51 pages • 1 hour read
Gene EdwardsA Tale of Three Kings: A Study of Brokenness
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1980A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
The Prologue is prefaced by a brief opening section in which the book’s narrator welcomes the reader to a theatrical drama. (Both the narrator and the reader serve as characters within the book and only loosely correlate with the identities of the author and the person who is actually reading the book.) The reader is urged to take a seat near the stage and to observe the play as it unfolds; it will cover the biblical stories of Saul, David, and Absalom: “The story is a portrait (you might prefer to call it a rough charcoal sketch) of submission and authority within the kingdom of God” (xvi).
With the Prologue section complete, the story opens with a scene in heaven in which God commands the archangel Gabriel to take two portions of divine being and give one to each of two unborn destinies. The first portion is identified as a gift of power: “With this, the divine breath, you will have his power—power to subdue armies, shame the enemies of God, and accomplish his work on the earth” (xvii-xviii). This gift of power, it is noted, will relate only to the outer life of the person; it does not touch the inner life. A person’s character will not be refined by holding this portion, but their character will be revealed by it. One of the two unborn destinies (apparently corresponding with Saul) steps forward and claims this portion.
The second portion is not called a gift but an inheritance, and it works on the inner person, growing in one’s character. Gabriel identifies it as a glorious inheritance, but it comes with a warning:
[It is] the only element in the universe that can change the human heart. Yet even this element of God cannot accomplish its task nor grow and fill [one’s] entire inner being unless it is compounded well. It must be mixed lavishly with pain, sorrow, and crushing (xviii-xix).
The second destiny (corresponding with David) receives this portion. Gabriel informs another angel that these two destinies will both go on to become kings.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
The first chapter opens with the second of the two kings—David—introduced as a young man at work as a shepherd before his anointing and rise begins. David is the youngest son in his family, with seven older brothers, and so he is given shepherding as the lowest-status work in the family. Shepherding fits his nature, though, and he spends his time in the fields with just a sling for protection and a harp for making music. The idyllic nature of the scene is belied, however, by the depiction of David’s loneliness and emotional anguish: “[…] the young man became very lonely. The feeling of friendlessness that always roamed inside him was magnified. He often cried” (4).
David uses his harp as an emotional outlet, and his songs connect him to his faith in God. He sings ancestral songs and makes up his own as well, which serve as a means of worship:
While he sang he wept, and while weeping he often broke out in abandoned praise—until mountains in distant places lifted up his praise and tears and passed them on to higher mountains, until they eventually reached the ears of God (4).
On one occasion, after defending a lamb from an onrushing bear, he breaks out into a new song expressing his trust in God, one that will be remembered as Psalm 23: “[The angels] became custodians of this wondrous song and passed it on as healing balm to brokenhearted men and women in every age to come” (5).
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
One of David’s brothers comes running out to the fields where David is shepherding, urging him to race back to the house to meet a visiting sage who asked to see him. The sage is the prophet and judge of Israel, Samuel, whom God sent to anoint David as the future king of Israel in judgment against the disobedience King Saul shows:
God had taken a house-to-house survey of the whole kingdom in search of someone special. […] the Lord God Almighty had found that this leather-lunged troubadour loved his Lord with a purer heart than anyone else on all the sacred soil of Israel (8).
As Samuel pours oil on David’s head, the young man realizes with shock that he is being given a ritual only administered to those called to rule.
The narrator then addresses the reader to balance expectations at this point in the story. Rather than seeing the anointing as a day of honor and high expectations, one should see it as the beginning of a road of suffering:
[…] do you find it strange that this remarkable event led the young man not to the throne but to a decade of hellish agony and suffering? On that day, David was enrolled, not into the lineage of royalty but into the school of brokenness (8).
The chapter ends with a brief mention of David’s famous victory over the giant Goliath, which leads to a new position in King Saul’s own household, “in the palace of a mad king” (9).
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
David now lives and works in King Saul’s palace, serving by playing his harp and singing, which alleviates some of Saul’s anxiety and rage. David’s singing, however, only makes him all the more popular in the royal court, to King Saul’s growing resentment: “Saul felt threatened by David, as kings often do when there is a popular, promising young man beneath them. The king also knew, as did David, that this boy just might have his job some day” (11). With Saul’s growing suspicion of David, the younger man is caught in an uncomfortable position but has no intention of seizing power by treason or force. Rather, he is content to wait for God’s timing, aware that his own path to kingship might be one that is marked more by submission than by claiming authority: “He seemed to understand something that few of the wisest men of his day understood. […] God did not have—but wanted very much to have—men and women who would live in pain. God wanted a broken vessel” (12).
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
While the previous chapter focused on David’s understanding of his situation in Saul’s household, this chapter delves more deeply into Saul’s mindset. Rather than viewing the kingship as an office that is God’s to give or take, Saul views the kingship as belonging to himself, and so anyone else who might threaten that status is regarded as a personal enemy: “Saul did not understand, it seems, that God should be left to decide what kingdoms survive which threats. Not knowing this, Saul did what all mad kings do. He threw spears at David” (13). The narrator then addresses the reader again, making a connection between Saul’s state and that of the reader’s own spiritual leader (pastor, priest, etc.). The narrator raises the question of whether Saul remains God’s anointed leader in that situation, despite his reprehensible behavior, and then applies the same question to the reader’s spiritual leader, assuming the reader’s leader is male: “And what about your king? Is he the Lord’s anointed? Maybe he is. Maybe he isn’t. No one can ever really know for sure” (13).
Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 4 Analysis
This first section, composed of the Prologue and the first four chapters, shows the way that Edwards builds his narrative with brief chapters (often only one or two pages) to provide a theatrical dimension to the story. Each chapter represents a different scene, and they switch quickly to give the story a sense of movement and of David’s rapid growth, with snapshots of his childhood all the way to his young adulthood. In fact, David’s narrative arc begins even before David’s birth, with the Prologue’s heavenly scene that references David’s “unborn destiny.” That scene sets the stage for later developments, setting up the contrast between two kinds of inner character (Saul’s and David’s) and hinting at the central role that suffering will play in David’s life. This begins a thematic focus on Brokenness as a Godly Virtue, which is seen in the suffering endured in young David’s loneliness and from the growing hostility he receives from King Saul. David’s beginning as a leader is brokenness and submission.
This section also introduces all three of the novel’s main symbols and motifs. The motif of the theater opens the story in the Prologue’s prefatory material when the narrator invites the reader to take a seat and prepare to watch the show. The theatrical nature of the story is then shown in scenes that are brief, chronologically varied, and widely ranging in location. Further, the theatrical motif is seen in the narrator’s reflections on the spiritual meaning of the story (as, for example, in Chapter 4), which are interspersed throughout the book and which in some cases include sections of dialogue with the reader. The passive nature of an audience member observing a performance also speaks to the book’s themes. The reader must passively watch what will occur, just as, in the book’s argument, the reader should passively watch God’s will. Since the reader does not know what will come next, their role emphasizes The Difficulty of Knowing the Will of God.
The symbol of anointing appears early in the story, with the account of David’s anointing at the hands of the old sage (the prophet Samuel) who comes to see his family. This leads directly into the account of David’s rise to public prominence and his placement in Saul’s royal household. In the story’s allegorical application, anointing refers to the calling and empowerment by God for ministry leadership, and the story of David opens the door for reflection on the question of what a community ought to do if it has more than one potential leader who can claim an anointing. This ties directly into the dual themes of Leadership and the Call of God and The Difficulty of Knowing the Will of God. These themes are tied up with the symbol of anointing in the exploration of whether it is possible to know if an apparent Saul-figure is really God’s anointed leader or not. Leadership in God’s kingdom is the prerogative of God to give or take, but the narrator suggests that it is nearly impossible to know for sure whether one’s own leader is actually someone to whom God has given that anointing. One must watch and wait for Leadership and the Call of God, knowing that God’s calling on Saul-figures is also necessary.
The symbol of the spear also receives its introduction in this section, with Chapter 4’s statement that Saul began throwing spears at David. As later chapters will elucidate, this action is not merely part of David’s story but also an important element in the allegory of A Tale of Three Kings. “Throwing spears” is characterized in this section as the action that power-hungry and paranoid leaders undertake when they are trying to defend their sense of aggrieved authority. It is an action of will, of attempting to alter the course of God’s plan, and it is thus characteristic of flawed leadership.
