority, and this feeling of not being good enough that is just encompassing  Saul throughout his entire reign of Israel, that he can't possibly be the guy. And  because of that, when the darkness starts to fall on Saul, when he starts to  doubt what's going on, when he starts to feel those depressions and things, it's  all couched in these feelings of insecurity, this feeling of, how could I ever be  good enough? How could I be in the position that I'm in? This is too heavy and  too big for me. So the narrative continues. This is Chapter 16. We've skipped 

ahead now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul. An evil spirit from the  Lord tormented him. Saul's attendant said to him, see an evil spirit from God is  tormenting you. Let our Lord. Command His servants here to search for  someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes upon you and you will feel better. So Saul said to his attendants, find someone  who plays well and bring him to me. One of the servants answered, I have seen  a son of Jesse, of Bethlehem, who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave  man and a warrior. He speaks well and is fine looking, and the Lord is with him.  David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and  David became one of his armor bearers. Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying,  allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him. Whenever the  Spirit of God came on, Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief  would come to Saul. He would feel better, and an evil spirit would leave him with these feelings of insecurity. Now he's also dealing with the lack of the Spirit of  God has departed. It's actually already joining David at this point, and David's an ordination that he is going to end up being king. It's happening. But David isn't  grabbing the power. He's not grabbing the throne. He hasn't been called to lead  right now. And in fact, Saul is already struggling with being tortured mentally.  Now, commentators have given all sorts of ideas about what could be going on.  Is this actually an evil spirit? Is this depression? Is this anxiety? Is this  something else I can say with confidence, I have no idea, but what we do know  is that it was not fun, and the music from David helped. So what's ever going on  with Saul now? We have mental anguish paired with insecurity, and he's still  king, and he's still going to be king for a while, Saul took his son, Jonathan and  all the attendants to kill David, but Jonathan had taken a great liking to David  and warned him. My father, Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your  guard tomorrow morning. Go into hiding and stay there. I will go out and stand  with my father in the field where you are. I'll speak to him about you and will tell  you what I find out. Jonathan spoke well of David to Saul his father, and said to  him, Let not the king do wrong to His servant, David, he has not wronged you,  and what he has done has benefited you greatly. He took his life in his hands  when he killed the Philistine, the Lord won a great victory for all Israel, and you  saw it and you were glad. Why would you then? Why would you do wrong to an  innocent man like David by killing him for no reason? We see, Saul is already  starting to lose it. He's developed this jealousy for David. This is when the  people start chanting, Saul has slain his 1000s, but David has 10s of 1000s.  David is moving up the ranks in Israel because he has killed the Philistine. He's  killed Goliath, and now this jealousy is driving Saul, so now we have insecurity  and mental anguish, and on top of that, we also have this jealousy, because  Saul doesn't want His own Son to be the one who is not ruling. He wants  Jonathan to rule, not David. He doesn't want his kingdom to pass by. This is  something he never felt worthy of the first place. And now his depression is 

spiraling and his paranoia is spiraling because his anxiety about his own  kingdom is starting to get out of control, and it continues now. Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in his tomb in His own town of Ramah. Saul had expelled the mediums and spirits from the land. Philistines  assembled and came up and set up camp at Shunem, when Saul gathered all  Israel and set up camp at Gilboa, when Saul saw the Philistine army, he was  afraid. Terror filled his heart. He inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets, Saul said to his attendants, find me a  woman who is a medium so I may go inquire of her. There's one in Endor. So  Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night, he and two men  went to the woman consult the spirit for me, he said, and bring up for me the  one that I name. Saul is desperate. It at this point, he desperately wants to know what is going to happen. This anxiety is spiraling. This depression is spiraling.  He desperately wants to be in control, after his whole life feeling like he was a  little bit out of control, even when his position dictated he had all the power and  control a person could want. Saul is now trying to find a spirit medium so they  can call Samuel and so they can hear what the will of God is. This is after Saul  went to battle and actually did sacrifices before Samuel could get there,  because Saul was so insecure about winning the battle without checking all the  boxes to make sure everything was right, he's so concerned with making sure  that everything is checked off that he's not actually following what God says.  Instead, he's just making sure all the boxes are checked because anxiety is  dictating his next step. That's actually, in some ways, how Saul dies. Saul goes  to battle. He is mortally wounded. He's shot with an arrow, and knowing that he  is mortally wounded, he looks at his armor bearer and says, run me through.  The armor bearer refuses, and Saul actually falls on his sword and kills himself.  Now he was mortally wounded, so we can't say that Saul was depressed and  died by suicide, but we can see that this feeling, this insecurity, this knowing that something is going to go wrong, it drives him even to his death and we also  know that Saul didn't have the life that the king could have had. Everything  started right on the outside. He was handsome, he was tall. He was the man  Israel wanted, at least for the most part, he started with the Prophets. He  prophesied. He heard God's voice, God's voice, God's Spirit was with him. But  then we know that this anxiety, this constant fretting, this constant fearing, this  constant worrying about whether or not he was good enough, God ends up  believing God's Spirit is gone, and then his insecurity consumes him to the point  where he is chasing after spirit mediums, even after he has eliminated them  from all Israel, because he just wants to know that he is going to be okay. Now,  what is it that makes Saul a case for mental health? We see this depression.  And almost universally, if you talk about commentators, they will note that Saul  is depressed at points. We see this anxiety and this insecurity. We see all of  these things that are actually dictating Saul's actions instead of Saul dictating his

actions, and we see how they just destroy him over the course of his life and  actually end his own line, because Jonathan never sees the kingship. The next  king is David, who Saul desperately tried to avoid being king instead of his son,  Jonathan and David is where we're going to pick up the next time as he fights  his own depressions. But somehow everything looks different, and somehow  everything has changed in just a few years. Under a different person, we'll see  you then