Friendship, a covenant, romance – no matter what you call it, David’s love for Jonathan is one of the Bible’s most beautiful

By Jacob F. Love, Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Tennessee

For the idea of love, biblical Hebrew has precious few synonyms. Yet the Hebrew of the Bible can communicate a rich sensation of love: the love of a man for a woman, the love of any human being for their fellow human, the love of Israel for Israel’s God, and the love of God for all people.

As a religion scholar, however, I believe one of the greatest loves in the Bible is a story of friendship: the intense devotion between the warrior Jonathan and David, who later became king of Israel and Judah. For many readers,…

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