Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo

King Saul may well be the first record­ed men­tal health pa­tient of our times. Jeal­ousy is the trig­ger for Saul's malaise: a slip­ping in­to a state of mad­ness as record­ed nowhere else in the Bible among God's prophets and kings.David had come to fame by slay­ing Go­liath and was pre­sent­ed to Saul who was obliv­i­ous of his her­itage–that he was a shep­herd boy, the son of Jesse of Beth­le­hem, this same Jesse in the lin­eage of Je­sus Christ.Hav­ing slain Go­liath, David was giv­en greater ac­co­lades right be­fore Saul's eyes and Saul's heart burned with anger as the peo­ple sang, "Saul has slain his thou­sands but David his tens of thou­sands."

Saul's de­scent in­to mul­ti­ple spir­i­tu­al and men­tal health is­sues be­gins in 1 Samuel 18.The Bible says, "The next day an evil spir­it from God came force­ful­ly up­on Saul. He was proph­esy­ing in his house, while David was play­ing the harp as he usu­al­ly did. Saul had a spear in his hand and he hurled it say­ing to him­self, 'I'll pin David to the wall.' But David elud­ed him twice" (I Samuel 18:10-11; 19:9-10).Lat­er, David mar­ries Saul's daugh­ter and the Bible says, "When Saul re­alised that the Lord was with David and that his daugh­ter Michal loved David, Saul be­came still more afraid of him and he re­mained his en­e­my for the rest of his days" (vs 28-29). So, Saul con­tin­ues look­ing for op­por­tu­ni­ties to kill David.Saul in­structs his son Jonathan and all the at­ten­dants to kill David on sight. When Jonathan stood in David's de­fence Saul "hurled his spear at him to kill him." Ac­cus­ing him of con­spir­ing with David, Saul said "you son of a per­verse and re­bel­lious woman... you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the moth­er who bore you (20:30-31).

While pur­su­ing David, Saul is over­tak­en by the "Spir­it of God" and the ac­count says Saul "stripped off his robes and al­so proph­e­sied in (the prophet) Samuel's pres­ence. He lay that way all that day and night" (19:23).Is­rael's King, in a jeal­ous fit of rage chas­es David to kill him and is now ly­ing on the ground naked and writhing for a day and a night. What is that if not a de­scent in­to mad­ness? This con­duct ex­ceeds the usu­al af­flic­tions Saul had. He is now in a de­pres­sive state over­come by para­noia ly­ing naked be­fore God's prophet Samuel.One ex­po­si­tion on the sub­ject says, "Saul's be­hav­iour is so much like that of (some) peo­ple with a men­tal ill­ness that some in­ter­preters pro­pose a di­ag­no­sis, for in­stance: anx­i­ety dis­or­der fea­tur­ing pan­ic at­tacks, psy­chosis– ev­i­dent­ly, fits of de­pres­sion lat­er ac­com­pa­nied by para­noia, or per­haps man­ic de­pres­sion."

The Rev Michael A Tan­ner in his work, King Saul & The Stig­ma of Mad­ness con­tin­ues, say­ing, "Oth­er in­ter­preters (of Saul's ac­tions), while not at­tempt­ing a di­ag­no­sis, speak in terms of men­tal ill­ness, for ex­am­ple: mad­ness; dis­or­der; psy­cho­log­i­cal ill­ness; in­ward feel­ing of de­pres­sion, which grew in­to melan­choly, and ... pass­ing fits of in­san­i­ty; a gloomy, sus­pi­cious melan­choly, bor­der­ing on mad­ness; un­hinge­ment of mind; a men­tal ill­ness" (https://holy­comforter.epis­co­palat­lanta.org/).By 1 Samuel 22, King Saul lives aban­doned by God, fear­ful and sus­pi­cious, ob­sessed with mur­der­ous in­tent to­ward David and any who help him. He de­scends to his most vi­cious when, sup­pos­ing that some priests have con­spired with David against him, he or­ders the priests and their fam­i­lies killed.

Verse 17 says, "Then the king or­dered the guards at his side: 'Turn and kill the priests of the Lord, be­cause they too have sided with David. They knew he was flee­ing, yet they did not tell me'."

But the king's of­fi­cials were un­will­ing to strike the priests. Saul then or­dered a guard to strike down the priests. That day he killed 85 priests, the en­tire town of the priests, with its men and women, its chil­dren and in­fants, and its cat­tle, don­keys and sheep, in his quest to kill David.Just for his pop­u­lar­i­ty, David, a loy­al son-in-law, cap­tain of Saul's body­guard, and high­ly re­spect­ed in Saul's house­hold was hunt­ed down. He had op­por­tu­ni­ty to kill Saul but nev­er laid a hand on him, all the while hop­ing for con­cil­i­a­tion.On two sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions when David con­front­ed Saul about his un­jus­ti­fied con­duct, Saul burst in­to tears and apol­o­gised pro­fuse­ly. These hys­ter­ics were swift­ly fol­lowed by the con­tin­u­a­tion of his cam­paign to kill David.

What is that con­duct if not one of bipo­lar­ism, schiz­o­phre­nia, or some per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­der? Be­liev­ing that some­one was out to kill him, Saul moved from un­found­ed sus­pi­cious, re­lent­less at­tacks, dra­mat­ic mood swings, sad­ness, all reek­ing of para­noia!Yet, this all came af­ter God had threat­ened the dis­obe­di­ent Is­raelites from Mt Ebel with in­san­i­ty if they sinned against him: "The Lord will smite you with mad­ness, blind­ness and with be­wil­der­ment of heart" (Deut 28:27-29), a scrip­ture con­ve­nient­ly not seen by church­es that avoid the men­tal ill­ness is­sue at all cost.