I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 16-17.

Today’s passage contains two separate stories about how David began his progression to kingship.  While there is no good way to reconcile the two stories into one, they do not contradict each other.  In both stories, David starts out as the insignificant youngest son of Jesse.  In the first story, God tells Samuel to go and anoint one of Jesse’s sons as the successor to Saul because God had rejected Saul’s kingship.  Samuel does this secretively because Saul would have killed him, and whoever Samuel anointed, if he found out.   When Samuel sees Jesse’s oldest son, Eliab, he thinks he has the look of a king, but God tells him, “Not this one.”  This tells me that Eliab had the same characteristics which led Samuel to select Saul as Israel’s first king.   But God wanted more from the next king of Israel.

The lesson to be learned from this, which the author tells us was God’s message to Samuel,  people judge by appearances, but there are more important things than appearance.  God does not see things the way we see things, so we need to listen closely to God when making important decisions about people.  We can only see how people look, and what they do, God knows why they made the choices they made.  Which brings us to a question this passage always leaves me with: since God can see beyond appearances, why did He choose Saul as Israel’s first king?  I can see, using 20/20 hindsight, how Saul’s behaviors before he became king led him to make the tragic mistakes he made as king, surely God could see that as well?  I can think of two possible answers to why God selected Saul.  The first one is that the people of Israel needed to see for themselves why a king like Saul was a mistake.  The second is related to the first.  The people of Israel would not have united behind a king like David if they had not first united behind a king like Saul.  I do not know that either of these is correct.  Perhaps God had an entirely different reason for selecting Saul.

I was going to skip over the story of King Saul’s tormenting spirit, but I decided it was worth closer examination.  I am convinced that King Saul suffered from depression and fear because he had chosen to reject God and thus been rejected by God.    This leads me to a conclusion where I want to tread carefully.  Depression results from not putting our full faith and trust in God.  The reason I want to be careful here is because I do not want to say that Christians will not suffer from depression.  We see that King Saul’s depression came about after he repeatedly made “pragmatic” decisions which went against what God had directed him to do.  King Saul continued to trust his own judgment on the correct action to take rather than turning to God for answers.  The story tells us that music eased King Saul’s depression and fear, at least at first.  Here’s the thing, even after suffering this depression, King Saul never turned to God and sought His forgiveness.  He did not seek an answer from God to relieve his distress.  He merely found something which ameliorated his distress and went on doing whatever he thought best.  So, if you suffer depression, go ahead and find the things which will ameliorate your distress, but then cry out to God, confess your sins, and seek His guidance on what actions you should take.