Pictures of Devotion

Devotion manifests itself in different ways, but few are as profound or elicit such emotion as images, mental or real, of the bereft. Consider a devoted pet or a mother like Rizpah.

Hawkeye padded softly down the aisle to the flag-draped casket and began his vigil beside the body of his 35-year-old master. Petty Officer Jon Tumilson, a Navy SEAL, was killed in action along with 29 others when their helicopter was shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

News outlets around the world ran the poignant photo of Tumilson’s chocolate labrador lying on his side, muzzle pointed toward his fallen master’s body during the funeral proceedings—devotion and loss captured in one still frame.

Thousands of people have since visited various social network pages honoring the Navy SEAL, leaving condolences for his family and asking what will become of his faithful friend.

A picture complete

Much has happened since the story first broke. Hawkeye’s master has been afforded the proper honors for a fallen warrior and now rests in a cemetery in his hometown of Rockford, Iowa. Hawkeye himself was willed to his master’s friend, the one who took care of him whenever Petty Officer Tumilson was deployed. He now enjoys the companionship of a loving family.

One last tribute

It seems Hawkeye has an additional duty to perform. Tumilson enjoyed football, and this November Hawkeye is slated to pay one last tribute, not only to him, but to others who lost their lives.

According to the Associated Press, “The dog who touched hearts all over the world by lying next to the casket of a slain Navy SEAL earlier this month might lead the Iowa Hawkeyes onto the field during a game this season.” Reports are that the University of Iowa’s athletics department will honor Jon Tumilson at one of two home games in November as part of a commemoration of Veteran’s Day.

Flashback

As I followed this story, I found myself remembering another touching example of devotion, but this time, that of a mother found in the pages of the Bible. Her name is Rizpah.

Setting the scene

Rizpah spread sackcloth on a rock and sat, a solitary sentinel guarding the ignominious remains of her two sons and five grandsons of the slain King Saul. There they were, conspicuous, on the hill where they had been hanged by the Gibeonites, carrion for the ever-circling vultures and cowardly scavengers. Only she, Saul’s concubine, would keep them at bay.

The back story

How had it come to this? She remembered her happiness—and the king’s—each time she presented him with a son, first Armoni, then Mephibosheth (not to be confused with Jonathan’s son by the same name). She was a lesser wife, true, but her sons were full heirs and could have inherited the throne one day.

Then those wretched Philistines had defeated Israel in a battle and killed her husband and three of his sons as they tried to escape. She shuddered to think of it—slain by the enemy and with no decent burial place as befitted the house of a king.

Now her own sons hung shamefully in open view, with no prospects of a proper burial place either.

A complicated man

Her husband, King Saul, had been a complicated man. She well knew that, and she also knew he had made some serious mistakes. One had brought this curse from God, not only on the land, but on his very own family.

Sorrowfully she must have puzzled, What had he been thinking? What had made him want to rid Israel of the Gibeonites—to the point of killing them—after Joshua had made a covenant before God to let them live peaceably among them (Joshua 9)?

An unnatural disaster

When Israel found itself suffering through three years of drought, King David needed to know why. When he asked, God did not equivocate: “It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites” (2 Samuel 21:1). David learned also that a blood-price must be paid—the blood of the seven men whose bodies were now decaying before her eyes.

So there she sat until, at last, life-giving rain came, the first hopeful sign that God’s anger was abating.

Welcome relief

When King David heard of Rizpah’s vigil, he gathered the bones of those slain of the household of Saul, her sons’ included, and buried them in the tomb of Kish, their patriarch.

Her sons were finally where they rightfully belonged, entombed with their father the king. At last she could be at peace.

The bigger picture

Rizpah’s devotion led to David’s action of mercy and remembrance toward the house of Saul, which in turn brought God’s blessing back on the nation of Israel.

Karen Meeker has long been intrigued and inspired by Rizpah’s tragic, bittersweet story.

To learn more of the fascinating life of Rizpah, see 2 Samuel 3 and 21:1-14.

Related links:

• They Did What They Could
• The Peace of Knowing