Mother’s curse at the court of King Saul in 1 Sam 20:30

Abstract

Jerome polarises or polemicises in verse 1 Sam 20:30 in two directions. He has King Saul super-ficially describe the relationship between his son Jonathan and the shepherd’s son David as love using the word diligere. A choice of words that is not compelling from the He-brew or Greek original. At the same time, however, the mother is cursed in strong, unique for-mulations. Thus, set in an inner tension, this verse raises the question: what impression of Je-rome’s image of man does his formulation leave here? The father curses the mother for the son’s behaviour. This astonishing conclusion allows us to draw further conclusions about the Hebrew and Greek texts and thus to interpret these verses as well. An exegetical track is thus laid via the clarification of semantic image fields. The relationship between the two men is in-terpreted as love and the mother is cursed for it, and both situations remain in unresolved ten-sion.