04.16. 1 Samuel 16
1 Samuel 16:1-23, 1 Samuel 17:1-58, 1 Samuel 18:1-30, 1 Samuel 19:1-24, 1 Samuel 20:1-42, 1 Samuel 21:1-15, 1 Samuel 22:1-23, 1 Samuel 23:1-29, 1 Samuel 24:1-22, 1 Samuel 25:1-44, 1 Samuel 26:1-25, 1 Samuel 27:1-12, 1 Samuel 28:1-25, 1 Samuel 29:1-11, 1 Samuel 30:1-31, 1 Samuel 31:1-13 DAVID, THE KING ACCORDING TO GRACE 1 Samuel 16:1-23
Here the history of the true king according to God begins, the history of the king according to the flesh having been virtually terminated by his conclusive rejection.
1 Samuel 16:1-23, as we shall see, gives us a general idea of David’s position before coming to the throne. But first of all, we will consider certain details which are very important for us of Samuel’s character. When it is a question of human thoughts, even those of a judge and prophet, we find that they are no better than those of any other man. The Word affords us many examples of this. Here the question is not one of positive failures, but by his manner of thinking Samuel betrays a state that is not one of true communion with God. After Saul has been rejected Samuel continues to mourn for him to the point that God must reprove him: “How long wilt thou mourn for Saul?” (1 Samuel 16:1). Then instead of rejoicing that God has “provided [Himself] a king,” he responds: “How shall I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me” (1 Samuel 16:2). How shall I go? - when it is God Himself telling him to go! Was it not likewise with God’s servant Moses (Exodus 4:1-31) who, faced with the Lord’s commands, raised objections based in appearance on humility (Exodus 3:11), on distrust of men (1 Samuel 4:1) and of himself (1 Samuel 4:10), but which, in short, beneath an admirable outward appearance hid unbelief and the mistrust of the natural heart?
Finally in 1 Samuel 16:6, seeing Eliab, Jesse’s first-born, he says: “Surely Jehovah’s anointed is before Him” (1 Samuel 16:6). Even this man of God is judging according to outward appearance, and God is obliged to reprove him, saying: “For it is not as man seeth; for man looketh upon the outward appearance, but Jehovah looketh upon the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). Samuel thus was here judging as a man, and his discernment was given over to the same outward qualities that Saul had possessed. With touching grace God condescends to reprove and instruct His servant on all these points. And so in the end faith predominates: “Samuel did what Jehovah said,” and went ahead, counting on God’s word to direct him. Once he had learned that the Lord looks at the heart, he proves himself faithful and his communion with the Lord is manifest, for he immediately judges that “Neither has Jehovah chosen” the other sons whom Jesse, their father, made to pass before the prophet. At last he anoints the only one of them whom the Lord had chosen. Once in the path of God, Samuel no longer fears. Whereas the elders of Bethlehem “trembled at his coming,” he who beforehand had trembled now reassures them.
David appears on the scene. His character is remarkable from the beginning of his career. Forgotten of his father, who does not remember him except at Samuel’s pressing request; despised of his brothers, of whom the eldest even taxes him with “pride” and “naughtiness of heart” when the Spirit of God is stirring him to action (1 Samuel 17:28); and lastly, unknown to Saul, to whom his qualities are revealed (1 Samuel 16:18), who loves him greatly (1 Samuel 16:21) because of his goodness and because of the care with which he surrounds Saul, but who forgets his origin so completely that he later asks Abner whose son he is (1 Samuel 17:55). Such was David’s character in terms of his relationships. In appearance outwardly he “was ruddy, and of a lovely countenance and beautiful” (1 Samuel 16:12). This world offers different types of beauty. Saul was “choice and comely; and there was not among the children of Israel a comelier person than he.” Eliab also had a handsome appearance that captivated Samuel’s eyes, but such beauty alone is of no value except in men’s eyes. There is another kind of beauty that may be joined with outward beauty in men of faith, but that God esteems as being the refection of character: the beauty of a pure soul or of simple faith, the outshining of a heart from which evil and sin are excluded, of a guileless heart. This is the beauty of the little child Moses of whom the Word says: He “was exceedingly lovely,” literally, “fair to God” (Acts 7:20). This is the beauty of Joseph, “of a beautiful form and of a beautiful countenance,” but a Nazarite among his brothers (Genesis 39:6); this is the beauty of Daniel (Daniel 1:4), humbly cleaving to his God in order to guard himself from the world’s defilement; and lastly, this is the beauty of David developed in the wilderness by the pastures for the sheep where in secret he experienced the strength and the glory of His God. But what is this moral beauty added to physical beauty, and yet always incomplete, in the presence of Christ’s beauty? He had no form nor comeliness, His visage was marred more than any man, but all the moral glory that filled Him shone upon His face and shed light all about Him. Grace was poured into His lips, and so it is said of Him: “Thou art fairer than the sons of men … therefore God hath blessed Thee for ever” (Psalms 45:2). In all these men of faith, as in their perfect Model, true beauty is in reality nothing other than the shining forth of grace. David is the king according to grace and his name means “Beloved.” This character necessarily makes him a suffering man, an afflicted man here on earth, a true type of the Savior. But the one who knows Jesus finds in Him not only the perfection of the Humble Man and of the Man of Sorrows, but also other character traits, and primarily the beauty of strength. Like David, to his friends “a valiant man” (1 Samuel 16:18), the Lord is for His own the One who calms the sea and the storm, before whose majesty His enemies recoil and fall backward; who says, “I will,” and the thing is done; who binds the strong man and through His miracles spoils him of his goods.
Like David, He is “a man of war,” and if it is true that He will come to Zion, lowly as in former days and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass (Zechariah 9:9), it is just as true that He will gird His sword upon His thigh, a valiant Man, in His majesty and splendor, and that His right hand shall teach Him terrible things (Psalms 45:3-4), that He will sit as Overcomer on a white horse, followed by the armies of heaven, smiting the nations with the two-edged sword going forth from His mouth (Revelation 19:11-16).
Like David again, He is “prudent in matters” (1 Samuel 16:18 KJV), for “God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power” (Acts 10:38), and “the Spirit of Jehovah rest[s] upon Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah” (Isaiah 11:2).
Lastly, as “Jehovah [was] with him,” with how much more reason is He with Christ. Yes, indeed, “God was with Him” (Acts 10:38).
God’s providence brings David to the king’s court, but before he reigns his faith must be put to the test by all manner of sufferings. He must be the dependent man, the humbled man, despised, hated, persecuted; in the midst of this life of renouncements and strife he will experience that his God is sufficient for everything. Thus the Lord’s anointed will be tried for many long years in order to manifest to the eyes of the people all the qualities of grace that constitute, according to God’s mind, David’s rights to Israel’s throne and to glory. This grace triumphs in his feelings toward Saul, his relentless enemy.
Hardly is David called to the throne but what Saul’s moral condition changes completely. Until that day the Spirit of God had been with the king according to the flesh, and this explains each of Saul’s successes against the enemies of Israel. Now the Spirit of the Lord comes upon David (1 Samuel 16:13) and departs from Saul, who is left in the power of “an evil spirit from Jehovah” (1 Samuel 16:14). This is a judgment from God, a chastisement upon the king who becomes henceforth in this history that which he had not been previously: a type of the Antichrist. At the same time God demonstrates that His Spirit alone is capable of raising and dispelling the evil spirit, when David takes a harp and plays with his hand before Saul.