Tag Archives: 1 Samuel 16-17

Bible Study

April 3, 2024 Bible Study — People Look at Outward Appearance, God Looks at the Heart

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

God sent Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesse’s sons as king to replace King Saul.  When Samuel saw Jesse’s eldest son, Eliab, he was sure that this was the man God had chosen.  Eliab was tall and handsome, the very picture of what we imagine a king to be.  But God told Samuel that Eliab was not whom He had chosen.  God does not look for the things in a leader for which people look.  We judge potential leaders on outward appearance, but God judges based on what is in their hearts.

The passage then goes on to two accounts about how David entered into King Saul’s service.  At first glance these two accounts seem to be in conflict.  However, I noticed in the second account it mentions that Jesse’s oldest three sons followed King Saul, but that David went back and firth between serving Saul and tending his father’s sheep.  That suggests that David was already in Saul’s service, but only on a part time basis, which would be consistent with the first account where David was only called to play for King Saul when an “evil (or harmful) spirit from the Lord came upon him.”  However, what I really want to focus on from this account is what it reveals about David’s heart.  When David heard Goliath’s challenge to the Israelites, his response was, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”  On several occasions in this account David repeats similar sentiments.  The capstone on understanding what in David’s heart led God to choose him as the one to succeed Saul as king over Israel when David confronted Goliath.  At that point David said, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty,…”  David was confident in his skills and abilities, but he knew in his heart that his success would only come from serving God.

 

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

Daily Bible Study

April 3, 2023 Bible Study — The Beginning Of David’s Career

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

Before today, I never really noticed that the elders of the town of Bethlehem trembled when Samuel first arrived there and asked him if he came in peace.  Samuel calmed their fears and invited them to a sacrifice.  I need to give some thought to whether the elders feared Samuel because of what he had done, or if they feared him because of his connection to King Saul.  The next thing which occurred to me is not something new, but worth mentioning now: The two books of Samuel (and most of the other “historical” books of the Old Testament) are compilations of accounts which had been passed down independent of one another.  The above is very clear in today’s passage.  Today’s passage contains three stories about the early years of David’s career.  First, there is the account of Samuel anointing David as king to replace King Saul.  Second, there is an account of how David entered Saul’s service as a musician.  Finally, there is the account of David and Goliath.

Now, because the accounts contained in today’s passage had been passed down as separate stories, there are some apparent conflicts between them.  First I want to look at Eliab’s (David’s eldest brother) reaction to David coming down to see the battle.  Eliab had been present when Samuel anointed David, but nevertheless he interpreted David’s asking about what reward Saul had offered for the man who defeated Goliath as David trying to stir up trouble (I will come back to this later).  The next, and biggest, conflict among these stories comes from the account of King Saul sending messengers to bring David into his service as a musician and then not recognizing him when he came forth to face Goliath.  This has always bothered me: how could King Saul not recognize David if David had been in his service playing music for him when he became agitated?  The answer came to me today.  Before the incident with Goliath, David would probably only be around Saul when Saul became agitated and someone called for him to play his lyre.  In fact, David probably did not spend much time in Gibeah, since his father lived less than a day away.

After Samuel anointed David, the passage says “from that day on, the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. ”  I think we see what the passage meant in the account later of David and Goliath, as much in what David said to the Israelite soldiers when he first saw Goliath come forth as in what he ultimately did that day.  David tried to encourage one of the soldiers to stand forth against Goliath in faith that God would be with them. “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”  When no one else would do so, David himself stood forth, trusting in God.  I believe that this was not the first time David had “stirred up trouble” by pushing people to act in faith.

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

Daily Bible Study

April 3, 2022 Bible Study — Examining Details Of David’s Early Career

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

We normally think of David’s father as being a man of no particular note.  However, reading between the lines a little bit in this passage, combined with some of the things we learn in later passages about David’s nephews, suggests that Jesse was a man of great prominence in the tribe of Judah.  In this passage we see that Samuel knew who Jesse was, and was worried that King Saul would quickly learn that he had gone to see him and anoint one of his sons.  Additionally, Jesse was an important enough person that the idea that Samuel would go to him to conduct a sacrifice was believable.

Then we have two stories which seem to describe different ways in which David entered into King Saul’s service.  While the two stories conflict with each other, they do not contradict each other.  If one realizes that the book we are reading is a compilation of oral traditions you realize that each story came from different oral traditions and each needed to end with David in King Saul’s service.  The first story explains how David came to play the lyre for King Saul, the second story explains how David came to be a war chief for King Saul.  I believe that David began playing the lyre to soothe King Saul before the Goliath incident, but did not fully enter into King Saul’s service until after the incident.  But since the oral tradition did not contain the account of David vs Goliath, it needed to explain David entering into long term service with King Saul and thus talks about David becoming Saul’s armor-bearer and then remaining in King Saul’s service.    For those who wonder about how an armor-bearer became a war chief, remember the account about Jonathan going up against the Philistine camp accompanied by just his armor-bearer.  Jonathan’s armor-bearer fought alongside him there.   As such, I am convinced that both stories took place, but that the part where King Saul made David one of his armor-bearers and took him permanently into his service took place after David defeated Goliath.

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

Daily Bible Study

April 3, 2021 Bible Study Trusting God Does Not Mean Not Planning

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

There is one aspect of the account of David and Goliath that I can not quite decipher.  The account reads to me as if David was trying to shame one of the warriors into fighting Goliath.  Certainly, the account makes it clear that his brother thought that was what he was doing.  Yet, as soon as he was brought before King Saul, he volunteered to fight Goliath himself.  The conclusion I have always reached is that David tried to instigate someone else in to fighting Goliath because, since he was not a member of King Saul’s army, he could not volunteer to do so himself.  Or, perhaps, he felt that, also since he was not a member of King Saul’s army, it would be inappropriate to volunteer himself.  In either case, that changed when King Saul summoned him to an audience.

What is clear from the account is that David did not believe it required a mighty warrior to defeat Goliath.  He was convinced that God would be on the side of whoever confronted Goliath on behalf of Israel.  David was cocky and arrogant, but he was not conceited.  He thought that, with God on his side, he could defeat Goliath, but he also thought that just about anybody else could do so, with the same qualifier.   And he was right.  The lesson here is not that David was a great hero of God, although he was.  David was confident that he could defeat Goliath because Goliath had defied God.  In the same way, we can be confident that we can defeat those who defy God today.

I want to make one more point about David’s confidence.  He was confident that he could defeat Goliath, but he did not depend on doing it with just one stone.  He prepared for the possibility that he might fail on his first attempt, or even on his second, third, or fourth attempt.  When David armed himself to go out against Goliath, he did not just grab one stone.  He gathered five stones.  David planned for this battle. He did not just stand there and sling a stone at Goliath.  He ran towards him.  As I read the story, I imagined David running towards Goliath with the intent of ducking and running past him if the first stone missed.  David had faith in God, but he also had a plan.

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

Daily Bible Study

April 3, 2020 Bible Study — Trusting the Lord Of Heaven’s Armies to Defeat Our Foes

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

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

If you read today’s passage as a single narrative told in chronological order (which is how we would do this today) there seems to be a contradiction about David’s introduction to King Saul’s court.  However, if you read these thinking of chapter 16 as an account about David from one person and chapter 17 as an account from another person.  The first person is telling about how David was anointed by Samuel and entered into King Saul’s court.  The second person is telling about how David defeated Goliath and thus became a warrior in King Saul’s army.

Each of these stories contain a valuable lesson for us.  In the account of Samuel anointing David when Samuel first saw David’s oldest brother Eliab, he thought him the very image of what a king should be, much as Saul had been the very image of what a king should be.  Eliab almost certainly had the command presence that many oldest sons have.  He expected people to do as he said, and as a result they usually did.  But God looks for more than that, and after King Saul Israel needed more than that.  In the second story we see what God saw in David.  In David’s confrontation with Goliath, Goliath began by trying to intimidate David.  Goliath was arrogant and sure of himself.  David was confident and sure of God.  In his reply to Goliath, David says, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies…” which is a precursor to what the prophet Zechariah says in Zechariah 4:6, “Not by force, nor by strength, buy by My Spirit says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”  David recognized two important truths.  First, Goliath was defying God, not merely David.  Second, David knew he would not defeat Goliath by his own strength or skill.  Let us also face our enemies in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, and trust Him to defeat them.

Daily Bible Study

April 3, 2019 Bible Study — Since God Judges By More Than Appearances, Why Did He Choose King Saul?

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

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.  

Daily Bible Study

April 3, 2018 Bible Study — David Vs. Goliath, Trusting God But Making a Plan

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

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

    When Samuel is led by God to anoint one of Jesse’s sons to succeed Saul as king over Israel, Samuel immediately concludes that Jesse’s eldest son, Eliab, must be the one God has chosen. Eliab was tall, handsome, and carried himself like a leader. By the way people judge things, Eliab had all of the traits of a leader. The passage does not say so explicitly, but every time I read this passage I feel like the writer tries to contrast David’s appearance to that of his older brother. Unlike his eldest brother, David was not the type that people just look at and think, “There’s a leader.”

    The story of how David came to play his harp to soothe Saul’s moods is placed here even though the account of Saul’s reaction to David after he defeats Goliath tells us that it must have come sometime later. Its placement here suggests that the Book of 1 Samuel was oral history before it was written down. The rest of the book just flows from the description of Goliath to the end with no place where explaining why David played his harp for Saul fits in without disrupting that flow, but we need to know this in order to understand the context when Saul first tries to kill David.

    Ordinarily I might stop at this point, but I took the day off today and the snow is preventing me from doing what I had planned, so I have time (reminder: I write these blogs the day before the date on them). I am glad I have the time because the story of David’s encounter with Goliath tells us a lot about David’s personality and character. When David’s father gave him supplies to take to his brothers with the army, David was hoping to see some excitement. However, the situation was kind of boring with the two armies camped facing each other and neither commander willing to move first. When Goliath came out to challenge the Israelites to send a champion to meet him, David saw his opportunity for excitement. He tried to egg one of the Israelite soldiers into going out to face Goliath. It might seem like David was being callous, trying to get someone to go out and get themselves killed for his entertainment. Certainly, his oldest brother Eliab saw it that way. The problem here was that the soldiers, including Eliab, had gotten locked into viewing Goliath’s challenge as soldiers. They looked at Goliath and thought of going out to fight him as soldiers, fighting him the way they would fight if the whole army went into battle. If they fought Goliath in that way, they did not stand a chance. If they fought Goliath that way, he would kill them before they could get close enough to hit him. David did not look at fighting Goliath that way.
    When David could not goad any of the soldiers into challenging Goliath, he volunteered to do it himself. We quickly see that Saul viewed Goliath’s challenge the same way that his men did. Saul did not see how David could possibly defeat Goliath, but Goliath’s daily challenge was bad for the morale of his troops, so he accepted David’s offer. Saul dressed David in his armor and gave him his sword. However, David already knew his strategy and quickly realized that he could not execute it dressed like that. David took the weapons he knew, his sling and his shepherd’s staff, and went out to fight Goliath. Goliath could no more imagine how David could defeat him than could the soldiers of Saul’s army. David realized two things that no one else there did.

  1. Goliath was not just challenging the men of the Israelite army, he was also challenging God
  2. Goliath was big and strong, but also, slow and lumbering

David was confident and sure that God was on his side, but he was not foolhardy. David had seen something which no one else had noticed. Goliath was the perfect killing machine by the technology of war for his day. But, as is often the case with cutting edge military technology, he had taken no thought to defending against low-tech weapons. Against spears, javelins, or bows, there were really only a few places where you could land a decisive shot, and those would require a good deal of luck. Further, an opponent would be unlikely to be able to get off more than one shot. However, David was not heavily armored, so he could easily stay out of Goliath’s reach, and a sling did not require as long to deliver a shot as a bow. Further, unlike a bow, a sling could deliver a decisive shot to the forehead. David was not foolhardy. While he believed that God was on his side and would make the difference in the fight, David did not count an being successful with his first shot. He chose five stone for his sling, even though, in the event, he only needed one.

Daily Bible Study

April 3, 2017 Bible Study — David and Goliath, a Study in Leadership

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

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

    Today’s passage contains three stories about the start of David’s rise to power: Samuel anointing David as future king, David entering Saul’s service as a harp player, and David defeating Goliath. I believe that these were three separate stories about David and by the time 1 Samuel was compiled, no one knew when they occurred in relation to each other. My suspicion is that the story about David becoming Saul’s harpist happened sometime after the Goliath story, but that the compiler put it before that because the stories he had about David and Saul from Goliath onward fit together and there was no good place to put in the story about David becoming Saul’s harpist. On the other hand, the story of Samuel anointing David could have happened before the rest, but may have happened sometime after the incident with Goliath. I have never heard anyone comment on one aspect of that story which I find interesting. Samuel never told Jesse or his sons, including David, that he was anointing David as the next king. All that they would have known was that God had chosen David for something. I want to also note that it was David’s eldest brother who looked like a king.

    There are a lot of things which can be taken from the story of David and Goliath. However, I want to look at what this story tells us about David as a future king. When David arrived at the army encampment, he rushed out to the ranks, ostensibly to greet his brothers, but I suspect in order to see the excitement. When he heard Goliath’s taunt, and the reward Saul had offered the man who defeated Goliath, David began trying to egg someone on to fight Goliath. I think David’s brother, Eliab, was right in his estimation of David’s motives, David wanted to see the battle. However, David was also convinced that whoever took on Goliath in the name of the God of Israel would be victorious. When it became clear that no one else was going to step forward to fight Goliath, David volunteered. At some point someone thought they were calling David’s bluff. I imagine that conversation went something like this.

 David: “Wow, that is a pretty impressive reward Saul is offering. You ought to go out and claim it. How can you lose? You would have God on your side!”

 Potential Champion: “Are you kidding me? Look at the size of the guy, his sword is bigger than you are.”

 David: “It does not matter how big he is, or how big his sword is. Remember what God did to the Egyptians? Or to the walls of Jericho? Don’t you remember the story of Gideon?”

 Potential Champion: “Well, if you think it’s so easy, why don’t you do it?”

 David: “OK”

David did not put himself forward as Israel’s and God’s champion against Goliath, he tried to encourage someone else to take the role. But when they tried to shut him up by pushing him forward, he stepped forward confidently. David did not seek a leadership role, but when one was thrust upon him, he accepted it willingly.

Daily Bible Study

April 3, 2016 Bible Study — God Has Already Given Us the Skills We Need to Face “Goliath”

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. I had been using One Year Bible Online, but it was time for a change.

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

    This passage shows us that the 1 Samuel is a compilation of stories from other sources. It recounts the story of David being summoned to play for Saul and becoming his armor bearer before the story of Goliath. Yet, in the Goliath story, Saul does not know who David is. Every time I read this story I am struck by how Eliab, David’s oldest brother, reacted to David asking questions about Goliath. I am the youngest of six children, so I think I understand why Eliab reacted the way he did. As the youngest, David had learned how to get what he wanted and Eliab thought David was trying to egg people on so he could see a battle. Eliab’s anger at David would have been well placed if he had been right about David’s motives. As it turns out, Eliab did not know his little brother quite as well as he thought. David was not trying to get someone else to challenge Goliath, or start a battle, so that he could watch. He was trying to get someone to ask him to fight Goliath (or at least give him the chance to do so). David knew that he could not just walk up to someone in authority and say that he would fight Goliath.

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    I want to spend a few moments examining why David saw that he could defeat Goliath, but no one else saw it as a possibility. Obviously, the first part of that came from David’s faith in God. That faith played the primary role in David’s success. However, there was one more thing that led to David’s success, one that we must keep in mind as we face our “Goliaths”. Everyone else allowed Goliath to define the terms of the confrontation. They saw Goliath out there with a sword, spear, and shield. They assumed that they had to meet him using those same items. When David realized that he could not fight Goliath with the armor and weapons of a warrior, he did not give up. Instead, he fell back on what he knew. His faith in God let him realize that he did not have to face Goliath as a warrior. God would use the skills which He had given David to show His might and power. God has given us the skills to face the challenges he sends our way. We cannot become trapped into thinking that because we do not have the skills others believe are needed that we cannot do that to which God has called us.