Day 82. 1 Samuel 16-17

Samuel the prophet must have been a formidable personage indeed, to make the elders of Bethlehem tremble when he appeared in their village (16:4). "Do you come peacefully?" they ask. "Peacefully," her replies, "I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. . . ." But his answer disguises his true reason in coming ---to anoint a successor to King Saul from among the sons of Jesse. Saul had been chosen in part because of his looks and physique. This time it is character and not appearance that will drive the choice--"The LORD looks at the heart," (16:7) God tells Samuel.
And on the basis of character all the sons of Jesse are rejected one by one. Finally only the youngest remains to be seen, "but he is keeping the sheep" (16:13). This is David, of course. In the Bible the LORD shows a decided preference for shepherds. Why? The solitude of their life brings them into close relationship with the divine. And the occupation of shepherding has much in common with the activity of the LORD himself. ("The LORD is my shepherd . . . ."--remember the metaphor drawn between the care of sheep and God's tender concern for his people in Psalm 23.)
So God selects David, the least of his brethren, and the shepherd boy is anointed with sacred oil. It is a ritual that is both symbolic of the LORD's choice and a real anointing with his spirit, which our text says, "came mightily upon David from that day forward" (16:13). The "spirit of the LORD" is hard to define, except to say that it is God's activity in the life of the individual; it corresponds to the divine choice of a particular person for a particular purpose. And it fills that person with energy and purpose.
But when God chooses David and sends him his enlivening spirit, at the same time he withdraws his spirit from Saul, and in its place the LORD sends "an evil spirit" to torment him (16:14). In the scriptures we frequently encounter "evil spirits" or "demons." Here the evil spirit comes "from the LORD" and it bears all the marks of what we would call depression. The king is oppressed by illusions of persecution—what we would call paranoia—which break out in violence.
The aging king feels alone because he is alone—the LORD has left him. David, on the other hand, because "the LORD is with him" (16:18), seems to possess the unique ability to inspire love and admiration. Initially he finds favor with Saul himself, and as the king sinks into isolation and madness, David grows in popularity with the people until we are told that "all Israel and Judah loved David" (18:16).
David's career begins with the slaying of Goliath, the Philistine champion, who stands ten feet tall (17:4). (You will remember that we have encountered stories about these "giants in the earth" in our readings many times before.) Goliath challenges the Israelites to single-handed combat (17:8)—a tradition of warfare in ancient times where two representatives of opposing armies fight it out hand to hand, winner take all.
The story of this lop-sided fight in which the old king (17:12) promises his daughter in marriage to anyone who can deliver his kingdom from peril (17:25) has a wonderful, fairy-tale quality. The boy David, armed only with his sling, his five smooth stones and his courage, is an attractive hero because he is so decidedly the underdog. Reading the story again you can readily understand why it is so beloved to generations of Sunday school children. Will the plucky lad succeed in killing the giant? It is a narrative filled with drama and suspense which still has the power to draw us in and make us identify with the boy David (17:40).
But beyond its inherent excitement, the story carries a deeper message about the nature of courage and faith (17: 37). This is not just a battle between a smart boy and a stupid giant; this is a battle between the LORD and the pagan gods of the Philistines (17:43-44). It is also a story about goodness and order overcoming evil and chaos. It is the struggle of a boy to become a man by overcoming a sub-human creature. The "uncircumcised Philistine" is compared an animal—a lion or a bear. And just as David slays lions and bears to protect his sheep (17:35-36), so he kills this sub-human monster to deliver the people whose king he will become. Goliath is a wild beast, driven by base instincts; but David is fully human because he surrendered himself to the will of God (17:37). It is a theme we have noted before—obedience to the LORD makes us truly human.
David—predictably—triumphs and leads Israel to victory, but "the battle is the LORD's" (17:47). The spirit of the LORD gives him the power to overcome impossible odds. And the message of the text is that obedience and faith always give the advantage to whoever possesses them—even to the weakest among us.