David - 1st Samuel 16:6-23

At this event or sacrifice or dinner afterward, I’m not sure which, Samuel is looking at all of Jesse’s sons because he knows that one of them is supposed to be the new king but there’s a lot of sons there, so he’s trying to figure out which one. Samuel looks at the first son Eliab and just knew that he was the right one. He was the first born, tall, good looking, Samuel thought for sure he was the one God had chosen, but then God makes a statement demonstrating a very important gospel principle, “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; ;for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” I remember asking this very question when I was like 13 years old, I was thinking about something about how God knows us or what was important to Him, and my answer was “I look at the heart.” So imagine my surprise and delight when I heard this truth taught from God’s own mouth in the scriptures later. It was an important foundation for me to start building a testimony on, that God could not be manipulated to think that I was a bad person or that I was something terrible because He knew me and who I really was. I guess I had never worked out why that was a pivotal teaching for me at that point, but it really was and I guess that’s why. Even Samuel was susceptible to being persuaded by someone’s physical characteristics in choosing a leader.

The new king wasn’t Jesse’s oldest boy, so Samuel watches as all the rest of Jesse’s sons come around to be introduced to Samuel and none of them are the new king either. It’s important to note that no one besides Samuel knows what’s going on here, none of the sons know they are being evaluated for kingship, I bet that would have been a different encounter, although in verse 10 Samuel tells Jesse “the Lord hath not chosen these.” So maybe they did know that God’s favor was at least being discussed. None of the sons of Jesse have been chosen by God to be the new king, so Samuel asks Jesse if he has any more sons, and Jesse says that he does have the youngest out tending the sheep and Samuel asks him to fetch him, so he does and when this youngest boy comes in the Lord tells Samuel “Arise, anoint him: for this is he.” This youngest son is David, and it’s noted that David is “ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to.” David is a good-looking guy too, so Jesse must have had good genes. Samuel takes the horn of oil and anoints David in front of all his brothers. TB notes, “there is no indication that David or his brothers or even his father had any idea what the anointing consecrated David FOR. And as we think about the circumstances and move forward in the story I suspect that only Samuel knew what had actually transpired.” The Spirit of God came upon David right after that anointing “from that day forward.”

Meanwhile, “the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.” This seems like one of those instances where we have to think “does God send u s evil spirits?” We know that sometimes God can send anxiety to someone to ensure a specific outcome like in those battle instances, we know that God can harden people’s hearts to ensure certain outcomes, so is it possible that God sent Saul an evil spirit to effect a certain situation? It’s possible, but it also seems more likely to me that Saul was constantly rejecting God and His Spirit and His prophet and His counsel and therefore letting the evil spirit into his life himself and was being tormented because of the evil that was accompanying his own choices. The JST changes verse 14 to “an evil spirit which was not of the Lord troubled him,” clarifying that this was indeed the case of Saul not doing what he was supposed to be doing and inviting evil into his life himself.

This evil persona that was overcoming Saul was noticeable to pretty much everyone and even his servants were nervous around him and were looking for solutions. The solution that they present to Saul was to find a skilled harp player so come and sooth him with music when he got agitated, makes sense to me. It just so happened that one of the servants knows someone who is really good who he described as, “a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the Lord it with him.” This man was David. Now imagine the type of string pulling that had to go into getting all the pieces just right so that David could be introduced to Saul and become his music player. The servant had to have known David pretty well, he would have had to know that David played the harp well, David would have had to play the harp well, the servant would have had to get the job in Saul’s court in the first place. All these factors had to be in place for this specific circumstance to play out, to get David into Saul’s court.

The plan worked, when Saul was overcome by his “evil spirit,” David played the harp and Saul was soothed “and the evil spirit departed from him.” Perhaps it’s wasn’t the playing that got rid of the evil spirit, maybe it was the Spirit of God that came to the palace with David that repelled the evil spirit. Maybe what was attributed to an “evil spirit” was actual Saul’s slow descent into madness caused by his rejection of God. Hard to know which one, but either way, David showing up with God’s Sprit worked and Saul felt better.