# David and Jonathan Relationship Objection Defeater ## Intro Some people say the Bible itself contains a same-sex love story. They point to David and Jonathan. Jonathan's soul was "knit" with David's. The two made a covenant. They kissed and wept when they parted. Saul called it shameful. And when Jonathan died, David sang that Jonathan's love was "passing the love of women." Put together, the claim goes, this was a romance. Each of those details is really in the text, and each one deserves a straight look. When you look, a different picture comes out. The Hebrew word for "love" in these chapters is the everyday word for loyalty and friendship. The same word says that all Israel loved David, that Saul's servants loved him, and that a foreign king was "ever a lover of David." Men in the Old Testament kiss and weep at partings: Jacob and Esau do it, Joseph and his brothers do it. Saul explains his own insult in the next verse, and his complaint is about the throne, not the bedroom. And the "soul knit" phrase is used elsewhere of a father and his son. The friendship was real, deep and costly. Jonathan gave up his claim to be king so that David could have the throne. David kept his promise to Jonathan's family years after Jonathan died. That is the love the text praises. The full case below walks through each piece, admits where the text is silent, and gives a short version for live conversation. ## Cheatsheet **The 30-second reply:** > The word "love" in these chapters is the same Hebrew word used when "all Israel and Judah loved David" and when Hiram of Tyre "was ever a lover of David." Men kissing and weeping at a parting is ordinary in the Old Testament: Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his brothers. Saul's "shame" insult is explained by Saul himself one verse later: "as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom." It is about the throne. And "passing the love of women" is a comparison, which only works if the two kinds of love are different things. **The 5 fast facts:** 1. **Same verb, ordinary range.** The verb *ahav* (H157) occurs in 195 verses of the Strong's-tagged KJV, where it is rendered "friends" 8 times and "friend" 4 times. It is used of Saul loving David (1 Sam 16:21), all Israel and Judah loving David (1 Sam 18:16), Saul's servants loving David (18:22), and Hiram "ever a lover of David" (1 Kings 5:1). 2. **Same noun, wide range.** The noun *ahavah* (H160) in [2 Sam 1:26](/codex/2-samuel-1-26/) occurs in 37 verses, including God's love for Israel ([Deut 7:8](/codex/deuteronomy-7-8/)) and Jacob's love for Rachel (Gen 29:20). The word does not carry the sexual sense by itself; context decides. 3. **Soul knit is family language.** The phrase in 1 Sam 18:1 pairs the verb *qashar* (H7194) with *nephesh* (H5315). The same pairing describes Jacob and Benjamin: "his life is bound up in the lad's life" (Gen 44:30). 4. **Saul explains his own insult.** "For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom" (1 Sam 20:31). 5. **The verb for the act is absent.** *Shakab* (H7901), "lie with," the verb of [Lev 18:22](/codex/leviticus-18-22/), does not occur anywhere in 1 Samuel 18-20, 23 or 2 Samuel 1 (measured on the Strong's-tagged text). **The 3 strongest counter-moves:** - *"Read verse 31."* Saul's insult in 20:30 is followed by his reason in 20:31, and the reason is succession. - *"Then all Israel was in love with David too."* The same verb, same book, same chapter (1 Sam 18:16). - *"A comparison needs two different things."* "Passing the love of women" ranks Jonathan's love above romantic love. If it were the same kind of love, there would be nothing to compare. **Reciprocal concessions (grant the small point, collect a larger one):** - *Grant:* the language is intense, and modern readers are not used to men speaking this way. *Now collect:* then the question is what the words meant in their own setting, and the setting uses them for kings, subjects, allies and kin. - *Grant:* there is no verse that says "and their friendship was not sexual." *Now collect:* there is also no verse that says it was, and the verbs the Old Testament uses for sexual contact are missing from every chapter where the two appear together. - *Grant:* Saul's words at 20:30 are crude and sexual in their imagery. *Now collect:* the crude image is aimed at Jonathan's mother, and Saul's stated grievance is dynastic. **What NOT to defend:** - Do not claim that ancient Israel had no idea of same-sex relations. [Lev 20:13](/codex/leviticus-20-13/) shows it did, which is part of the argument. - Do not claim that kissing between men was never sexual anywhere. The claim is that in these narratives it is a greeting and farewell custom. - Do not belittle the friendship to win the point. The text praises it, and so should you. **The closing line:** > The story does not hide what it means. Jonathan handed David the throne, and David fed Jonathan's son at his table for the rest of his life. That is covenant love, and the Bible calls it wonderful. ## In full Defeater for the objection: *"The David and Jonathan narrative (1 Samuel 18 through 2 Samuel 1) describes a romantic and sexual relationship. Jonathan's soul was knit to David's (1 Sam 18:1); they made a covenant out of love (18:3); Jonathan stripped off his robe and gave it to David (18:4); Saul accused Jonathan of choosing David 'to the shame of thy mother's nakedness' (20:30); the two kissed and wept together (20:41); and David's lament says Jonathan's love was 'passing the love of women' ([2 Sam 1:26](/codex/2-samuel-1-26/)). The Bible therefore contains an approved same-sex romance, and its sexual ethic is inconsistent."* The reading was set out at book length by Tom Horner (*Jonathan Loved David*, 1978) and circulates widely in popular argument, often as a reply to [Leviticus 18:22](/codex/leviticus-18-22/) and [20:13](/codex/leviticus-20-13/). The defeat has five parts: (1) **lexical range**, the love vocabulary of these chapters is the ordinary vocabulary of loyalty, political allegiance and friendship, measured across the Hebrew Bible; (2) **custom**, kissing and weeping between men is a documented greeting and farewell practice in Old Testament narrative; (3) **internal explanation**, Saul's "shame" insult is explained by Saul in the next verse as a matter of the succession; (4) **political covenant**, the covenant, the robe and the oaths are about the kingdom and the two houses, and both men keep them after death; (5) **narrative and canonical coherence**, the narrator of Samuel exposes David's sexual sin without mercy and writes inside a law that forbids same-sex intercourse, yet never hints at sin in this friendship. The case is cumulative. No one verse settles it, and the page says so. ## Argument structure | # | Premise | |---|---| | **P1** | The love vocabulary (*ahav* H157, *ahavah* H160) is used throughout the Hebrew Bible of loyalty, allegiance and friendship, including for David by Saul, by all Israel and Judah, by Saul's servants and by Hiram of Tyre. The words do not carry a sexual sense in themselves. | | **P2** | Kissing and weeping between men is a recorded custom of greeting and farewell (Gen 33:4; Gen 45:14-15; 1 Sam 10:1; 2 Sam 19:39; cf. Ruth 1:14). | | **P3** | Saul's insult at 1 Sam 20:30 is explained by Saul at 20:31 as dynastic: Jonathan's loyalty to David costs Jonathan the throne. | | **P4** | The covenant, the robe and the oaths are royal and dynastic acts, kept across generations (1 Sam 20:14-16; 20:42; 23:16-18; 2 Sam 9:1-7). | | **P5** | The narrator exposes David's sexual sin openly (2 Sam 11; 12:7-9) and writes under Lev 20:13, yet presents this friendship without reproach; and David's marriages are recorded throughout. | | **C** | **The romantic-sexual reading is not supported by the vocabulary, the customs, the narrative's own explanations or the canonical setting. The text describes an intense covenant friendship.** | ## Grammar and hermeneutics - **"Passing the love of women" is a comparison.** The Hebrew construction in [2 Sam 1:26](/codex/2-samuel-1-26/) is comparative: Jonathan's love is set above "the love of women." A comparison ranks two things that differ. David's point is that Jonathan's loyalty outdid even the strongest attachment he knew. If the two loves were the same kind, the comparison would collapse into a boast about one lover over others, which nothing in the poem suggests. - **The poem is a lament for two men.** "And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son" (2 Sam 1:17). The same poem says "Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives" (1:23), and "lovely" there is again the verb *ahav* (H157), applied to Saul and Jonathan together. No one reads 1:23 as erotic. The vocabulary of 1:26 sits inside the same poem. - **"Soul knit" is kinship language.** The verb *qashar* (H7194) with *nephesh* (H5315) in 1 Sam 18:1 appears again in Gen 44:30, where Judah says of Jacob and Benjamin, "his life is bound up in the lad's life." The idiom names a bond of life to life, and its other use is a father and a son. - **"Loved him as his own soul" is a measure of loyalty.** The phrase recurs at 18:1, 18:3 and 20:17, each time tied to a covenant or an oath. The love clause gives the reason for the covenant; it is the language of allegiance. - **The kiss is a parting under threat of death.** At 20:41 David "fell on his face to the ground, and bowed himself three times" before the kiss. Prostration three times is the posture of a subject before a king's son. The kiss and the tears follow a death sentence on David (20:31) and a forced separation. - **Saul's insult is interpreted in the next verse.** Narrative often supplies its own commentary. "For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom" (20:31). The narrator lets Saul say what he means. - **The verbs of sexual contact are missing.** *Shakab* (H7901), the verb of [Lev 18:22](/codex/leviticus-18-22/), does not occur in 1 Samuel 18-20, 23 or 2 Samuel 1. *Yada* (H3045) occurs in those chapters only in its ordinary sense, as in "only Jonathan and David knew the matter" (20:39). The Samuel narrator uses explicit verbs when sex is in view, as with David and Bathsheba (2 Sam 11:4) and Amnon and Tamar (2 Sam 13:14). - **Descriptive narrative, read with its own law.** Samuel narrates without always moralizing, but it does pass judgment where it sees sin: "the thing that David had done displeased Jehovah" (2 Sam 11:27). A reader must account for what the narrator condemns and what the narrator praises. On the comparative grammar of 1:26, the shared vocabulary of 1:23, the kinship idiom of 18:1, the prostration at 20:41, the self-explanation at 20:31 and the absence of the verbs for sexual contact, the text does not support the romantic reading. ## Master objections to the whole argument **MO1: "You're reading modern homophobia back into the text to erase a gay story."** - The argument here runs the other way. It reads the words by their use in the Hebrew Bible itself, not by modern categories. The romantic reading is the one that imports a modern assumption, that intense affection between men must be sexual. That assumption would make Hiram of Tyre and "all Israel and Judah" David's lovers too (1 Kings 5:1; 1 Sam 18:16). **MO2: "The Bible is full of euphemism. The sex could be implied and left unsaid."** - An argument from silence needs a reason to think the silence is hiding something. Here the narrator does the opposite of hiding: Samuel records David's adultery, the murder of Uriah and the rape of Tamar in plain terms (2 Sam 11-13). The book is not shy. Where sex is present it says so; with David and Jonathan it never does. **MO3: "Ancient Near Eastern epics like Gilgamesh and Enkidu show intense male bonds with erotic overtones. David and Jonathan fit that pattern."** - Whether the Gilgamesh bond was erotic is itself disputed, so it cannot settle a disputed reading of Samuel. More to the point, Israel's own law forbade same-sex intercourse ([Lev 20:13](/codex/leviticus-20-13/)), and the book that presents David as the model king is not neutral about Israel's law. A parallel from a different culture with a different ethic does not override the setting of the text being read. **MO4: "David never married for love. His marriages were political, so his real love was Jonathan."** - Michal "loved David" (1 Sam 18:20), and the text uses the same verb, *ahav*. David married her (18:27), demanded her back later, and quarreled with her openly (2 Sam 6:20-23). He also married Abigail, Bathsheba and others; his desire for Bathsheba drove the worst sin of his life (2 Sam 11). The narrative portrays David's attraction to women as strong enough to bring disaster. ## Premise 1, The love vocabulary is the language of loyalty ### Affirmative case 1. **The verb *ahav* (H157) is ordinary.** It occurs in 195 verses of the Strong's-tagged KJV and is rendered "love," "loved," "loveth," and also "friends" 8 times and "friend" 4 times. "A friend loveth at all times" (Prov 17:17); God calls Abraham "my friend" ([Isa 41:8](/codex/isaiah-41-8/)), using the same root. 2. **It is used of David by many people.** "He loved him greatly; and he became his armorbearer" (1 Sam 16:21, Saul of David). "But all Israel and Judah loved David" (1 Sam 18:16). "All his servants love thee" (1 Sam 18:22). "Hiram was ever a lover of David" (1 Kings 5:1). In each case the verb names allegiance or regard. 3. **The noun *ahavah* (H160) has a wide range.** In 2 Sam 1:26 it is used twice. Its 37 verses include God's love for Israel ("because Jehovah loveth you," [Deut 7:8](/codex/deuteronomy-7-8/)), Jacob's love for Rachel (Gen 29:20), Amnon's lust turned to hatred (2 Sam 13:15), and Jonathan's oath-bound love for David (1 Sam 18:3; 20:17). The noun covers covenant love, romantic love and loyal friendship; context decides which. 4. **The context is covenant.** Every time Jonathan's love is stated (18:1, 18:3, 20:17), it is tied to a covenant or an oath. The love is the ground of the covenant, which is a political act between a crown prince and the man who will replace his dynasty. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"The same words are used of erotic love in the Song of Songs, so they can carry that sense here."* 2. *"Hiram's love is political; Jonathan's is personal. You can't use one to explain the other."* ### Rebuttals 1. Granted, *ahavah* is used of erotic love in the Song of Songs (e.g., Song 2:4-7). That proves the word can carry that sense in a context that supplies it. It also proves the word does not carry it by itself, because the same noun names God's love for Israel. The question is which context 1 Samuel supplies, and it supplies covenants, oaths, a throne and a death sentence. 2. Jonathan's love is personal and political at once, which is the point. He is the heir to the throne, and his love for David is expressed by yielding that throne (23:17). Personal devotion and political allegiance are fused in the story, as they are in Hiram's case and in Israel's. ## Premise 2, Kissing and weeping are a custom between men ### Affirmative case 1. **Brothers reconciled.** "And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept" ([Gen 33:4](/codex/genesis-33-4/)). 2. **Joseph and his brothers.** "And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them" (Gen 45:14-15). 3. **A prophet and a king.** Samuel anointed Saul, "and kissed him" (1 Sam 10:1). 4. **A king and an old friend.** "The king kissed Barzillai, and blessed him" (2 Sam 19:39). 5. **The same verb.** In each of these verses, and in 1 Sam 20:41, the verb is *nashaq* (H5401), on the Strong's-tagged text. Ruth 1:14 uses it of Orpah kissing her mother-in-law in a tearful parting. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Those are family members. Jonathan and David are not related."* 2. *"David 'exceeded,' he wept more than Jonathan. That intensity is romantic."* ### Rebuttals 1. Samuel and Saul, and David and Barzillai, are not family. The custom is a greeting and farewell gesture of honor and affection across family, office and friendship. David was also Jonathan's brother-in-law through Michal (18:27). 2. David is about to become a fugitive under a death sentence (20:31), leaving the one friend who protected him, with no assurance of seeing him again. Weeping hardest in that situation needs no romantic explanation. ## Premise 3, Saul explains his own insult ### Affirmative case 1. **The insult.** "Thou son of a perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own shame, and unto the shame of thy mother's nakedness?" (1 Sam 20:30). 2. **The explanation.** "For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. Wherefore now send and fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die" (20:31). Saul's complaint is that Jonathan is siding with the rival for the throne. 3. **The target of the crude image.** The sexual imagery in 20:30 is aimed at Jonathan's mother ("son of a perverse rebellious woman," "thy mother's nakedness"), the same pattern as a modern insult against someone's mother. It shames the son by shaming the mother, and it says nothing about Jonathan's sex life. 4. **Shame for disloyalty.** Choosing the man who will end your family's dynasty is, to a king, the deepest disgrace a son can bring on his house. That is the shame Saul names. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"'Chosen' is the language of choosing a partner."* 2. *"Even the Church Fathers read Saul as calling Jonathan effeminate."* ### Rebuttals 1. The verb in 20:30 is about siding with someone, and verse 31 tells us what siding with David means to Saul: losing the kingdom. The narrator does not leave the word to guesswork. 2. Chrysostom does paraphrase Saul's abuse as a charge of unmanliness, and he treats it as exactly that, abuse. His point is that Jonathan bore the abuse for the sake of friendship: "And yet the one was at that time a king, and a king's son, even Jonathan; the other a fugitive and a wanderer, I mean, David. But not even thus was he ashamed of his friendship" (Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians, on 1 Cor 13:5, NPNF1 12, PDF p. 173). An insult hurled by an enraged king is evidence of the king's rage, not a narrator's report of the facts. ## Premise 4, The covenant is royal and is kept across generations ### Affirmative case 1. **The robe and the weapons.** "And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his apparel, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle" (1 Sam 18:4). The crown prince hands his royal robe and arms to the man who will be king. The gesture anticipates the transfer of the kingdom. 2. **The covenant reaches the two houses.** "Thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house for ever... So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David" ([1 Sam 20:14-16](/codex/1-samuel-20-14-15/)). "Jehovah shall be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed, for ever" (20:42). The covenant is about descendants and dynasties. 3. **Jonathan yields the throne.** "Thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee... And they two made a covenant before Jehovah" (1 Sam 23:17-18). 4. **David keeps it after Jonathan's death.** "Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" (2 Sam 9:1). He restores Saul's land to Mephibosheth and says, "thou shalt eat bread at my table continually" (9:7). The "kindness" of 9:1 and 20:14-15 is *chesed* (H2617), the vocabulary of covenant loyalty; see [H2617 - hesed](/codex/h2617-hesed/) and [H1285 - berith](/codex/h1285-berith/). ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Covenants can be marriage covenants. This is a same-sex marriage."* ### Rebuttals 1. Old Testament covenants are made between kings, nations, households and individuals; marriage is one kind among many. This covenant names its terms: protection of David's life, kindness to Jonathan's house, and the succession. Both men later marry women and have children (David's marriages are listed throughout 1-2 Samuel; Jonathan's son Mephibosheth is the beneficiary of 2 Sam 9). The covenant does what it says. ## Premise 5, Narrative and canonical coherence ### Affirmative case 1. **The narrator is not protecting David.** "But the thing that David had done displeased Jehovah" ([2 Sam 11:27](/codex/2-samuel-11-27/)); "Thou art the man" ([2 Sam 12:7](/codex/2-samuel-12-7/)); "thou hast smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife" (12:9). The book names David's sexual sin and its consequences in detail. See [David Bathsheba Objection Defeater](/codex/david-bathsheba-objection-defeater/). 2. **The narrator writes under Israel's law.** "And if a man lie with mankind, as with womankind, both of them have committed abomination" ([Lev 20:13](/codex/leviticus-20-13/)). A narrative that measures David by the law, and condemns him by it when he sins, presents the Jonathan friendship with nothing but praise. 3. **David's attraction to women is a running theme.** Michal (1 Sam 18:20, 27; 2 Sam 6:20-23), Abigail, Bathsheba, and the many wives of 2 Samuel. The story's danger zone for David is women, not men. 4. **Jonathan is presented as a model of loyalty.** He risks his life for David (1 Sam 19:1-2; 20:33), refuses to envy him and supports his kingship (23:16-18). The early church read him the same way. ### Anticipated objections 1. *"Maybe the narrator approved of it, and the Levitical law was later or ignored."* ### Rebuttals 1. That move gives up the claim that the Bible contains an approved same-sex romance and replaces it with a theory about how the text was edited. Even on that theory, the final canonical text sets the friendship inside a law and a narrative that both reject same-sex intercourse, and no clause in the story signals approval of anything but loyalty. The romantic reading has to supply both the romance and the approval. ## Patristic note The early church read the friendship as a model of loyal, unselfish love: - **Chrysostom on friendship:** "I will now cite you from the Scriptures a wonderful instance of friendship. Jonathan, the son of Saul, loved David, and his soul was so knit to him, that David in mourning over him says, 'Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.'" He then says of Jonathan, "Instead of envying, he joined in obtaining the kingdom for him" (NPNF1 13, PDF p. 397). - **Chrysostom on 2 Sam 1:26 as a benchmark:** preaching on marriage in Ephesians 5, he cites David's line as proof of how strong married love is: "when he would express surpassing love, and was mourning for one that was dear to him, and of one soul with him, did not mention father, nor mother, nor child, nor brother, nor friend, but what? 'Thy love to me was wonderful,' saith he, 'passing the love of women.'" (Homily XX on Ephesians, NPNF1 13, PDF p. 119). For Chrysostom, the love of women is the yardstick, and Jonathan's loyalty is measured against it. - **Chrysostom on Saul's insult:** Jonathan "was not ashamed" of Saul's abuse; "But not even thus was he ashamed of his friendship. 'For love doth not behave itself unseemly'" (Homilies on 1 Corinthians, NPNF1 12, PDF p. 173). - **Ambrose on likeness in virtue:** "For Jonathan the king's son imitated the gentleness of holy David, because he loved him" (On the Duties of the Clergy, NPNF2 10, PDF p. 27, ch. XXXIII). Ambrose treats the friendship as a school of character. ## Live-cite kit **Scripture:** - *1 Sam 18:16*, "But all Israel and Judah loved David", the same verb, used of a whole nation. - *1 Kings 5:1*, "Hiram was ever a lover of David", a foreign king's alliance in the same vocabulary. - *1 Sam 20:31*, "as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom", Saul's reason. - *Gen 44:30*, "his life is bound up in the lad's life", the "soul knit" idiom used of a father and son. - *[Gen 33:4](/codex/genesis-33-4/)*, "and kissed him: and they wept", the custom between brothers. - *1 Sam 23:17*, "thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee", Jonathan yields the throne. - *2 Sam 9:1*, "that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake", David keeps the covenant. **Scholarly:** - **Robert A. J. Gagnon**, *The Bible and Homosexual Practice* (Abingdon 2001), the standard full-length treatment of the revisionist readings, including this one. - **Tom Horner**, *Jonathan Loved David* (Westminster Press 1978), the classic statement of the view being answered; worth reading in its own words before engaging it. **Aphorisms:** - *"If 'love' makes them lovers, then all Israel and Judah were in love with David."* - *"Saul tells you what he meant in the very next verse. Read it."* - *"'Passing the love of women' is a comparison. You can't compare a thing to itself."* - *"Jonathan gave David a throne. David gave Jonathan's son a seat at his table for life. That's the love story."* ## Tactical notes **Order of deployment:** 1. **Grant the intensity first.** The friendship is extraordinary and the language is strong. Saying so removes the suspicion that you are explaining it away. 2. **Go to the vocabulary.** 1 Sam 18:16 and 1 Kings 5:1 are the quickest way to show what *ahav* covers. 3. **Read 20:30 and 20:31 together.** This is usually the strongest proof text for the objector and the easiest to answer from the text itself. 4. **Explain the comparison in 2 Sam 1:26.** Then add Chrysostom's use of it as a benchmark for married love. 5. **Close with the covenant kept.** Mephibosheth at David's table is the story's own answer to what kind of love this was. **Deflection patterns:** - **"You're just uncomfortable with male affection."** No; the case depends on taking male affection seriously as something real and non-sexual, which is exactly what the text shows. - **"The kiss proves it."** Ask whether Esau and Jacob, Joseph and Benjamin, and Samuel and Saul were also lovers. - **"Why would Saul call it shameful?"** Read verse 31 aloud. **Force-commit moves:** - *"Which word in these chapters means sexual contact? Give me the verb."* - *"If 'loved him' means romance at 18:1, what does it mean at 18:16?"* **Pastoral pivot:** When the question comes from someone who feels the church has no room for deep same-sex friendship, agree with the need. The David and Jonathan story is the Bible's own proof that intense, faithful, affectionate friendship between men is honored by God. Recovering that friendship does not require redefining it. ## Honest limits - No verse in the narrative states "and their relationship was not sexual." The case is cumulative: vocabulary, custom, the narrator's own explanation, the covenant's terms and the canonical setting all point one way. - The word *ahavah* can and does mean romantic love in other contexts. The argument is not that it never does, but that it does not by itself, and the context here does not supply it. - Saul's insult in 20:30 is crude and its exact nuance is debated by translators. The argument rests on 20:31, where Saul states his grievance, not on a particular rendering of 20:30. ## See also - [David](/codex/david/), the man and his reign - [Biblical Sexual Ethics Objection](/codex/biblical-sexual-ethics-objection/), the broader objection this belongs to - [Biblical Sexual Ethics Objection Defeater](/codex/biblical-sexual-ethics-objection-defeater/), the companion defeater on the sexual ethic as a whole - [Homosexuality](/codex/homosexuality/), the concept hub - [Biblical Love](/codex/biblical-love/), the biblical vocabulary of love across its forms - [David Bathsheba Objection Defeater](/codex/david-bathsheba-objection-defeater/), the narrator's handling of David's sexual sin - [David and Bathsheba](/codex/david-and-bathsheba/), the episode itself - [Hebrew Verbs for Sexual Contact](/codex/hebrew-verbs-for-sexual-contact/), the verbs the narrative does not use - [Davidic Covenant](/codex/davidic-covenant/), the dynastic promise behind the succession - [H2617 - hesed](/codex/h2617-hesed/), the covenant-loyalty word behind "kindness" - [H1285 - berith](/codex/h1285-berith/), the covenant word in 1 Sam 18:3 - [2 Samuel 1.26](/codex/2-samuel-1-26/), the lament line - [Leviticus 20.13](/codex/leviticus-20-13/), the law the narrator writes under - [Marriage](/codex/marriage/), the biblical shape of marriage
## Common questions this page answers **Q: Were David and Jonathan gay?** The text describes a deep covenant friendship, not a sexual relationship. The Hebrew word for "love" in these chapters is the same word used when "all Israel and Judah loved David" and when Hiram of Tyre was "ever a lover of David." The verbs the Old Testament uses for sexual contact never appear in the chapters where the two men are together, and the narrator who exposes David's adultery never hints at sin in this friendship. **Q: What does "passing the love of women" mean in 2 Samuel 1:26?** It is a comparison inside a lament for Saul and Jonathan. David ranks Jonathan's loyalty above even the love between a man and a woman. A comparison only works if the two loves are different kinds. Chrysostom used the verse the same way, as a benchmark showing how strong married love is. **Q: Why did Saul say Jonathan's friendship with David was shameful?** Saul explains himself in the next verse: "as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom" (1 Samuel 20:31). His complaint is that Jonathan is siding with the rival who will take the throne. The crude language in verse 30 is aimed at Jonathan's mother as an insult. **Q: Why did David and Jonathan kiss?** Kissing and weeping between men is a recorded custom of greeting and farewell in the Old Testament. Esau and Jacob kissed and wept, Joseph kissed his brothers, Samuel kissed Saul, and David kissed Barzillai. At 1 Samuel 20:41 the two friends were parting under a death sentence on David, after David bowed three times before the king's son. **Q: What does it mean that Jonathan's soul was knit with David's?** The same Hebrew idiom, a life bound to a life, is used of Jacob and his son Benjamin in Genesis 44:30. It describes a bond of deep loyalty and attachment, and in 1 Samuel it leads directly to a covenant between the two houses. **Q: Does the Bible say anything against the idea that they were lovers?** No verse states it directly, so the answer is cumulative. The vocabulary is ordinary loyalty language, the customs are ordinary, Saul's insult is explained as political, the covenant is about the throne and the two families, and the book is written under a law that forbids same-sex intercourse while praising this friendship without reservation.