14. What paralleled Saul’s attempts to kill David, and Jonathan’s lovingly identifying himself with David?

¹⁴ Even as this Jonathan group was beginning to multiply into a great crowd, World War II burst forth, so that both the anointed and their companions were severely tested. Those were years of vicious persecution, often instigated by the clergy. This paralleled Saul’s attempts to slay the anointed David and, later, Jonathan when the latter lovingly identified himself with David.

16. (a) How did the clergy use two world wars to oppress Jehovah’s people? (b) In recent years, why can it be said that a modern-day Saul has persisted in hounding God’s people?

¹⁶ In 1918 the clergy used the war crisis to persuade the political powers in the United States to take action against the responsible officers of the Watch Tower Society and finally imprison them. (These Bible students were later completely exonerated.) During the second world war, Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned in the domain of the Axis powers and in most British Commonwealth countries, often as a result of religious pressure. For example, note the above facsimile of a letter written by the Archbishop of Sydney (later a cardinal) just prior to the banning of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Australia. When the ban was contested in the High Court of Australia, the trial judge, Mr. Justice Starke, described it as “arbitrary, capricious and oppressive.” The ban was removed on June 14, 1943, and the government was assessed damages. In more recent years, religious pressure on a number of governments in Africa and Asia has resulted in ruthless oppression of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Thus a modern-day Saul​—the clergy of Christendom—​has persisted in hounding God’s people.

And the modern-day Saul​—Christendom’s clergy—​may continue to make trouble for the David and Jonathan classes. (1 Samuel 20:32, 33) But “to Jehovah belongs the battle.”