David, from shepherd to king of Israel

The Bible tells us little about David’s childhood. He was the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem in Judah and had several older brothers. When Samuel came to Jesse’s house to find a new king, David was not there. He was out caring for sheep. Saul was then king of Israel, but he had disobeyed God, and Samuel had already told him that his kingship would not continue. Jesse brought his sons before Samuel one by one, but none was chosen. David was called in last, and Samuel anointed him. David did not immediately go to live in a palace, and Saul did not know what had happened. Yet the life of the shepherd had already become tied to Saul’s troubled kingship.

Saul was tormented, and his servants looked for someone who could play the lyre for him. David was brought to Saul as a skilled musician and became the king’s attendant and armor-bearer. When David played, Saul found relief. David was still a shepherd’s son, but he now entered the royal court. The event that made his name known throughout Israel came at the war with the Philistines. Jesse sent David to take food to his brothers at the front. There David heard Goliath, a Philistine champion, insulting Israel’s army.

Goliath challenged Israel to send one man to fight him. Saul and the army were afraid. David told Saul that when he guarded his father’s sheep, he had pursued lions and bears that carried off a lamb and rescued the animal. He saw Goliath’s words as an insult to the armies of the living God. Saul first put his own armor on David, but David took it off because he was not used to it. He chose five smooth stones from a stream and went out with a sling. When Goliath despised him, David answered that he came in the name of the Lord of hosts, not with sword, spear, or javelin. David’s stone struck Goliath’s forehead, and the giant fell. David used Goliath’s own sword to kill him. The Philistines fled, and Israel pursued them. From then on, David’s name was widely known.

Jonathan, Saul’s son, loved David as his own life. He gave David his robe, armor, sword, bow, and belt. Saul made David a commander, and David succeeded in the tasks given to him. But women sang that Saul had killed thousands and David tens of thousands. Saul became jealous. He threw a spear at David and tried to place him in dangerous fighting so that he would die. David married Saul’s daughter Michal, but when Saul tried to kill him, Michal helped him escape. Jonathan pleaded with his father not to harm David, and for a time Saul listened. His hostility soon returned, however, and David became a fugitive from the court he had served.

While fleeing, David received consecrated bread and Goliath’s sword from the priest Ahimelech. He went to Gath, acted insane, and left that place. At the cave of Adullam, people in distress, debt, and bitterness gathered around him. David gradually became the leader of a band. Saul ordered an attack on Nob because he thought its priests had helped David; only Abiathar, Ahimelech’s son, escaped to David. David moved through wildernesses and towns, sometimes rescuing places such as Keilah from the Philistines, and then leaving when he learned Saul could trap him there. Jonathan met David in the wilderness and strengthened him, saying that David would be king over Israel and that he himself would be next to him. The two men did not meet again after that.

Twice David had an apparent chance to kill Saul. In a cave at En-gedi, David secretly cut off only the corner of Saul’s robe. He would not raise his hand against Saul because Saul was the Lord’s anointed king. Later he showed Saul the piece of cloth and said he had no evil intent. Saul wept and admitted that David was more righteous than he was. On another night David and Abishai entered Saul’s camp and took the spear and water jar beside Saul’s head. Abishai asked to kill Saul, but David stopped him. From a distance David called out to Saul and showed what he had taken as proof that he had spared the king. Saul blessed David, but David no longer depended on that promise and fled into Philistine territory. There he received Ziklag from Achish.

While David was at Ziklag, Amalekites burned the town and carried off the women and children. David and his men wept until they had no strength left. Some of his own men spoke of stoning him because of their grief. David found strength in the Lord, asked through the priest Abiathar whether he should pursue, and recovered the captives and what had been taken. Meanwhile Saul and Jonathan died in battle against the Philistines. When David heard the news, he tore his clothes, mourned, and fasted. Though Saul had hunted him for years, David still mourned him as Israel’s anointed king. He made a lament for Saul and Jonathan.

After Saul’s death, David asked the Lord where to go and went to Hebron. The people of Judah anointed him king, while the other tribes made Saul’s son Ish-bosheth king. A long war followed between the two houses. After Ish-bosheth was killed, Israel’s elders came to Hebron and anointed David king over all Israel. David was thirty when he became king and reigned forty years. He captured Jerusalem and made it the city of David. With help from Hiram of Tyre he built a palace, and he brought the ark of God to Jerusalem. The first attempt ended in the death of Uzzah, who reached out to hold the ark; David was afraid and left it at the house of Obed-edom. Three months later he brought it up with rejoicing. Michal despised David for dancing before the people, and the two argued about it.

The Philistines came against David after he became king. He asked God before fighting and defeated them. When they gathered again in the Valley of Rephaim, God told David not to attack straight ahead but to circle behind them and wait near the balsam trees. David followed the instruction and defeated them again. Chronicles also records the deeds of David’s warriors. When David longed for water from the well by Bethlehem’s gate, three warriors broke through the Philistine camp and brought it to him. David would not drink water obtained at the risk of their lives; he poured it out before God.

David wanted to build a temple because he lived in a house of cedar while the ark remained in a tent. Nathan first approved the idea, but that night God told Nathan that David would not be the one to build the house. Instead, David’s son would continue his royal line. David’s kingdom expanded through wars with surrounding nations. He also remembered his covenant with Jonathan and brought Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth to eat at the king’s table. Yet David’s life as king also included wrongdoing with consequences that reached through his household.

One evening David saw Bathsheba from the roof of his palace. He learned that she was the wife of Uriah, yet he sent for her, and she became pregnant. David brought Uriah home from the war, hoping he would go to his wife. Uriah refused while his fellow soldiers remained in the field. David then sent a letter to Joab ordering that Uriah be placed in the fiercest fighting and abandoned there. Uriah was killed. After Bathsheba’s period of mourning, David took her as his wife. Nathan confronted him through a story about a rich man taking a poor man’s beloved lamb, then said, “You are the man.” David admitted that he had sinned against the Lord. Nathan said that David’s sin was forgiven, but that its consequences would not disappear from his house. The child Bathsheba first bore became ill and died.

Bathsheba later bore Solomon. David’s family was marked by further violence: Amnon violated Tamar, Absalom killed Amnon and fled, and after returning to Jerusalem he eventually gathered support for a revolt. David left the city when Absalom rebelled. He told his commanders to deal gently with his son, but Joab killed Absalom after finding him caught in a tree. David wept bitterly when he heard. Joab warned him that if he remained only in grief, he would shame the soldiers who had saved him. David went to the gate to meet the people and later returned to Jerusalem, but the wounds in his family did not disappear.

In his later years David ordered a census of Israel and Judah. Joab objected but carried out the command. David later recognized his sin, and a plague spread through the land. He bought the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, built an altar there, and the plague stopped. David gathered materials for the temple Solomon would build. He gave Solomon the plans for the temple and its service, and urged him to be strong and do the work. Israel’s leaders then gave gold, silver, bronze, iron, and precious stones willingly. David praised God before the assembly, and the people rejoiced over the willing gifts. They acknowledged Solomon as king before God while David was still present. When David was old and weak, Adonijah tried to make himself king. Nathan and Bathsheba reminded David of his promise concerning Solomon, and David ordered Solomon to be anointed king. David gave Solomon instructions to walk in God’s ways and also left instructions concerning unresolved people and conflicts. After reigning forty years over Israel, David died and was buried in the city of David. Scripture does not continue his life beyond that point.