Verse of the Day — Monday, October 26, 2026
1 Samuel 18:3-4
1 Samuel 18:3-4. The Verse of the Day for Monday, October 26, 2026, with a short reflection.
Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him, and gave it to David… even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his sash.
1 Samuel 18:3-4
What this verse means
Jonathan, the son of King Saul and the heir to his throne, binds himself to David in a solemn covenant of friendship because he loves him as himself, and then hands David his own robe and weapons as a sign of that bond.
This moment comes right after David kills Goliath. Saul has just asked who this young shepherd is, and David is standing in front of the king, still holding the giant's head. Jonathan, Saul's oldest son, is listening, and the chapter says his soul was "knit" to David's, so that he loved him as his own life. Saul keeps David at court from that day on, and Jonathan does something more than admire him from a distance.
He makes a covenant with David. In that world a covenant was a serious, binding promise, often sealed before God, that tied two people or two families together with obligations on both sides. Friends could make one, and so could kings and nations. The word for "love" here also had a public side in those days, because treaties used it to describe loyalty between allies. So Jonathan's love is warm and personal, and it is also a pledge of faithfulness he means to keep.
Then, in the next verse, he takes off the robe he is wearing and gives it to David, along with his armor, his sword, his bow and his belt. That gift carries a lot of weight. Jonathan is the crown prince, the man everyone expects to be the next king, and his robe and weapons are signs of who he is and what he stands to inherit. A chapter earlier, Saul had dressed David in his own armor and David took it off because it didn't fit. Now the king's son freely puts his own gear on David, and it stays.
The rest of the story shows how much that gesture meant. Saul grows jealous and tries to kill David, but Jonathan keeps protecting him, and later he tells David plainly that David will be king over Israel and he will be second to him. So when Jonathan hands over his robe, he is giving David his friendship, his loyalty, and in a quiet way his own place in line, long before anyone else understands what God is doing with David.
