When last we left Saul, he was lying naked in the street giving praise to God as opposed to committing cold-blooded murder of an innocent man, while said innocent man David was asking his friend Johnathan if he had any idea why his dad Saul wanted to have his head mounted on a wall plaque.
Johnathan was in kinda-sorta denial mode in response, which is kinda fair, we are talking about a friend being forced to choose his friend over his father here. David asked Johnathan to cover for him while he found a better place to hide, basically telling his dad "David went back to his hometown of Bethlehem for an annual feast, wanted me to pass the word along.", and depending on whether Saul shrugged his shoulders or went ballistic, that would give David a good idea whether he needed to find a really good rock and stay under it or if whatever drove Saul nuts would eventually blow over.
Johnathan was a tad reluctant to straight-up lie to his own father, so he proposed David hide nearby in the fields while he did a Gideon style "give me a sign" kind of test to get answers from God instead. The test was basically Johnathan was going to shoot near a rock at one point on the third day with a servant nearby to collect the arrow as if done for target practice. If the arrows were found on one side of the rock, then that was a sign Saul would get over himself. If they were on the other side, then David needed to keep running.
Long story short, the arrows all wound up on the other side, and Johnathan got his answer from God: David and he couldn't be seen together for however long Saul wanted his best friend dead.
Around the same time, he decided to meet David halfway and gave his dad David's cover story because he was pretty sure either way, David needed some time away from Saul until things blew over and/or needed more time to figure out where a better hiding spot would be.
This is how that played out:
[24] So David hid in the field. When the new moon came, the king sat down to eat his meal. [25] The king sat down in his usual place by the wall, with Jonathan opposite him and Abner at his side. But David's place was vacant. [26] However, Saul said nothing about it that day, for he thought, "Something has happened to make him ceremonially unclean. Yes, he must be unclean." [27] But the next morning, the second day of the new moon, David's place was still vacant. So Saul said to his son Jonathan, "Why has Jesse's son not come to the meal yesterday or today?" [28] Jonathan replied to Saul, "David urgently requested that he be allowed to go to Bethlehem. [29] He said, 'Permit me to go, for we are having a family sacrifice in the city, and my brother urged me to be there. So now, if I have found favor with you, let me go to see my brothers.' For that reason he has not come to the king's table." [30] Saul became angry with Jonathan and said to him, "You stupid traitor! Don't I realize that to your own disgrace and to the disgrace of your mother's nakedness you have chosen this son of Jesse? [31] For as long as this son of Jesse is alive on the earth, you and your kingdom will not be established. Now, send some men and bring him to me. For he is as good as dead!" [32] Jonathan responded to his father Saul, "Why should he be put to death? What has he done?" [33] Then Saul threw his spear at Jonathan in order to strike him down. So Jonathan was convinced that his father had decided to kill David. [34] Jonathan got up from the table enraged. He did not eat any food on that second day of the new moon, for he was upset that his father had humiliated David.
(I Samuel 20:24-34 [NETfree])
Um, yikes, let's unpack this:
1. Saul initially writes off David being absent as ceremonial uncleanliness, which would account for at least one day of absence, shrugs his shoulders.
2. Second day is when that doesn't make sense. He asks his son if he knows, Johnathan gives David's canned excuse.
3. Saul calls his son's mother a dirty whore and calls his own son a traitor over something that in no way implicates Johnathan of anything treasonous, then tells Johnathan he will never succeed his dad as King until David's head is on a pike.
4. Johnathan understandably wants to know David's death-worthy offense.
5. Saul tries to murder his own son for asking a perfectly reasonable question of legal importance.
tl;dr: Johnathan now had more than enough proof his dad would not stop until his best friend was murdered simply because Saul hated him.
It's at this point the writing was spelled out on asbestos paper and signed in blood:
David was a dead man walking until Saul gave up his hate or died.
With this, both David and Johnathan said their final goodbyes, but not before both made a very important pledge to each other:
Neither would allow the descendants of the other to die by the other's hand, they would enjoy the protection of each other's families and God was to be witness to that.
Before I close this post out, I just want to stop for a minute so we can appreciate this: Two good friends have been torn apart because of the murderous, petty grudge the father of one of them has, but both pledge neither of them will harm the descendants of the other regardless because unlike Saul, they refused to let hatred consume them as it did Saul.
Despite all the evil Saul did, it only steeled David and Johnathan in their zeal to not fall prey to the same petty hatred that made Saul want to destroy an innocent man out of petty, depraved spite.
That's something I think we should all emulate in the face of the evil of others, no matter how monstrous.
P.S. - David did his noble best to go out of his way to keep that promise he made to Johnathan whenever possible, long after the latter died. Some examples include:
A. Some idiot once bragged he killed Saul and thought David would be pleased. David had the man executed on the spot for murdering the Lord's anointed.
B. Two more idiots later murdered a son of Saul who was a rival to David in his home, cut off his head, and tried to give it David as a gift. David had both killed in response to the crime of murdering an innocent man. He even extended the same honor to his former commander Abner, who stood by Saul's family even after David became King, and gave his former commander a state funeral and apologized on behalf of all Israel that he had been murdered by treachery by officers under David's own command during what should have been peace talks.
C. Despite most kings making a habit of killing all potential rivals from the former king's family, David refused to do so. He even took in a crippled son of Johnathan and gave him his personal protection and a seat at his table for life.
D. One time David did NOT spare the lives of Saul when he was later King in his own right, but he legally had no choice. Saul had once killed people to whom the Israelites swore an oath of protection, and since Saul was dead, someone had to pay for his crime, and the law then allowed for the family of the deceased to be killed to pay for the offense, so David allowed for that to happen because he had no legal choice to prevent it and his own oath to Johnathan did not override his greater oath to the laws of the state.
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