The Writings · Psalms
Understanding David
The son who was not in the lineup
Seventy-three psalms carry his name. It is worth knowing something about the man, and the best place to start is the day a prophet came to his house and nobody thought to send for him.
Samuel goes to Bethlehem
Saul was still on the throne, and God had already finished with him. He sent the prophet Samuel out on an errand that could have got him killed:
The LORD asked Samuel, “How long are you going to mourn for Saul now that I have rejected him as king of Israel? Fill a flask with olive oil and go. I’m sending you to Jesse in Bethlehem because I’ve selected one of his sons to be king.”
I Samuel 16:1 · God’s Word
Samuel goes to Jesse’s hometown and asks him to bring out his sons. He is confident that when he is introduced to the right one, he will know.
He is wrong about that, and God tells him so at the first son, Eliab — the tall one, the obvious one:
Don’t look at his appearance or how tall he is, because I have rejected him. God does not see as humans see. Humans look at outward appearances, but the LORD looks into the heart.
I Samuel 16:7 · God’s Word
Seven sons are presented. Samuel knows it is none of them. And then comes the sentence this page is about:
“Are these all the sons you have?” “There’s still the youngest one,” Jesse answered. “He’s tending the sheep.” Samuel told Jesse, “Send someone to get him. We won’t continue until he gets here.”
I Samuel 16:11 · God’s Word
Why was he not there?
Read that slowly. A prophet of Israel has arrived in a small town, called for a sacrifice, and asked a father to produce his sons. Jesse produced seven of them. He did not produce David, and did not mention him, until he was asked a direct question.
Somebody had to go and get him. Everyone stood there and waited while they did.
There is a lot of speculation about why. The most common suggestion among scholars is that David was born to a woman who was not Jesse’s wife, which would have made him something of an outsider in his own family.
This study leans toward that reading, and here is the text it leans on. David says of himself, in Psalm 69:8: “I have become a stranger to my own brothers, a foreigner to my mother’s sons” — and the odd phrase there is my mother’s sons, where you would expect my father’s sons. Alongside it sits Psalm 51:5: “Indeed, I was born guilty. I was a sinner when my mother conceived me.”
Many sincere readers take both of those differently, and reasonably so. Psalm 69 may simply be describing the estrangement any hunted man feels from his family, and Psalm 51 is usually read as a statement about the human condition rather than about David’s own birth. Weigh it yourself.
But whatever the reason was, the fact stands on its own and does not need the theory. Jesse had to be prodded to include David. That is in the text, and nothing depends on knowing why.
Anointed, and then nothing
David is sent for. And God says what Samuel had been waiting to hear:
The LORD said, “Go ahead, anoint him. He is the one.” Samuel took the flask of olive oil and anointed David in the presence of his brothers. The LORD’s Spirit came over David and stayed with him from that day on.
I Samuel 16:12–13 · God’s Word
Anointed king, in front of the seven brothers who had been lined up ahead of him. And then he went back to the sheep.
Here is the part that gets skipped. David does not become king for well over a decade after that day. Scripture gives the ages:
David was 30 years old when he became king, and he ruled for 40 years. In Hebron he ruled Judah for seven years and six months. In Jerusalem he ruled for 33 years over all Israel and Judah.
II Samuel 5:4–5 · God’s Word
He was thirty when he became king over Judah, and it was another seven and a half years before he was king over the whole nation. The Bible does not give his age at the anointing, but he was young enough to be the one left with the flock — so the gap between the oil on his head and the crown on it was a very long time.
And he spent most of it running for his life. That is another study. But every one of those years is folded into what he later understood about the Lord as his Shepherd.
The cave, and who showed up
One scene is worth having in mind, because it tells you what kind of man came out the other side. Hunted by Saul, David hides in a cave at Adullam:
When his brothers and all the rest of his family heard about it, they went to him. Then everyone who was in trouble, in debt, or bitter about life joined him, and he became their commander. There were about four hundred men with him.
I Samuel 22:1–2 · God’s Word
The brothers who had stood in the lineup ahead of him now come out to him in a cave. And around him gathers every distressed, indebted and bitter man in the country — and he does not send them away. He becomes their commander.
The boy nobody sent for becomes the man the unwanted come to. That is not a coincidence of temperament. It is training.
Why this matters for reading the Psalms
None of the above is background colour. It is the reason the Psalms sound the way they do.
The man who wrote “the LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing” had been the family’s shepherd, and had been treated as though he lacked a good deal. The man who wrote “you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies” had eaten in caves. The man who could say “the LORD looks into the heart” heard it said about him, out loud, on the day everybody else was looking at his brothers.
And it explains something about the God he is describing. The Lord who guards sheep day and night is the same Lord who sent a prophet to a town and would not let the meal begin until the son nobody had counted was standing in the room.
Where to go from here
Read the text itself: I Samuel 16 in one sitting — the whole chapter, anointing and all. About six minutes.
Read next: Psalm 23 — The Lord, My Shepherd, which is this man at the end of it all, looking back.