In this third instalment of deconstructing the leadership archetypes of Saul and David, I have chosen to focus on some aspects of Saul’s leadership that may have gone unnoticed and why David’s succession was inevitable. David himself is not without his share of well-documented travails. Hopefully, this methodological breakdown will not only satisfy your curiosity but, more importantly, provide you with some insights on why everything indeed rises and falls on leadership.
The Past Is Prologue?
Whilst previous action is not always an accurate predictor of future action, it can give us . Power is an amplifier, it magnifies behaviour that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. Who exactly was Saul before he became king? The same question applies to David. I find it interesting that Saul is introduced to us for the very first time via his incompetence. Understand that back in the day, there were majorly agrarian societies, and since livestock was a popular way of amassing wealth, the ability to track down lost animals by their hoofprints was a common skill amongst young men. Not Saul, some donkeys his father put in his care wandered off, and he couldn’t track them down – until he was advised to get some help from a servant. On the other hand, David not only successfully tracked down his father’s sheep, but he also recovered them from the captivity of a lion and a bear.
Even when Saul was crowned king, the only thing they told us was how good he looked – just aesthetics and propaganda, no mention of competence. To his father’s credit, Kish was described as a man of valour, but the same could not be said of his son. Conversely, when David’s father asked him to take food to his brothers on the battlefield, you could tell from that conversation it wasn’t David’s first rodeo. His father didn’t say, “My son, be careful along the way.”; Jesse sef know the kind pikin he born, normally David no too get joy like that, na smallie wey dey mighty – if anybody do anyhow, dem go enter okro market. By the way, David too was a fine boy o. When Samuel came to anoint him the first time, David was described as “ruddy, a youth with beautiful eyes, and good looking.”; Even Goliath confirm am say David is clear, the giant despised David not just because he was a youth but also because he was handsome. So when you see those babes singing for David that year, e get why. The difference between Saul and David is that one person’s aesthetic is backed by doings while the other person’s aesthetic is fueled by propaganda.
The Intelligence Chief
What were the circumstances and sentiments that brought Saul into power? The answer is in the backstory. A few people who constituted a loud majority went to meet Samuel and demanded that the homeland have a king so that they could be like the nations around them. What happened here probably didn’t register as anything sinister, don’t trip – later on it will. The subtext of this proposition was the quest to ensure that the homeland eventually loses its unique identity, values, sovereignty, culture, civilisation and becomes just another country on the map. Thus, it comes as no surprise that their geopolitical rivals were strangely quiet when Saul emerged as king, because with a leader like Saul, who needs enemies? I have never seen Samuel cry the way he cried when the people insisted that they wanted Saul to be king over them. I can’t even remember him crying when his mentor, Eli, who was like a father to him, died. He knew the carnage that Saul would unleash on the homeland, and he conscientiously shared some intel with them (The Message Version):
• He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends.
• He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks, and you’ll end up no better than slaves.
• The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves.
In a nutshell, Samuel shared some classified information from Saul’s dossier with the people: the king they wanted would systematically amass and siphon national wealth using his cronies, proxies and special purpose vehicles, he would tax them to high heavens without any commensurate delivery of the social contract clause and when the rubber hits the road – the people have to own the consequences of their unfortunate choice of his leadership.
The Patriot vs The Puppet
I finally noticed it, it finally hit me – It didn’t take me long to triangulate the circumstantial evidence, which strongly suggested that Saul might be a foreign intelligence asset. One could give him the benefit of the doubt and excuse his unwillingness to fight Goliath, but his actions after the fact suggest that Saul was not as innocent as some may assume. Remember, the Philistines were unwilling to attack Saul on his inauguration day? Fast forward to one of the most consequential battles to decide the country’s future, and Saul is unwilling to attack the Philistine’s champion, Goliath. Any sound forensic psychologist will tell you that this odd behaviour doesn’t pass the smell test, it’s giving all shades of a quid pro quo. If Goliath represents a metaphor for an existential threat to the homeland, why is Saul, a self-proclaimed master strategist in everything else but fighting Goliath? It’s like hiring a driver who claims he can do everything else but actually drive. That’s why it leaves me in stitches whenever I hear people who collect gigs to do PR for Saul say things like, “Goliath aside, Saul is a great king”;. Tell it not in Gath neither publish it on the streets of Ashkelon that a king who claims to be patriotic would allow that 9-foot sucker smack his gums for 40 days straight.
You know the story: David shows up and defeats Goliath. Everyone in the country was thrilled, except for Saul. What Saul didn’t realise was that in that moment, when David killed Goliath with a sling, there was a shift in power in the eyes of the people regarding who the true king was. If someone does something you couldn’t or wouldn’t do, you should be grateful, right? Not Saul, I’m not sure he ever wanted the army to win that fight in the first place. Suddenly, the king who claimed to be afraid of Goliath can personally lead 3,000 elite soldiers to head-hunt the same guy who just saved the entire country from perdition. That’s why I’m gobsmacked whenever anyone puts Saul and patriotism in the same sentence; it must either be intellectual dishonesty or cognitive dissonance. If I still remember my algebra, I was taught that if A = C and B = C, then invariably, A = B. Suppose the philistines were unwilling to attack Saul on his inauguration day but declared war on David the day he was crowned king and here is Saul with the same MO: unwilling to fight the philistine’s champion but also declared war on David. In that case, this suggests that there’s a congruence of strategic interests between Saul and the Philistines. So when I called Saul a in my first instalment, it wasn’t a flippant use of words but an educated submission. Nobody can accuse David of being a vassal king, but I can’t say the same for Saul.
The Prosaic Governance of Saul
One thing that Saul-esque leaders will do is bastardise institutions and sacred traditions. It was during Saul’s regime that the army became weaponised to fight a personal vendetta against his political rival. We see Saul put more resources into fighting David than into delivering good governance to the people. It was during Saul’s reign that there was the highest assault on the civic space, such that even a major prophet like Samuel was scared of freely moving around. Saul tried to usurp Samuel’s priestly authority by presenting an unauthorised sacrifice. At best, Saul cosplayed being a prophet; the only time he prophesied was amid real prophets.
I’m not in any way David’s hagiographer. David na my guy, I know am reach house. I go lie for you? David like woman sotay on his deathbed, generals arrange one banny for am – when he no shake body, na then everybody agree say true true David wan really die. The difference between the two men is that when David is corrected, he repents, but when Saul is rebuked, he goes to meet the witch of Endor rather than take correction. Why would a king like Saul, whose top geopolitical foes have a standing foreign policy of not allowing the homeland to develop weapons, be comfortable with the entire country going to refine their tools in hostile territory? The opps never liked David because he knew something about the Philistines: they only finesse you when you don’t move properly; that’s why they declared war on him from day one.
The Handwriting On The Wall
My job is a simple one: it is to say the quiet part out loud. On that day when the sky falls, I will be there no matter what. I can see through leaders that fall into this Saul-esque archetype. They talk a big game, but deep inside, they are scared to death. They act like bullies; the emptier they are on the inside, the more they overcompensate on the outside with aggressive and violent behaviour. So when David outwitted him in the wilderness of Ziph and spared his life, it was then that Saul admitted the truth he had been masking all the while: “I have been a fool.”; Saul then prophesies: “I know now beyond doubt that you will rule as king!”; It’s no surprise that he utters the inevitable future is in the presence of David. The irony is that even after Saul was rejected, he still reigned as king for a while. The thing is, the crown doesn’t make anyone king; the oil does. This is why David didn’t take Saul out when he had the chance, he would later tell Saul’s daughter that it was God who made him king over her father.
I pray for leaders like Saul, but I also know that hubris is a terrible thing. A time came when the legacy of Saul had become a byword and a proverb; his reign ended abruptly and had been recorded as a reproach in the annals of history. The same Saul who raged and wielded power as though he were God, only had to continue his dynasty. I used to do the most in convincing people to choose David-esque leaders, but these days, I have taken a step back and allowed Saul to convince them. He’s a good lesson teacher. There is a reason God chucked up the deuces on that guy and told Samuel he was moving on to someone better; there is a reason why Jonathan gave up the rights to his father’s throne and endorsed David and there is a reason why the brothers of David that hitherto hated him with a passion became those that led the coalition to meet David at the Cave of Adullam. Notice that most people that should have spoken out during Saul’s regime chose not to but when he was gone, they couldn’t deny the populist movement David was leading – a critical mass of the population who had learnt obedience from the things they suffered under Saul’s leadership, came to the consensus that David should be made king at Hebron. That’s why even if angels come down from heaven to endorse Saul, there’s one person on God’s green earth who will never give him a co-sign. Selah.
