Jacob noticed that Laban’s attitude toward him was not what it had been. Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”…If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night he rebuked you. –Genesis 31:2-3, 42

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…Saul told his son Jonathan and all the attendants to kill David. But Jonathan had taken a great liking to David and warned him, “My father Saul is looking for a chance to kill you. Be on your guard tomorrow morning; go into hiding and stay there. I will go out and stand with my father in the field where you are. I’ll speak to him about you and will tell you what I find out.”…That night David made good his escape…When David had fled and made his escape, he went to Samuel at Ramah and told him all that Saul had done to him. Then he and Samuel went to Naioth and stayed there. –1 Samuel 18:10-11; 19:1-3, 10, 18

—

“LABAN.” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. “In Ge 24:1-67, however, Laban is perhaps more prominent than even such custom can explain (compare Ge 24:31,50,55), and we are led to see in him already the same forcefulness and egotism that are abundantly shown in the stories from his later life. The man’s eager hospitality (verse 31), coming immediately after his mental inventory of the gifts bestowed by the visitor upon his sister (24:30), has usually, and justly, been regarded as a proof of the same greed that is his most conspicuous characteristic in the subsequent chapters…The nearer related to Laban such figures are, the more conspicuously, as is fitting, do they exhibit Laban’s mingled cunning, resourcefulness, greed and self-complacency (smug, arrogant, overly pleased with oneself, self-centered).” LABAN WAS A DECEITFUL BUSINESSMAN.

“JACOB,” 3.2. International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. “Although much of Israel’s history can be summed up in the rivalry of Leah and Rachel–Judah and Joseph–yet it was not Jacob’s choice but Laban’s fraud that introduced this cause of schism. At the end of his 7 years’ labor Jacob received as wife not Rachel but Leah, on the belated plea that to give the younger daughter before the elder was not the custom of the country. This was the first of the “ten times” that Laban “changed the wages” of Jacob (Ge 31:7,41). Rachel became Jacob’s wife 7 days after Leah, and for this second wife he “served 7 other years.”…Jacob’s years of service for his wives were followed by 6 years of service rendered for a stipulated wage. Laban’s cunning in limiting the amount of this wage in a variety of ways was matched by Jacob’s cunning in devising means to overreach his uncle, so that the penniless wanderer of 20 years before becomes the wealthy proprietor of countless cattle and of the hosts of slaves necessary for their care (Ge 32:10). At the same time the apology of Jacob for his conduct during this entire period of residence in Haran is spirited (Ge 31:36-42); it is apparently unanswerable by Laban (Ge 31:43); and it is confirmed, both by the evident concurrence of Leah and Rachel (Ge 31:14-16), and by indications in the narrative that the justice (not merely the partiality) of God gave to each party his due recompense: to Jacob the rich returns of skillful, patient industry; to Laban rebuke and warning (Ge 31:5-13,24,29,42)…The manner of Jacob’s departure from Haran was determined by the strained relations between his uncle and himself. His motive in going, however, is represented as being fundamentally the desire to terminate an absence from his father’s country that had already grown too long (Ge 31:30; compare Ge 30:25)–a desire which in fact presented itself to him in the form of a revelation of God’s own purpose and command (Ge 31:3).”

“SAUL.” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. “Whether Saul actually discovered that David had been anointed by Samuel or not, he soon saw in him his rival and inevitable successor, and he would hardly have been human if he had not felt envious of him. His dislike of David had two motives. The first was jealousy, because the women preferred the military genius of David to his own (1Sa 18:7 f). His consequent attempt upon the life of David (1Sa 18:8-11) is omitted in the Septuagint. Not least was the love of his own daughter for David (1Sa 18:20; in 1Sa 18:28 read with Septuagint “all Israel”). The second cause was his natural objection to see his son Jonathan supplanted in his rights to the throne, an objection which was aggravated by the devotion of that son to his own rival (1Sa 20:30)…Saul could not believe that David could remain loyal to him (1Sa 24:9); at the first favorable opportunity he would turn upon him, hurl him from the throne, and exterminate his whole house. In these circumstances, it was his first interest to get rid of him. His first attempt to do so (omitting with Septuagint 1 Sam 18:8b-11) was to encourage him to make raids on the Philistines in the hope that these might kill him (1Sa 18:21 ff); his next, assassination by one of his servants (1Sa 19:1), and then by his own hand (1Sa 19:9 f). When David was compelled to fly, the quarrel turned to civil war. The superstitious fear of hurting the chosen of Yahweh had given place to blind rage. Those who sheltered the fugitive, even priests, were slaughtered (1Sa 22:17 ff). From one spot to another David was hunted, as he says, like a partridge (1Sa 26:20)…He was always at one extreme. His hatred of David was only equal to his affection for him at first (1Sa 18:2). His pusillanimity led him to commit crimes which his own judgment would have forbidden (1Sa 22:17). Like most beaten persons, he became suspicious of everyone (1Sa 22:7 f), and, like those who are easily led, he soon found his evil genius (1Sa 22:9,18,22). Saul’s inability to act alone appears from the fact that he never engaged in single combat, so far as we know. Before he could act at all his fury or his pity had to be roused to boiling-point (1Sa 11:6). His mind was peculiarly subject to external influences, so that he was now respectable man of the world, now a prophet (1Sa 10:11; 19:24).” SAUL WAS A POWER HUNGRY MADMAN.

Dr. Susan Forward, Toxic Parents, ch. 3. Bantam Books, 1989.

Thomas Watson, The Ten Commandments, 2.5. Banner of Truth, 1965.