II Samuel 1:5 And David said unto the young man that told him, How knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan his son be dead?
Assumptions of a Liar
No one lies in order to get into trouble. When a person lies he does it to get out of trouble or to get something good that he wishes to have. In II Samuel 1, we find a liar who made a lie in order to get something he wished to have. It is the story of the man who gave David the news that Saul was dead. Saul had been fighting with the Philistines, and the Bible tells us earlier that Saul had killed himself.
I don’t know how this man came across this news, but he came to give David the news. David said unto the young man, “How knowest thou that Saul and Jonathan his son be dead?” The answer the young man gave was not the truth. It was a lie. He told David that he came across a wounded Saul, that Saul had asked him to kill him, and that he had complied. Now if he had not really killed Saul, why do you suppose he told David that he had?
The Bible gives no commentary on this, but I think it’s quite obvious. He wished to gain some reward from David. He would have assumed that David would be happy that the man that had pursued his life was gone, that he was now free to be the king of Israel, and would probably reward the messenger of such news, especially if he was the man who had killed Saul. If that’s what this messenger thought, he was sorely mistaken. The Bible says that David mourned, and then he had this man killed for hurting God’s anointed.
The fabrication that this man thought would bring him good brought him death. There is a reason for that. A liar lies to himself first. He thinks that what he can get from falsehood is greater than what he can get from the truth. The problem with this is that a liar assumes that he has command of all the facts he is trifling with. This man’s lie turned out to be to his detriment. The truth was actually safer than a falsehood.
Whatever the truth may get you, the truth will get you the blessing of God. Don’t worry about what other people may know. Just give the truth. The truth is always simple as opposed to the complexity of lies, and the truth always has God’s blessing.