John Bytheway: 00:01 Welcome to part two of this week’s podcast. 

Hank Smith: 00:07 Dan, it feels like Saul is changing little by little throughout this story.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 00:12 Yeah, I think he’s becoming more self-centered. It’s more about him than about the Israelites or his people. And his judgment is suffering. He’s making bad decisions. This oath was a really bad decision. Even Jonathan, his son, the crown prince, I mean, to put it in perspective, Jonathan says, “This was a bad decision.” The warriors would’ve been more effective had they not been hungry. And I’m thinking maybe parched with thirst all day long.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 00:37 Why did he do this? It was a silly oath. And the reason he does it is so that I may be avenged of mine enemies or on mine enemies. That’s not about the wellbeing of Israel. That’s some sort of weird, personal thing of his own. Things were bad in the previous chapter. They’ve gotten much worse in this chapter. And he’s even going to follow through because the people then they’re so hungry that they fly upon the spoil, they take sheep, and oxen, it says in verse 32, and calves. And they slay them on the ground and the people that eat them with the blood. Which they’re eating it raw. That’s pretty weird.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 01:11 But they’re eating it with the blood, which is a sin in the eyes of God in terms of the mosaic code. Even Saul is offended by that so then he says, “You’ve transgressed, roll a great stone unto me this day,” in verse 33, “And disperse yourselves and say unto them, every man should bring his ox and his sheep and slay them here and we’ll cook them up. So you’re not committing this sin.” There’s more. Saul said, “Let us go down after the Philistines by night and spoil them.” And they say, “Oh, whatever you think is right.” And he says, “Okay, let’s draw near unto God, hither unto God.” Saul asked counsel of God, “Shall I go down after the Philistines? Will that deliver them into the hand of Israel?”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 01:49 But he answered him not that day, no answer comes. They’re used to an answer coming through the ephod. We’re not quite sure exactly how this worked consulting the ephod, the stones, the Urim and Thummim, lots, something like that. But there’s no answer. And so Saul says, “Well, there must be something wrong. Why is the Lord not answering them? Must be a sin in the camp. And as the Lord liveth, which saveth Israel, though it be in Jonathan my son, he shall surely die.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 02:17 This is a stupid and rush oath to make. There was not a man among all the people that answered him. Then he said, “Okay. Everybody else stand over on this side. And Jonathan and I will stand on the other side.” And they said, “Okay, fine.” And then they have a perfect lot and Saul and Jonathan are taken. And then the lot falls on Jonathan and Saul said to Jonathan, verse 43, “Tell me what thou hast done.” And Jonathan told him and said, “I did but taste a little honey with the end of the rod that was in mine hand, and, lo, I must die.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 02:47 Now, some versions render into this as a question. So I’m supposed to die for this? All I did was take a bit of honey and it’s not like it was a great sin. And we would add again, I didn’t even hear your oath. I’m not responsible for this. It was a reasonable thing to do. I mean, Jonathan, in every regard is a good guy in these stories. It’s sad that he goes down with his father, but eventually. And Saul doesn’t say, “Well, son, that was reasonable and my oath was rush.” God do so more and more also: for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan. This is the heir to the throne. This is insane. And so the people have to intervene and say, “What? Jonathan is the hero of the day. Are you kidding? You want to kill him?” People rescued Jonathan that he died not.

John Bytheway: 03:34 Wow. They swear an oath, it looks like. As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of his… We got dueling oaths here.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 03:41 Yeah. They’re both really solemn oaths. They’re saying basically we will not back down and we will not let you do this. It doesn’t matter if you’re king. It doesn’t matter if you swore an oath, it’s insane. We’ll surround him, we’ll protect him. You will not do this. And so he backs down. Then it goes on to list all of Saul’s military successes. He is pretty successful. He smoked the Amalekites and others, and lists his sons and gives his genealogy and so on. But then we come to chapter 15, which is the really, well, the beginning of the true catastrophe of Saul.

John Bytheway: 04:15 Can I just ask a quick question?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 04:16 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 04:17 You read about Amalekites a lot. Do they ever get wiped out or do we just smite some of them every once in a while?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 04:23 I think they’re just a good group to smite. My bet is they seem to have been something like bad ones. So they’re kind of hard to wipe out, because if it gets really bad, they just leave. They just move away and then they come back. It is in a way sort of like guerilla warfare. They can evaporate. You think you’ve taken them out, but eh, year or two later, they’re back.

John Bytheway: 04:47 Maybe it was this group of Amalekites, but it was never all of the Amalekites there.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 04:51 Yeah. They seem to live out somewhere in the deserts of Southern Jordan.

Hank Smith: 04:55 This story is just so sad, the downfall of Saul. It’s just so disappointing the way he started.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 05:01 Yeah. And so again, I think one of the questions we have to ask ourselves when we’re reading this is, can I see myself in this at all? I always like the question at the last supper, “Lord, is it I?” And I’d like to be able to read these accounts and say, “No, for once that is not something-

Hank Smith: 05:16 That’s not me.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 05:17 … that I’ve done.” There may be other things where I think, oh, that hits a little too close to home, but maybe not this one. Verse 15, he is sent to smite the Amalekites and it’s done. It’s kind of an interesting thing. It’s for a very historic wrong they worked against the Israelites when the Israelites came up from Egypt, generations before. The word of the Lord comes to Samuel, who says to Saul, “The word of the Lord is this, go after Amalekites, smite them, spare them not, slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 05:49 Now we might just read that and think, oh, that’s horrible. What do we make of that? Well, I’m not exactly sure what to make of it. It is all together possible. I throw this out as kind of a liberal way of reading scriptures, not necessarily mine. But I remember years ago I was writing the gospel doctrine lesson for the conquest of Canaan. There’s pretty rough language there about eliminating the Canaanites totally. And about that time, I was reading an article in a journal where the guy was saying, “The archeological evidence is that they didn’t wipe out all the Canaanites and they just didn’t.” There are Canaanite settlements that seemed to have survived through this period and so on.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 06:28 It undercuts the story of the conquest in the Bible. And I thought, oh, that’s tough. And then I thought, no, actually it would solve some theological problems for me, at least as many as it would create, the conquest wasn’t quite as brutal and total as it’s made out to be in the scriptures. And this guy was arguing that maybe it had been exaggerated a little bit, sort of glorify our glorious ancestors. They wiped them out totally. Where in fact they don’t seem to have.

Hank Smith: 06:54 Some hyperbole perhaps.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 06:56 Yeah. I’m kind of agnostic on that. I don’t know exactly what happened, but if not every woman, infant and suckling was killed, that wouldn’t hurt my feelings.

Hank Smith: 07:05 Right.

John Bytheway: 07:06 Yeah. No kidding.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 07:08 But there is another word to be said for this, for the idea of total destruction. In an odd sort of way, one way of looking at it, people have said is, well, it was a way of preventing the Israelites from going to battle for gain, to get all the spoils. Because it was saying all the spoils go to the Lord, you fight these battles for the Lord. You don’t get any profit out of it. Because there were a lot of people who just fought all the time to steal things. Somebody has something I want, I go take it.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 07:38 Well, if you take it and then you have to offer it up as a sacrifice, you think, yeah, I don’t think I’ll risk myself for that one again. There is one school, I don’t know how persuasive this is, it suggests that maybe it’s a way of limiting the brutality of warfare that you only fight when it’s a divine command, not just because you want to steal somebody else’s stuff. And I suspect when we wake up on the other side and learn exactly what happened, we may say, “Oh, okay, all right, I get it now.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 08:05 But the command here seems to be go smite the Amalekites totally wipe them out. But there’s also a bit of mercy. The Kenites who were also a Bedouin group who lived among the Amalekites had been kind to the Israelites when they came through. And Saul warns them and says, “Look, you get out. Because we’re coming after the Amalekites. We don’t want to kill you by mistake. So just withdraw, go somewhere else because we’re coming.” And so there is that mercy.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 08:31 But then Saul has the tremendous military success, smites the Amalekites all the way down almost to the borders with Egypt. So way down in Southern Jordan or that area, I’m guessing below Aqaba and Eilot. But he takes Agag, the king of the Amalekites alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen, of the fatlings and the lambs and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them. But everything that was vile and refuse that they destroyed utterly, oh, this is a really good policy, we’ll destroy all the garbage that we didn’t want anyway, that’s a real sacrifice. But we’re going to save all the potentially strong slaves, keep the good stuff.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 09:14 So the word of the Lord comes to Samuel saying, “It repenteth me.” Now the JST changes that a little bit. It says, “I’ve set up Saul to be a king, and he repenteth not that he had sinned.” This is a turning point. It’s not just that Saul’s line will not succeed to the monarchy. It’s that Saul himself is now rejected. But as the King James reads, “It repenteth me that I’ve set up Saul to be king.” I mean, it shows that God has … the decree is different now, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments and it grieved Samuel and he cried unto the Lord all night.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 09:49 There are several poignant notes like this, as I’ve said, where Samuel is saddened by this. But Samuel comes to Saul in verse 13, Saul said unto him, “Blessed be thou of the Lord: I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” And Samuel said, “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” I’ve always thought of that as a really funny line. So you wiped everything out, but it’s funny, who are you going to believe, me or your lying ears, right?

John Bytheway: 10:20 That’s just a recording.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 10:22 Yeah. But I can hear all these animals. He says, “We’re going to sacrifice them, that’s why we’ve saved them.” You’re not going to sacrifice Agag, the king, they don’t do human sacrifice. So Agag was meant to be most likely part of a royal triumph, you parade him around the villages and boast, “Look at the great things I did. I conquered Agag. Here’s this king. I’ve got him in a cage.” I mean, that’s an age old thing. The Romans did it all the time. And other people did it too. Capture the foreign Monarch and you show him off. And that’s what Saul probably wants to do.

Hank Smith: 10:55 The trophy.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 10:56 Otherwise he would’ve just killed him. Samuel said into Saul, “Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night.” And he said unto him, “Say on. I don’t think he knows what’s coming.” And Samuel said, “When thou wast little.” This is kind of what we’ve been talking about the whole time. “When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel?”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 11:18 But what he’s implying is now you’re not little in your own sight. You think you’re big stuff. And so he says, “No, we were going to sacrifice them.” And then he blames it on the people. Verse 21, the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 11:36 Well again, are you the king or are you not? I mean, the people did it. You couldn’t have stopped them or said this is the command of the Lord. And then Samuel responds with what is one of the classic lines in all of scripture. And Samuel said, “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 12:02 And then he says the end of the next verse, “Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.” It’s a powerful rebuke that you are in effect rejected. You’re no longer the divinely chosen king. Yeah, you’re going to sacrifice them supposedly, but the Lord didn’t ask you to sacrifice them. He asked you to destroy them and you didn’t do it.

John Bytheway: 12:25 If they don’t get anything from the sacrifice, I think you may have just started to answer it. They say they were going to sacrifice it because is this one of those sacrifices that it’s basically a barbecue, we’re going to eat it.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 12:38 Yeah, I think it is.

John Bytheway: 12:39 Okay. So it’s not really a total sacrifice then.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 12:43 Yeah. You offer it to the Lord, but then God doesn’t come down and eat the meat, so don’t waste it. So we’re going to have a feast. This is going to be great. I suspect that’s what’s going on here.

John Bytheway: 12:56 Because otherwise I can see how we’re not going to benefit from any of it. But if the sacrifice means we may eat it, then I can see why. No, this is selfish. We’re calling it a sacrifice, but it’s actually selfish because we’re going to hold something back or we’re going to keep it or eat it or something.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 13:13 Yeah. I think that the Lord has seen through what they were claiming and so is Samuel. It’s just tragically sad, but there’s self-centeredness going on here. And Saul said unto Samuel, “I’ve sinned.” And finally he admits it. For I’ve transgressed the commandments of the Lord and thy words because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.” He’s still kind of blaming it on them. Now therefore I pray the pardon my sin, turn again with me that I may worship the Lord.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 13:39 And Samuel said unto Saul, “I will not return with thee: for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel.” He repeats it. Saul is thinking, well, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Now come with me, we can get past this. And Samuel says, “No. I will not go back with you.” And again, the Lord has rejected you, you are done.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 14:03 And as Samuel turned about to go away, he laid hold upon the skirt of his mantle, Saul did and it rent. This is another of those simile situations. And Samuel said unto him, “The Lord hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbor of thine, that is better than thou.” I mean, this is merciless in a way. Saul is still, it’s almost pathetic. He says in verse 30, he said, “I have sinned: yet honor me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord thy God.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 14:35 Samuel turned again after Saul and Saul will worship the Lord. I mean, kind of it’s a last bit of mercy. And then I’m gone. This shows Samuel being tough, then said Samuel, “Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites.” And Agag came unto him delicately. You can imagine this, he’s coming out very cautiously. Like what’s going to happen. Timidly I think might be a good word. And Agag said, “Surely the bitterness of death has passed. If they were going to kill me, they would’ve done it already.” And Samuel said, “As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women.” And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. That’s tough.

John Bytheway: 15:15 Yeah. They didn’t make that in a seminary movie, that part right there.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 15:19 No. And then sad again, Samuel went to Ramah. Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul. Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel. Well, again, the idea is that the Lord doesn’t repent of it. I think the Lord is sorrowful over what happened to Saul. Saul had his agency and he’s chosen to go wrong.

John Bytheway: 15:45 And yet to me it’s what did the Lord say in 1 Samuel 8, “All right, you want a king, but here’s what’s going to happen.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 15:54 And Saul goes down that very path. And to be honest, so will David.

John Bytheway: 15:58 I know, this is so sad.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 16:03 The end story of David is not all that happy though. He starts off even better than Saul did.

Hank Smith: 16:08 One thought here I was looking at when Saul is first told he’s going to be king, “I’m a nobody, I’m a Benjamite from a small tribe of Israel. I’m a nobody from a nobody tribe.” And then Samuel saying to him in chapter 15, “When you were little in your own site.” And then I wanted to read this. This is from October, 2010, General Conference, Elder Uchtdorf, he brought to everybody’s mind the 1989 talk from president Ezra Taft Benson on Beware of Pride. And he brought that to everybody’s attention.

Hank Smith: 16:40 I just want to read one part of it. He said, “Pride is the great sin of self-elevation. It is for so many a personal Rameumptom, a holy stand that justifies envy, greed, and vanity.” In a sense, pride is the original sin before the foundations of this earth, pride fell Lucifer a son of the morning, who was an authority in the presence of God. If pride can corrupt one as capable and promising as this…” Now Elder Uchtdorf is talking about Lucifer here, but we could be talking about Saul as well. “If pride can corrupt one as capable and promising as this, should we not examine our own souls as well?” What you said, Dan, “Lord is it I?” Examine your own soul for this kind of pride. Oh, this is just a heartbreaking story.

John Bytheway: 17:26 Can I offer a good example that years ago they made a video about Hugh Nibley called Faith of an Observer. Does that ring a bell? And Truman Madsen is talking about these books they wanted to make of all of Hugh Nibley’s books. And he said, “I wanted to call it the Hugh Nibley legacy.” “I don’t like it, I’m not dead yet,” Hugh Nibley said. What’s a legacy? I don’t know. And Truman Madsen says, “We were at the galley proofs stage. We were just about to go to press, so I thought I had him. And I said, “Do you mean to tell me Hugh Nibley you care that much about a title?” And Hugh Nibley said, “No, I care that little about royalties.” Boom, and hung up. Right.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 18:07 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 18:08 Well, on that video, I think Hugh Nibley says, “None of us is very smart. None of us knows very much.” This Hugh Nibley who’s like 33 languages or something. But what the angels envy us for is we can forgive and we can repent. Is Hugh Nibley able to maintain that? Well, we don’t know that much, but we can forgive and we can repent. I guess we’re trying to stay little in our own sight.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 18:33 I would hear Hugh Nibley talk sometimes even privately. He’d just say, “Look, we’re all idiots.” I mean, we know so little about what the Lord is talking about, what the Lord is doing, how the Lord thinks and so on. We just don’t know much of anything. There’s no reason for any of us to be vain because we’re so pathetically small compared to the universe. I love the line in Moses. Now I know that man is nothing.

John Bytheway: 19:03 Which thing I never-

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 19:03 … never had supposed.

John Bytheway: 19:04 Yeah. Isn’t that a great one?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 19:06 I’ll tell a story if you don’t mind. And I may have told it last time because it’s one of my absolute favorite stories. I was taking my youngest son and one of his friends to preschool. They were talking in the backseat of the car years ago and I wasn’t really paying attention to what they were saying. And all of a sudden I heard one say, “Wow, this teacher’s really hard.” And the other one responded. “Yeah, but I’ve heard that kindergarten’s even worse.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 19:33 And I thought these guys have no idea what’s coming and algebra and trigonometry and all that sort of stuff. But they were so serious. It sounded so solemn in the back. And I thought that’s really funny. But then all of a sudden I hadn’t been thinking about theology or doctrine or anything like that. But all of a sudden it came to my mind that the distance between even the wisest parent and the youngest child is nothing like as great as the distance between God and humans. If I thought that was funny, I kind of imagined how the Lord must feel sometimes about hearing us very learnedly discourse on things. And I kind of imagined this scene of God seated upon his throne and he calls the angels over and he says, “Hey, come on, listen to this.”

John Bytheway: 20:19 You got to hear this.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 20:21 The high priests are doing theology. Aren’t they cute? We’re so solemn debating questions like, is God’s knowledge infinite or is he growing in knowledge? And my feeling about questions like that has always been, I wouldn’t even know what it meant to answer it one way or the other. I mean, I’m a gnat compared to him, don’t even bother me with questions like that.

Hank Smith: 20:52 I’m looking up a quote from Henry Eyring senior, brilliant chemist, probably should have won the Nobel prize, right? He talks about going into his lab at The University of Utah and how the Lord must think it’s adorable with his little chemistry set. Here it is, contemplating the awe-inspiring order in the universe, extending from the almost infinitely small to the infinitely large one is overwhelmed with its grandeur and with the limitless wisdom, which conceived, created, and governs it all. Our understanding, great as it sometimes seems can be nothing but the wide-eyed wonder of a child when measured against omniscience. Here’s a man who’s probably the best in his field in chemistry and still sees himself as a child in comparison to God. I just thought that fit your story perfectly.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 21:46 It’s a good attitude to have.

John Bytheway: 21:47 But when we’ve got some humility, then God helps us. I love the story that President Nelson tells about being told as he was doing surgery, how to repair that heart valve. When you’ve got humility, then you get this help.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 21:59 But if we go into it, think we already know everything. We close ourselves off from learning anything.

Hank Smith: 22:04 I’m going to tell one more story before we move on from this. This is a shout out to my friend, Myron Richins up in Henefer, Utah, got a shout out from Elder Uchtdorf in general conference. Elder Uchtdorf told this story about president Richins. He said during the 150th anniversary of the pioneers’ arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Brother Myron Richins was serving as the stake president in Henefer, Utah. The celebration included a reenactment of pioneers’ passage through his town.

Hank Smith: 22:31 President Richins was heavily involved with the plans for the celebration. He attended many meetings with general authorities and others to discuss the events, he was fully engaged. Just before the actual celebration President Richins stake was reorganized and he was released. On a subsequent Sunday, he was attending his ward priesthood meeting when the leaders asked for volunteers to help with the celebration. President Richins along with others raised his hand and was given instructions to dress in work clothes and to bring his truck and shovel.

Hank Smith: 23:01 Finally, the morning of the big event came, President Richins reported to volunteer duty. Only a few weeks before he had been an influential contributor to the planning and supervision of this major event. On that day however, his job was to follow the horses in the parade and clean up after them. President Richins did so gladfully and joyfully. He understood that one kind of service is not above another. He knew and put into practice the words of the Savior. He that his greatest among you shall be your servant. Don’t you wish Saul could have kept that attitude?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 23:33 I remember a fellow that I knew in a ward down in California, and I think he’s still active in the church. He’s a good guy fundamentally, but he was a high price corporate lawyer. And at one point we were asked to go down and work at the welfare cannery somewhere. I remember going and by the way, it was funny because just of everybody I was working with was either a graduate student working on a PhD or was on the faculty with a PhD.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 23:57 But this guy refused to go. He said, “Look, do you realize how much I get paid per hour for my work?” He said, “I could hire 10 people to do this in the time it would take me to go and work there at the cannery.” And I thought, you know what, you probably need this more than any of the rest of us do. You need to go work at the cannery. It would be good for your soul. Because of course you could hire 10 people to work at the cannery.

John Bytheway: 24:20 If that were the only point of it. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 24:23 This is a powerful lesson, Dan.

John Bytheway: 24:25 I just love that phrase, when you were little in thine own site, that’s a good one to mark, isn’t it?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 24:32 Yeah, because he was, and now he isn’t.

Hank Smith: 24:35 And Dan, I know that you’ll disagree here, but whenever I’ve seen you, talked with you, met you, you know languages, you know the backwards and forwards of church history. You’ve always been down to earth, easy going, never don’t talk to me. It’s never been a hint of arrogance. When I’ve heard you talking with other people you’re willing to talk to the taxi cab driver, as much as you are to Marion D. Hanks.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 25:01 I grew up in a family that was a working-class family and my uncles were truck drivers and farmers and family was involved in the construction business.

Hank Smith: 25:10 I was watching a documentary the other day and Bob Barker of The Price is Right. He used to go out and greet the tour buses personally. And someone said, “Why do you do that? Why do you take time for that?” And he said, “I got to thank these people. If it weren’t for them, I’d have to work.” Right. Jimmy Stewart was the same way. He’d always talk to people and these are my partners. If they watch my movies, they’re my partners.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 25:37 There’s a wonderful story about him when he was in the military, because he rose to the rank of Brigadier general and he was a pretty serious soldier. He was a bomber, something around-

John Bytheway: 25:46 Former pilot, wasn’t he?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 25:46 … World War II. But at one point they were on leave near New York city and all of his pals in his barracks wanted to go into goof off in New York. And he said, “No, I won’t go with you.” And the reason he didn’t go is he was already a star before World War II began. And he was just worried that if he went there, they wouldn’t be able to have a good time. Because everywhere they went, people would gather around him and it ruined the evening. So he stayed home in the barracks and read a book. It wasn’t because he was arrogant. It was quite the contrary. He wanted his friends to have a good time and he didn’t want to ruin it for them.

Hank Smith: 26:22 He probably wanted to be there too.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 26:24 Yeah. He said at one point that people should be grateful to Hollywood, because he graduated from Princeton university with a degree in architecture. But he said they should be grateful to Hollywood that it spared the world a really mediocre architect.

Hank Smith: 26:43 Oh, that attitude is so refreshing.

John Bytheway: 26:47 Yeah. That attitude is refreshing. I hope everybody listening is going, “You know what? I need to have that attitude.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 26:54 Well, should we look at chapter 16?

John Bytheway: 26:56 Yeah, let’s talk.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 26:56 This is where the thing really shifts. We’re now looking at David. Saul has been rejected. He may linger on as king for a little while, but he’s not the Lord’s choice as king. And we’re going to see the Lord’s choice in chapter 16. So the Lord said unto Samuel, “How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided me a king among his sons.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 27:23 And so he goes to Bethlehem, they’re a little nervous. He’s nervous because he’s afraid now that Saul will see him as an enemy and maybe even try to kill him. But the Lord gives him a bit of subterfuge, go take a heifer and say you’re going to offer a sacrifice and then invite the family of Jesse to come. And so they come and he looks on Eliab. And this is interesting. Here’s the prophet acting as a human being. His response when he sees Eliab is surely the Lord’s anointed is before me. Yeah, this is him. And the Lord’s response is great.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 27:55 But the Lord said unto Samuel, “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him, for the Lord seeth not as man seeth, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” There’s some great lines in these chapters, some of the finest in all of scripture. And so you have this review where he has him call the different sons, Abinadab and Shimeah, and seven of the sons. And he says, “Are these all the children you’ve got? I’ve looked at all of them and he is not here. This is not the Lord’s anointed.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 28:29 And he says, “Well, there’s one other, he’s out there, he’s keeping the sheep.” He didn’t even bother bringing him. And Samuel said unto Jesse, “Send and fetch him, for we will not sit down until he come here.” And of course that’s the one. And in verse 13, Samuel takes the horn of oil and anoints him in the midst of his brethren. And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. Samuel rose up and went to Ramah.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 28:52 Now it’s interesting that he doesn’t do it privately. He does it in the midst of David’s brethren, so there are witnesses. They can’t say later on that, well, it’s just David claiming this story. We don’t know that it really happened. There are witnesses. But it’s done more or less privately. So the spirit comes upon David, but the spirit in verse 14, departs from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord, it says in the King James troubled him.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 29:18 Now routinely, when it talks about an evil spirit from the Lord, the JST corrects this and says it was an evil spirit which was not of the Lord. Now I don’t know if the JST is offering us the original reading or whether it’s correcting an error in the original text, but it certainly is giving us to understand this evil spirit doesn’t come from God. And what it means that an evil spirit came upon him, I don’t know. It could be something given their attitudes as simple as depression or might be madness, I don’t know.

Hank Smith: 29:51 Spirit of contention, hatred.

John Bytheway: 29:54 I got a bad feeling about this.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 29:58 Yeah. And so this is not the Saul that we met in 1 Samuel 8, alas, Samuel said to him, “Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.” Or not from God. So go find somebody who’s a good player on the harp, the lyre. This is where David is introduced to Saul. One of the versions, it’s puzzling, I will admit. Sometimes you look as if you’ve got two different sources here kind of crammed together. It’s hard to tell because in the next chapter David’s introduced again. So how to reconcile that, I don’t quite know.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 30:29 But we do know that David is the harpist, the soloist, musically gifted, a poet, and he’s introduced that way here. When this evil spirit comes upon Saul, whatever it is, depression, anxiety, madness, something, it helps to have music played there. And we know that’s true. That’s actually clinically true that in some cases music can help people. I know in cases when people have suffered from dementia, Alzheimer’s, they can be agitated if you play a song they knew. They’ll remember the song, begin humming along with it. Or even in one case that I know a woman who had severe dementia could still play the piano and remember the old songs that she’d played for years.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 31:12 Music’s powerful and so it’s one of the ways we teach. And it’s one of the ways people internalize the gospel. Now there are a whole lot of songs out there where I think, well, if you start me on it, I can go pretty far before I lose the words. It’s amazing how much of this … any effort made to memorize it. I’ve memorized reams of song lyrics, which contain a lot of wholesome doctrine.

Hank Smith: 31:33 How coincidental that the same person they call up is the one the Lord has anointed as the next king.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 31:39 Yeah. He comes to Saul and stood before him and Saul loves him greatly and became his armor-bearer. That is David became Saul’s armor-bearer. And I think one of the things that we see about David is that, and his name has to do with being beloved. Everybody seems to like him, the early David, I mean, people fall in love with him. He’s lovable. But it does say that in verse 23, when the evil spirit from God or not from God as the Joseph Smith translation says was upon Saul, David took a harp and played with his hand. Saul was refreshed and was well and the evil spirit departed from him. Now we get into one of the most famous chapters in all of scripture. One that kids act out and so on all the time.

John Bytheway: 32:24 Do we have time for a dad joke, Hank?

Hank Smith: 32:27 Please. There’s always time for a dad joke.

John Bytheway: 32:30 Yeah. The harp said to the other harp, “You’re not a harp, you’re not big enough to be a harp.” And the other one said, “Are you calling me a lyre?”

Hank Smith: 32:40 Thank you, John.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 32:41 That’s good.

Hank Smith: 32:43 We needed that break before we met Goliath.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 32:47 The Philistines gather together their armies to battle and the two armies face off in the valley of Elah. And it’s a battle. Well, it’s not yet a battle between the Philistines and the Israelites. They’re on opposing mountains, looking across this valley. And now here’s the scary thing. There went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, verse four, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. That’s been estimated at about nine feet.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 33:14 Now, I don’t know if that’s exaggerated or not, but that’s huge. You can imagine somebody like that would terrify everybody. Heck he can reach out his arm and reach you and you’re not even close. And so he scares them to death and he comes out and he challenges them. He’s got this heavy armor, which they couldn’t even carry. The staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, it says. The spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. That’s pretty impressive. One burying a shield went before him. And then he challenges them.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 33:43 Verse eight, he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, “Why are ye, come out to set your battle in array. Am I not a Philistine? And ye servants to Saul. Remember that’s the phrase early on in first Samuel eight that they said that he’ll make you his servants. Well, he has, certainly in the eyes of Philistines, in the eyes of Goliath.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 34:02 You’re servants to Saul, choose you a man for you and let him come down to me. And then he lays out this idea that if the two of us fight and if he kills me, then we’ll be your servants, your slaves. But if I kill him, then you’ll be my servants or slaves or our servants or slaves.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 34:19 Now it actually was a common practice in some cultures to have single combat before a battle like this. And it was a way of saving lives I suppose, if you really bound yourselves by oath, we’ll risk everything on single combat. We’ll send our best warrior and you send out yours. And so the Philistine says, “I defy the armies of Israel to stay, give me a man that we may fight together.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 34:43 When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. And here again, they had wanted a king because the king was going to lead them, fight our battles. And because he was tall, he was head and shoulders above everybody else. But now he’s met somebody who’s easily head and shoulders and more above him. And this is terrifying. So if you put your trust in the arm of flesh, eventually somebody will come along with a more powerful arm.

Hank Smith: 35:11 Yeah. With more flesh.

John Bytheway: 35:14 Well put.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 35:17 They’re terrified and they’re just kind of immobilized there. No one dares to go up against him. Everybody knows, if I go up against him, I’m dead. And what’s more, if I’m killed, according to the terms of that agreement, then my people are enslaved, I can’t do this.

Hank Smith: 35:31 Right. I won’t win. Yeah.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 35:33 But the three eldest sons of Jesse are there and David is the youngest of them. He’s not there to battle. He’s too young according to this version. The three elders with Saul, but David would go back and forth. He’s taking care of the family’s sheep at Bethlehem, which is not terribly far away. And the Philistine every day would come out. It says he did it 40 days. Now, I don’t know if it’s literally 40 days or not, 40 days in the ancient Middle East and the medieval Middle East often meant a long time, lots of days.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 36:02 Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, 40 days in the wilderness, 40 days of rain, maybe literally 40 in every case, it might just mean a lot. Jesse says, “Take some food, find out what’s happening. Bring me a report and so on.” And you have this funny little family scene where one brother’s kind of mad at him. You’re just out here because you want to see the battle, young guy who just wants to get a thrill and see the battle.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 36:27 But David finds out there’s a promise made, there’s a dilemma. Will anybody go out and fight this Philistine? And David says, “Maybe I should do it.” And so Saul sends for him. And when they’re together in verse 32 and 33, David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”

Hank Smith: 36:45 David.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 36:46 This is an astonishing thing. David who’s apparently a kid, he’s a shepherd. And Saul said to David, “Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him, for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. He’s a professional soldier.” Now it’s interesting that in the previous chapter, David had been declared a mighty man of war. So there’s something garbled here I think in these chapters, that David might become a mighty man of war later, but he certainly isn’t when he first meets Saul at this battle, because everyone thinks and Goliath thinks too, are you mocking me? Seriously you send a shepherd kid out? Yeah. I mean, this is a joke, right? I’ll kill him. But this isn’t serious.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 37:27 And so he goes out eventually to fight. But there’s an interesting passage in the meantime. He says to Saul, “You think I can’t do this? Look, I trust in God.” Again, this is good David, early on, before he’s corrupted as Saul has been by the monarchy.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 37:44 Verse 37, the Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion. He tells these stories about the beasts he’s faced, when he’s been defending the sheep. And out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, “Go, and the Lord be with thee.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 37:59 It’s interesting to me that Saul is willing to put everything on this throw of the dice, but maybe he sensed something in David. David is so confident. The Lord may well be with him. This is not the kind of bet that a normal worldly person would make. I mean, you towed up all the factors and you think, not a chance. We’re not going to put the whole fate of Israel on a shepherd kid. But Saul says, “Okay, I guess you’re our guy.” And then he arms him. And I think this is kind of touching too. Versus 38 and 40, he arms him with his own armor. Shows he’s putting confidence in him.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 38:35 But David finally says, “I cannot go with these, I’ve not proved them.” Well, what does he mean? I’m not used to this stuff. I can’t fight with this. It’s too heavy. No, I’d rather go out without anything. He took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s bag which he had, even in a scrip. We use that term without purse or a script. This is kind of what it means, a bag. And his sling was in his hand, and he drew near to the Philistine.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 39:03 Now they’re not little stones. I’ve read some things where people have argued that they might have been roughly as big as a baseball or something. I mean, this is a serious sling. When you sling this at a bear or a lion, if you hit him, it’s going to do damage. I’ve had kids sling stones at me in Palestine, I hate to say it, but they have. But first of all, their aim is terrible, they never come close. Secondly, I think even if they hit me, I’m not sure it would do much, it’d sting a little bit. But this is a serious rock.

Hank Smith: 39:33 With a sling, Dan, you can get these things cooking.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 39:35 Yeah. You can. Somewhere I read years ago, I think if you’re good at it, you can get that rock going up to about a hundred miles an hour. That’s as fast as the fastest major league pitchers can hurdle a baseball.

John Bytheway: 39:49 You add to the length of your arm the length of the sling. And so yeah, you can really … I remember home teaching a guy back in the day and he pulled out some, I don’t know, scientific American magazine or something and showed me an article about these guys that could hurl rocks with slings. And it was fascinating how accurate, how fast, from long range gave me new respect for this story.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 40:12 Yeah. I mean, on one level it seems kind of ridiculous for a shepherd kid with a sling and some rocks to go out and face Goliath. But it’s not quite as ridiculous as it may seem. He’s pretty good with this I’m guessing. And if you’ve seen shepherds in places like the Middle East, mostly the day is nothing but boredom. Sheep aren’t doing anything. The sheep are just munching on the grass. And so a lot of time to sling stones and get pretty accurate at it. He’s confident. If he had gone out with the sword and the armor, he didn’t know how to use that.

John Bytheway: 40:42 Hand to hand combat.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 40:44 Never practiced that. So he wants to do what he’s good at. And it does show I think that people should go with their strengths, bring their strengths to the kingdom. I may be stretching on this point, but we’re good at some things, we’re not as good at others. We don’t have to be the other guy. We should bring what we have. That’s what David did. He didn’t allow himself to be made into something he wasn’t. He came as what he was.

Hank Smith: 41:08 John calls that dance with who brung you.

John Bytheway: 41:11 What got you to the finals? What got you to-

Hank Smith: 41:13 Just keep doing that.

John Bytheway: 41:14 … this place in the brackets, you dance with who brung you.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 41:18 Yeah. And you try to do something very different and you may lose all together, because just you’re not used to it, you don’t do this.

John Bytheway: 41:25 That’s a good point with David. He knew how to do this.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 41:27 When the Philistine looked about and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance. And the Philistine said unto David, “Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.” He’s a charming guy. But he doesn’t take this very seriously.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 41:54 He figures, okay, if they’re stupid enough to send you out, I’m going to kill you. No sentimentality here. But then this is another one of those great lines I think. David said to the Philistine, “Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield, but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 42:14 And I think, boy, this is the kind of thing. I love the defiance of it. Sometimes when I see enemies of the kingdom and so on, I think, well, you may have a lot of things going for you, but we come in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. And so in the end, we’re going to win.

John Bytheway: 42:31 What’s wonderful there is he’s not saying I’m really good with this sling. He’s talking about God and the Lord of hosts. Hosts meaning armies.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 42:41 And then he’s going to give all the glory to God. Verse 46, when I win all the earth will know that there is a God in Israel at the end of verse 46. And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands.

John Bytheway: 42:57 It’s very captain Moroni, he always gave credit to God when they were victorious and always took responsibility when they weren’t.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 43:05 Yeah. And the Lamanites will try to say, one commander says, “Oh, come on, we just know it’s your better armor.”

John Bytheway: 43:10 You just got better armor.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 43:13 Yeah. No, that’s not it.

John Bytheway: 43:14 We don’t need an SR-71. We don’t need Google Earth. We have a prophet. Alma, where should we go to defend ourselves?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 43:22 Yeah, kind of an advanced early warning system. Verse 48, so the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David, and then David hastened and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. There’s no hesitation here. He isn’t holding back. The Philistine advances, David runs toward him. And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 43:50 Now I remember many years ago, hearing president Marion G. Romney speak at BYU I think. He was telling this story. And I just remember just as an aside, he read this line, the stone sunk into his forehead and then he looked up and he said, “Nothing like this had ever entered Goliath’s mind before.” And he falls with his face to the earth. David prevails with a sling and a stone. And he goes up and he didn’t have a sword. So he runs up, he takes the Philistine sword, draws it out of the sheath and slays him and then takes his head.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 44:27 It’s an amazing story. And of course it makes David in a sense, it makes him famous. When Saul saw David go forth under the Philistines, he wants to know whose son it is. And he doesn’t know yet. This is part of the problem that I have where I think something’s garbled here because he already knows him. And he says, “Whose son art thou young man?” And David answered, “I’m the son of the servant, Jesse, the Bethlehemite.” But here’s where people begin to fall in love with him. Chapter 18, and we’ll go through this fairly quickly. There’s a lot of good stuff here.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 44:56 First of all, it tells how the crown prince, Saul’s own son just is smitten with David. And the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, verse one of chapter 18. And Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and would let him go no more home to his father’s house. I mean, even Saul is kind of taken with him at first. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him and gave it to David and his garments, even to his sword and to his bow and to his girdle. He’s almost declaring David the real heir. He’s giving him a lot of the royal apparel and so on. He may know the fact that it’s been predicted, he will not succeed to the throne and he recognizes David for who he is.

John Bytheway: 45:42 This brings up a question in my mind. And like you said, it’s a little garbled, but didn’t we just read, Saul, you’re no longer king. Or was that more of a prophecy or was that more of a, you’re going to dwindle in your kingshipness? What’s happening?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 45:57 He’s rejected as the divinely chosen king, but he lasts on as king for a little while longer.

John Bytheway: 46:02 Okay. You’ve lost divine favor. Samuel goes to find David. And then so the transition is a little slower than, okay, you’re defrocked or something like that.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 46:12 Now it goes on and eventually Saul and Jonathan both unfortunately are killed in battle. And even then, David has this really interesting attitude. He’s not happy about it. He reverences the anointing of the Lord. The Lord doesn’t just intervene and say, “Okay, here’s a heart attack, you’re gone.” But he’s deprived him of his favor.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 46:30 David went out wherever Saul sent him, and he was very effective. He was accepted in the sight of all the people. When David returns from one slaughter of the Philippines, the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing to meet king Saul with tabrets, with joy and with instruments of music. And this is what set Saul just mad. The women answered one another as they played and said, “Saul has slain his thousands and David his ten thousands.” Now it has to be said, this is the kind of parallelism that you sometimes see in semitic poetry.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 47:04 They weren’t necessarily saying that David is better, but that’s how Saul heard it. He goes berserk. Saul was very wroth it says. The saying displeased him. And he said, “They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands. What can he have more but the kingdom?” I mean, the guy is practically king already. And Saul eyed David from that day and forward. This is the terrible thing, uneasy the head that wears the crown. There’s always somebody trying to take it away from you.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 47:34 And Saul already knows by divine revelation that his throne is not safe. He’s very suspicious. But does he accept it as the will of the Lord? No, he doesn’t. He rebels against it. Just confirms the Lord’s choice. David is playing the harp at one point and Saul tries to kill him apparently twice. Now this may be madness. Who knows? But I’m saying something has gone off the rails here.

Hank Smith: 48:01 Such a sad story of Saul.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 48:03 Oh, it is. Unlike Job who says, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.” Saul rebels. He knows what the Lord has said, but he’s not going to make it easy. And he’s going to try to kill the Lord’s anointed, even when he knows who it is. Saul was afraid of David. He made him his captain. He sent him out to fight, probably hoping he’d be killed. And he says, “Okay. Now look, I’m supposed to give you my daughter to wife. I kind of promise that for killing Goliath.” But he decides I’m going to try to take him out.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 48:31 Verse 17, Saul said, “Let not mine hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him.” I’m going to keep exposing him to battle in such a way that eventually he dies. Now, the irony is that eventually this is the kind of thing David’s going to do with Uriah the Hittite. He will literally put Uriah in a situation where Uriah is bound to be killed, to cover up David’s sin with Bathsheba. I mean, there are foreshadowings here that are sad, but he doesn’t give the right daughter to David. He gives Michelle or Michal. She’s in love with David and Saul is pleased. He thinks, so I can use her to punish David. David acts the modest part. I can’t be the King’s son-in-law. I mean, look who I am, I’m just a humble guy. But Saul says, “No.”

Hank Smith: 49:17 Do you think that reminded Saul of himself? Who am I? And what is my life that I should be the son-in-law of the king? He’s like, “I used to sound like that.”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 49:28 Yeah. It might remind him of that. I used to be humble before I was great, but now I’m the king, boy. I demand adulation of the crowds and it’s all about me. And I think we’re seeing repetition of the story of Saul in a way. And I wish it ended a little better than it does. But this is again a warning to us, Saul and David were both the Lord’s choices and they both went wrong. And so we have to ask ourselves again, how am I doing?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 49:52 The scriptures are not meant to record the weaknesses of others so that we can gloat. They’re meant for us to look at them and say, “Hope I’m not doing this. What can I learn from this story?” Saul gives him a task, the bride price for his daughter. And it’s a pretty gruesome one by our standards. Verse 25, king says, “Look, I don’t need any dowry. Just bring me a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be advantage of the King’s enemies.” And the idea is Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines. Basically he’s telling him, “Bring me a hundred scalps.” That’s sort of the same thing.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 50:25 And so David goes out and kills 200 Philistines, brings him 200 trophies. He is given to wife Saul’s daughter. And that just makes Saul all the more afraid of him. He’s paranoid about him, that David just continues to grow. He does everything right. So far he’s on the trajectory that Saul once was. And that’s how the story ends as far as the chapters we read today, which is that Saul has been rejected of the Lord. And a new person has been found who will at least for a while follow after the way the Lord wants him to live.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 50:59 I just think these are such powerful human stories, tragic, tragic stories. There’s some doctrine in it, but it’s not mostly about doctrine. It’s about how we behave, how we obey the Lord and how we deal with the blessings the Lord has given us and who takes the credit for the blessings that we get and our achievements. And that’s relevant to every one of us in daily life. These stories are not just about a long ago time, they’re about us. If you don’t sometimes see yourself in Saul or David, or at least ask yourself whether you can, then you’re not reading it correctly in my view.

John Bytheway: 51:37 Somebody we’ve talked to in the past or maybe something I was reading, just kind of said they loved the Old Testament because it was a book of stories, it has so many stories. These are powerful, amazing, unforgettable stories. And sometimes they’re difficult stories to read. But I like, how are they dealing with God? How are they understanding the Lord’s will? How are they conducting themselves before the Lord? Are they staying humble? I guess that’s what we draw out.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 52:01 Hugh Nibley once, he described the scriptures as the field notes of the priesthood. And I think that’s a kind of interesting take on it. They’re the notes of people who tried to live the gospel sometimes well, sometimes badly, sometimes who forgot what they were supposed to be doing. But they’re the notes about people’s experiences with God, not just the priesthood. This is certainly true for women as well, for anybody who’s trying to keep covenants and so on.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 52:26 There are good examples and bad examples and examples that maybe hit a little too close to home for us. I love the Old Testament for the same reason that there’s just so much in it where I think, boy, I know a case like that, or I’ve seen something like that, that’s happened sort of in my case. I haven’t fought Goliath, but I know some of the issues that are going on here or interacting with someone who is trying to do you harm or where you’re trying to not take the credit for things that have gone well.

John Bytheway: 52:57 I think that Hanks mentioning President Benson’s Beware of Pride talk, we can either be humble or we can be compelled to be humble. Make your choice there.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 53:08 Yeah. In the end, every knee will bow. Now will bow willingly out of reverence or not.

John Bytheway: 53:17 But it will bow.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 53:17 But will bow.

John Bytheway: 53:20 Yeah. So that was helpful to me because I kept thinking, I thought Saul wasn’t the king anymore, but it was more of you’ve lost God’s favor. Now watch this slow transition take over. The prophet selected David, there’s a political ruler, a religious ruler maybe is a way to look at it. Is that fair?

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 53:41 Yeah. And to use language out of the New Testament, if Saul were speaking, if he were seeing clearly he’d say, “He must increase, but I must decrease from this point.” But it’s not going to be sudden. I have a testimony of the scriptures. I have a strong testimony. These stories are given to us, for us to learn from. And the lessons in them are almost infinitely rich. I mean, you can read the scriptures and see a different thing every time you read them. That’s true of all great books I think, is that you read them a second time, you think, wow, I didn’t understand it that way before. But it’s true in spades of the scriptures that they’re almost infinitely and exhaustively rich.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 54:23 And these stories, I think they meant something to me when I was a teenager and I read them. They mean something very different to me now. And depending on how much longer I live, they’ll mean something to me different again, based on my experiences and so on. I remember home teaching somebody many years ago when I was a kid and we were trying to get him to commit, he wasn’t active, but he had been. We were trying to get him to commit to read the scriptures and he said, “Oh, I read them.” I think, well, you don’t just-

John Bytheway: 54:52 I did.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 54:52 … read them and be done with it. I mean a simple story, you read it and you find out the butler did it. Okay, that’s all that was of any interest. And there’s no reason to ever read it again because you know. But a really great book, even a great novel, you read it again and you think, wow, okay, I understand that character a little differently than I did before.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 55:11 And I think the scriptures are so rich and they’re so profound. And that’s one of the reasons that I have a testimony of them, is that you can go back to them time and time again at different points in your life or different situations in your life. And they’ll mean something very different to you. I have an old set of scriptures that I had when I was a teenager. And I see the passages that I marked in those scriptures then, and they’re good passages. But I see that I passed over passages that now mean everything to me. They just sailed right over my head when I was 17 or 18 or something like that. And now they’re just anchors to me. And maybe my 90-year-old self will read them and say, “Wow, how come I didn’t notice that?”

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 55:57 I once heard Elder Packer say he’d been reading the Book of Mormon, but an issue had been on his mind this time. And he said he came through and he found a passage. I could testify almost that that verse was not in the Book of Mormon last time I read it. But this time it hit me. And so that’s part of my testimony. It’s a small part of my testimony, it was there nonetheless, the scriptures are true and the time spent in studying them and not just reading them, but pondering them and seeking to liken them unto ourselves is time well spent. There’s a treasure trove of wisdom as well as divine guidance and doctrine and everything else in them. I bear that testimony in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

John Bytheway: 56:39 Amen.

Hank Smith: 56:40 Amen. That was awesome. What a great day, John, we’ve had with-

John Bytheway: 56:45 Yeah, I could talk to Brother Peterson all day long. I have so much. I don’t know if you feel the same, but I could talk, you’re so much fun to talk to and joke with and enjoy this stuff. Please come back again.

Dr. Daniel Peterson: 56:57 Thanks for having me. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Hank Smith: 56:59 Dan Peterson is a friend of the FollowHIM podcast. We’ll see you again soon. We want to thank all of you for joining us. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen. And our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And to our production crew, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nelson, David Perry, Kyle Nelson, Will Stoughton and Scott Houston. We love you. Thank you. And we hope all of you will join us on our next episode of FollowHIM.