The son of Obed, and father of David - - derived from Jesh, to be. (Ruth 4: 17.) He is memorable in the genealogies of the Lord Jesus Christ. (See Matt. i, 5.)
See DAVID and See RUTH.
Jes´se (firm), a descendant of Obed, the son of Boaz and Ruth. He was the father of eight sons from the youngest of whom, David, is reflected all the distinction which belongs to the name. He seems to have been a person of some note and substance at Bethlehem, his property being chiefly in sheep. It would seem, from 1Sa 16:10, that he must have been aware of the high destinies which awaited his son; but it is doubtful if he ever lived to see them realized. The last historical mention of Jesse is in relation to the asylum which David procured for him with the king of Moab (1Sa 22:3).
Son of Obed and father of David. He was a grandson of Ruth the Moabitess, and in he native land he found an asylum while David was most in danger from the jealous pursuit of Saul, Rth 4:17 1Sa 16:1-23 17:12 22:3 Mat 1:5 .\par
Jes’se. (wealthy). The father of David, was the son of Obed, who again, was the fruit of the union of Boaz, and the Moabitess Ruth. His great-grandmother was Rahab, the Canaanite, of Jericho. Mat 1:5. Jesse’s genealogy is twice given in full, in the Old Testament, namely, Rth 4:18-22, and 1Ch 2:5-12.
He is commonly designated as "Jesse, the Bethlehemite," 1Sa 16:1; 1Sa 16:18; 1Sa 17:58, but his full title is "the Ephrathite, of Bethlehem Judah." 1Sa 17:12. He is an "old man" when we first meet with him, 1Sa 17:12, with eight sons, 1Sa 16:10; 1Sa 17:12, residing at Bethlehem. 1Sa 16:4-5.
Jesse’s wealth seems to have consisted of a flock of sheep and goats, which were under the care of David. 1Sa 16:11; 1Sa 17:34-35. After David’s rupture with Saul, he took his father and his mother into the country of Moab, and deposited them with the king, and there they disappear from our view, in the records of Scripture. (B.C. 1068-61). Who the wife of Jesse was, we are not told.
Obed’s son, father of David; sprung from the Moabitess Ruth and the Canaanite Rahab of Jericho; and from Nahshon, at the Exodus chief of Judah, and so from the great house of Pharez, through Hezron. His designation "the Ephrathite of Bethlehem Judah" (1Sa 17:12) implies that he was of a very old family in the place. He was elderly and had eight sons when we first read of him. The Targum on 2Sa 21:19 makes him a weaver of veils for the sanctuary. (On his removal to Moab in David’s flight from Saul see DAVID, also see ABIGAIL on Jesse’s connection with her and Joab, Abishai and Asahel, and Zeruiah.) His own name is immortalized, probably because of his faith in the coming Messiah, "the rod out of the stem (stump) of Jesse" even long after David had eclipsed him (Isa 11:1; Isa 11:10), expressing the depressed state of David’s royal line when Messiah was to be born of it (Luke 2).
Jesse (jĕs’se), wealthy. The father of David, the son of Obed, and grandson of Boaz and the Moabitess Ruth. He was also a descendant of Rahab the Canaanite, of Jericho. Mat 1:5. Jesse’s genealogy is twice given in full in the Old Testament, viz., Rth 4:18-22 and 1Ch 2:5-12. He is commonly designated as "Jesse, the Bethlehemite," 1Sa 16:1; 1Sa 16:18; 1Sa 17:58; but his full title is "the Ephrathite of Bethlehem Judah." 1Sa 17:12. He was an "old man" when noticed in 1Sa 17:12, with eight sons, 1Sa 16:10; 1Sa 17:12, residing at Bethlehem. 1Sa 16:4-5. Jesse’s wealth seems to have consisted of sheep and goats, which were under the care of David. 1Sa 16:11; 1Sa 17:34-35. After David was compelled to leave the court of Saul, he took his father and his mother into the country of Moab, and there they disappear from the records of Scripture, b.c. 1068-61.
[Jes’se]
Son of Obed, a Bethlehemite, and father of David. Little is recorded of Jesse, but his name constantly occurs in the description of David as ’the son of Jesse.’ Rth 4:17; Rth 4:22; 1Sa 16:1-22; 1Sa 17:12-20; 1Sa 17:58; Psa 72:20; Mat 1:5-6; Luk 3:32. The Lord Jesus is referred to as a branch and a root of Jesse. Isa 11:1; Isa 11:10: cf. Rev 22:16.
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By: Emil G. Hirsch, Bernhard Pick
Father of David, son of Obed, and grandson of Boaz and Ruth. He is called "the Bethlehemite" (I Sam. xvi. 1, 18; xvii. 58) and "the Ephrathite of Bethlehem" (ib. xvii. 12). He had eight sons (ib. xvi. 10, 11; xvii. 12), although in I Chron. ii. 13-15 only seven are mentioned. He was a person of wealth, his property being chiefly in sheep (I Sam. xvi. 1, 11; xvii. 20; comp. Ps. lxxviii. 71).
Jesse's name stands out preeminently as that of the father of David, who is called "the son of Jesse"; and though this expression was used during David's lifetime and even afterward as a term of contempt—so by Saul (I Sam. xx. 27, 30, 31; xxii. 7, 8), by Doeg (ib. xxii. 9), by Nabal (ib. xxv. 10), by Sheba (II Sam. xx. 1), and by the Ten Tribes (I Kings xii. 16; II Chron. x. 16)—Isaiah the prophet connects with the "stem of Jesse" (Isa. xi. 1) and "root of Jesse" (ib. xi. 10) one of his sublimest Messianic prophecies. As Jesse was "an old man in the days of Saul" (I Sam. xvii. 12), it is doubtful whether he lived to see his son king. The last historical mention of Jesse is in I Sam. xxii. 3, where it is stated that David entrusted his father and his mother to the care of the King of Moab; but, as may be inferred from ib. xxxii. 4, this was only temporary.
JESSE (more correctly Jishai, cf., as regards formation, Ittai; perhaps an abbreviated form; the meaning of the name is quite uncertain).—A Bethlehemite, best known as the father of David. The earliest historical mention of him (1Sa 17:12; see David, § 1) represents him as already an old man. On this occasion he sends David to the Israelite camp with provisions for his brothers; this was destined to be a long separation between Jesse and his son, for after David’s victory over the Philistine giant he entered definitely into Saul’s service. There are two other accounts, each of which purports to mention Jesse for the first time: 1Sa 16:1 ff., in which Samuel is sent to Bethlehem to anoint David; and 1Sa 16:18, in which Jesse’s son is sent for to play the harp before Saul. Nothing further is heard of Jesse until we read of him and his ‘house’ coming to David in the ‘cave’ of Adullam; David then brings his father and mother to Mizpeh of Moab, and entrusts them to the care of the king of Moab (1Sa 22:3-4). This is the last we hear of him. In Isa 11:1 the ‘stock of Jesse’ is mentioned as that from which the Messiah is to issue; the thought probably being that of the humble descent of the Messiah as contrasted with His glorious Kingdom which is to be.
W. O. E. Oesterley.
(meaning uncertain; rich; powerful; my present)
Grandson of Booz and Ruth, father of King David. Jesse of the tribe of Juda, lived at Bethlehem (Ruth 4). He was an old man, when Samuel came to Bethlehem to anoint David, the new King of Israel (1 Kings 16). In the time of Saul, the family of Jesse occupied a humble condition; for David calls himself poor and unimportant (1 Kings 18). As descendant of David the Messias is called the "root of Jesse" (Isaias 11).
(1) In 1Sa 16:1-13, where Jesse is called the Bethlehemite. Samuel is sent to seek among Jesse’s sons successor to Saul.
Both Samuel and Jesse fail to discern at first Yahweh’s choice, Samuel thinking that it would be the eldest son (1Sa 16:6), while Jesse had not thought it worth while to call the youngest to the feast (1Sa 16:11).
(2) (a) In 1Sa 16:14-23, Saul is mentally disturbed, and is advised to get a harpist. David “the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite” is recommended by a courtier, and Saul sends to Jesse for David.
“And Jesse took ten loaves (so emend and translate, and not as the Revised Version (British and American), “an ass laden with bread”), and a (skin) bottle of wine, and a kid, and sent them” to Saul as a present with David, who becomes a courtier of Saul’s with his father’s consent.
(b) The next mention of Jesse is in three contemptuous references by Saul to David as “the son of Jesse” in 1Sa 20:27, 1Sa 20:30, 1Sa 20:31, part of the quarrel-scene between Saul and Jonathan. (But it is not quite certain if 1 Sam 20 belongs to the same source as 1Sa 16:14-23.) In answer to the first reference, Jonathan calls his friend “David,” and Saul repeats the phrase “the son of Jesse,” abusing Jonathan personally (1Sa 20:30, where the meaning is uncertain). The reference to David as “the son of Jesse” here and in the following verse is contemptuous, not because of any reproach that might attach itself to Jesse, but, as Budde remarks, because “an upstart is always contemptuously referred to under his father’s name” in courts and society. History repeats itself!
(c) Further references of a like kind are in the passage, 1 Sam 22:6-23, namely, in 1Sa 22:7, 1Sa 22:8, 1Sa 22:13 by Saul, and repeated by Doeg in 1Sa 22:9.
(d) The final one of this group is in 1Sa 25:10, where Nabal sarcastically asks “Who is David ? and who is the son of Jesse?”
(3) The parts of 1 Sam 17 through 18:5 which are omitted by Septuagint B, i.e. 17:12-31, 1Sa 17:41, 1Sa 17:48, 1Sa 17:50, 55 through 18:6a. Here Jesse is mentioned as “an Ephrathite of Beth-lehem-judah” (1Sa 17:12, not “that” Ephrathite, which is a grammatically impossible translation of the Massoretic Text), Ephrath or Ephrathah being another name for Bethlehem, or rather for the district. He is further said to have eight sons (1Sa 17:12), of whom the three eldest had followed Saul to the war (1Sa 17:13).
Jesse sends David, the shepherd, to his brothers with provisions (1Sa 17:17). Afterward David, on being brought to Saul and asked who he is, answers, “I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite” (1Sa 17:58). Jesse is also described (1Sa 17:12) as being “in the days of Saul an old man, advanced in years” (so emend and translate, not as the Revised Version (British and American), “stricken in years among men”). The mention of his having 8 sons in 1Sa 17:12 is not in agreement with 1Ch 2:13-15, which gives only 7 sons with two sisters, but where Syriac gives 8, adding, from 1Ch 27:18, Elihu which Massoretic Text has there probably by corruption (Curtis, Chronicles, 88). 1Sa 16:10 should be translated” and Jesse made his 7 sons to pass before Samuel” (not as the Revised Version (British and American), the King James Version, “seven of his sons”). Budde (Kurz. Hand-Komm., “Samuel,” 114) holds 1Sa 16:1-13 to be a late Midrash, and (ibid., 123 f) omits (a) “that” in 1Sa 17:12; (b) also “and he had 8 sons” as due to a wrong inference from 1Sa 16:10; (c) the names of the 3 eldest in 1Sa 17:13; (d) 1Sa 17:14; he then changes 1Sa 17:15, and reads thus: (12) “Now David was the son of an Ephrathite of Bethlehem-Judah, whose name was Jesse who was...(years) old at the time of Saul. (13) And the 3 eldest sons of Jesse had marched with Saul to the war, (14) and David was the youngest, (15) and David had remained to feed his father’s sheep at Bethlehem. (16) Now the Philistines came,” etc.
According to all these narratives in 1 Samuel, whether all 3 be entirely independent of one another or not, Jesse had land in Bethlehem, probably outside the town wall, like Boaz (see BOAZ) his grandfather (Rth 4:17). In 1Sa 22:3, 1Sa 22:4 David entrusts his father and mother to the care of the king of Moab, but from 1Sa 20:29 some have inferred that Jesse was dead (although most critics assign 1Sa 22:3 at any rate to the same stratum as chapter 20).
Jonathan tells Saul that David wanted to attend a family sacrificial feast at Bethlehem (1Sa 20:29). Massoretic Text reads, “And he, my brother, has commanded me,” whereas we should probably read with Septuagint, “and my brethren have commanded me,” i.e. the members of the clan, as we have farther on in the verse, “Let me get away, I pray thee, and see my brethren.” As to Jesse’s daughters, see ABIGAIL; NAHASH.
(4) Of the other references to Jesse, the most noteworthy is that in Isa 11:1: “There shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit,” i.e. out of Jesse’s roots (compare Rev 5:5). “Why Jesse and not David?” asks Duhm; and he answers, “Because the Messiah will be a second David, rather than a descendant of David.” Marti explains it to mean that he will be, not from David, but from a collateral line of descent. Duhm’s explanation suggests a parallelism between David and Christ, of whom the former may be treated as a type similar to Aaron and Melchizedek in He. Saul might pour contempt upon “the son of Jesse,” but Isaiah has given Jesse here a name above all Hebrew names, and thus does Providence mock “society.” See also ROOT OF JESSE.
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Jesse is mentioned in Act_13:22 and Rom_15:12 as the father of David.