Did David and Jonathan Have a Homosexual Relationship?

People ask this question due to David’s grieving words over his friend Jonathan:

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;

you were very dear to me.

Your love for me was wonderful,

more wonderful than that of women.

2 Samuel 1:26

The nature of their relationship was close friends and not homosexual. How do we know this for sure? Because homosexuality was expressly forbidden by the Mosaic Law (Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13) and David is described in the Bible as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14 & Acts 13:22), which explains why the LORD specifically chose him to replace Saul as King of Israel.

Secondly, the Scriptures never describe their relationship in terms of “sleeping together,” as is the case when David committed adultery with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:4), which you can read details about here. Nor is their any reference to the two “knowing” each other in a sexual sense (Genesis 4:1, Genesis 19:5 & Judges 19:22). Scripture interprets Scripture is a hermeneutical rule in “rightly dividing” the Word of God (2 Timothy 2:15).

As such, David and Jonathan’s relationship was a platonic friendship of exceptional loyalty and commitment, which was rare amongst males in that culture and even rarer between males and females (although Solomon’s Song of Songs certainly shows the ideal). In that day, men in the Near East often viewed women as inferiors and considered wives as their possessions. (That said, the great Deborah led Israel for four decades politically, spiritually, militarily and judicially, as disclosed in Judges 4, and this was according to God’s will, as observed by Judges 2:16 & Acts 13:20).

Jonathan loved David as himself, sharing his personal possessions, such as his tunic, robe, bow and sword, which were valuable property to a military man (1 Samuel 18:1-4). Their covenant of loyal friendship was evident when Jonathan had to defend David from his own father, King Saul, who was hellbent on murdering David (1 Samuel 19:4-7).

All of this helps us properly interpret David’s grieving words over Jonathan in 2 Samuel 1:26.

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