Bible Character Spotlight: David

David is probably neck and neck with Moses as the most important character in the Old Testament. His story starts when he was a young boy and follows right out of the story of Samuel, the last character we put under the spotlight. While 1 Samuel does not delve too deeply into David’s character as a young boy, it is worth noting and understanding how godly David was even as a young boy. Many of the verses from the book of Psalms were written by David throughout his life including when he was still fairly young. One of David’s psalms is probably one of the most well known sets of verses in the Bible.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. – Psalm 23

One thing this and the other Psalms tell us about David was that he was a faithful person. God recognized that and, through Samuel, chose David even though, at the time, David seemed like an unlikely choice. When Samuel was sent to find King Saul’s replacement, God gave him the following instructions:

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7

Samuel found David who was the youngest of his father’s sons. David was a shepherd not a warrior, but God still selected him even if that meant that David would wind serving and eventually fighting for Saul. At first, David’s role was just to soothe Saul by playing the lyre (once again we see evidence of David’s musical talent), but eventually David was introduced to combat. That introduction came in dramatic fashion and has gone on to be a very well-known Biblical story.

The Israelites were at war against the Philistines again. This time it was the Philistines who had a seemingly superhuman soldier, Goliath, a giant among men. No one in the army of the Israelites wanted to fight Goliath.

Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. – 1 Samuel 17:10

At this time, David was not a soldier. He did not even serve Saul full time. He split time between tending to sheep back home and playing for Saul. He eventually arrived on the scene while Goliath was making his challenge. While everyone else in Saul’s army cowered from the very thought of fighting Goliath, David resolutely declared that he would accept the challenge. Saul was understandably shocked by David’s words and rejected the idea at first, but David said the following:

But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” – 1 Samuel 17:35-37

There we see it, David’s faith. It wasn’t something new that just popped up at the moment of truth. It was something that had been crafted and tested even while he was working what some might have thought was a tamer job. David had no doubt that God would protect him because he already knew that God had protected him in the past. It seems simple, but we have to remember that time after time in the stories preceding David’s that the Children of Israel doubted and questioned God despite God helping them every bit as much as He had helped David. David wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill follower of God. He was a paragon. His faith could not be questioned and, as a result, he was rewarded when he managed to take down the mountain of a man, Goliath, with nothing more than a sling and a stone.

Many understand that the story of David and Goliath is about faith in God and just how powerful it can be, but we have to put the story in perspective. It wasn’t the pinnacle of David’s achievements. It was just the first.  We have to put that event in the proper context of the part it played in David’s life just like we have to understand the significance of the events in our own lives.  Sometimes we see the big feat that God had to achieve just to bring us to Him, and we fixate on that. In doing so, we may miss out on the fact that God continues to work miracles throughout the rest of our lives.

We see that concept play out in David’s story. His defeat of Goliath brought him respect and renown, which are undoubtedly good things.  Unfortunately, his feat also led to David being the object of Saul’s fear and jealousy. Saul and everyone else could see that David was a true man of God. and David’s connection to God brought him success and prominence.

In everything he did he had great success, because the Lord was with him. When Saul saw how successful he was, he was afraid of him. But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he led them in their campaigns. – 1 Samuel 18:14-16

Saul offered David his daughter in marriage and treated David like a beloved servant, but increasingly he just wanted to be rid of David. First, he tried to set David up in a scenario where David would die in battle against the Philistines, but David found nothing but success when challenged. Eventually, Saul tried to kill David himself.

But an evil spirit from the Lord came on Saul as he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand. While David was playing the lyre, Saul tried to pin him to the wall with his spear, but David eluded him as Saul drove the spear into the wall. That night David made good his escape. – 1 Samuel 19:9-10

When he failed to do the deed, Saul sent others to kill David on multiple occasions, and those attempts failed too. The thing Saul didn’t get was the lesson he should have learned when David defeated Goliath. David was faithful to God, and God was faithful to David. God protected David from the Philistines, and he would protect David from Saul. Saul eventually learned that lesson, but by the time he did, it was too late for him. David’s star continued to rise as he found more and more success, while Saul went from king to a pariah. David would have been justified in killing Saul after everything Saul did to him, but that was not his way. David knew not to touch God’s anointed. David spared Saul multiple times. He knew he didn’t need to get vengeance because he knew the Lord had his back. In the end, David claimed his role as king and Saul wound up taking his own life. David had proven to be the better man and would go on to be a better king, but that doesn’t mean he was perfect. In fact, to some extent, David’s time as king can be wrapped up in the well known phrase “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” We’ll see that during the next spotlight.

So far, the spotlight was put on David in his youth. He went from an unassuming shepherd boy to a giant killer and eventually to the young man destined to become king. At that point in his life, David seemed like the perfect model of what it meant to be a follower of God. He put his faith in God, obeyed God’s commands, and even wrote songs to praise God. His story also seemed like the perfect example of how someone can benefit from being faithful to God. No matter what trouble came his way, David always came out on top. So when David became king, he was the perfect ruler for the Israelites right? Well, not exactly.

David is a good example of the fact that no one is perfect. We all fall short even those of us who have been given every reason not to. He is also good evidence for the truthfulness of the time honored adage “Power Corrupts.” After all, David was most pious when he had the least. When he became king, he was not the same man. None of this is to say that David wasn’t a good king or that he was a bad man. Even at his lowest, he was still an impressive follower of God. He just didn’t hold up to the standard of the one true king, Jesus.

David’s rule started with drama and violence. He became king after Saul died. David was not of Saul’s lineage, so unsurprisingly, Saul’s family objected to David being made king. 

The war between the house of Saul and the house of David lasted a long time. David grew stronger and stronger, while the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker. – 2 Samuel 3:1

It might be fair to say that David’s rule was defined by fighting. He was truly a warrior king, but he was also a just king. Abner and Ish-Bosheth were relatives of Saul that were at odds with David. Eventually, they came to understand that David was meant to be king. Both separately made peace with David. One of David’s men, Joab, killed Abner out of a sense of vengeance even though he knew David had made peace with Abner. David did not side with Joab despite Joab being loyal to David.

Later, when David heard about this, he said, “I and my kingdom are forever innocent before the Lord concerning the blood of Abner son of Ner. 29 May his blood fall on the head of Joab and on his whole family! May Joab’s family never be without someone who has a running sore or leprosy or who leans on a crutch or who falls by the sword or who lacks food.” – 2 Samuel 3:28-29

When two of David’s overzealous followers killed Ish-Bosheth to court favor, his reaction was not what they thought it would be.

David answered Rekab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the Lord lives, who has delivered me out of every trouble, 10 when someone told me, ‘Saul is dead,’ and thought he was bringing good news, I seized him and put him to death in Ziklag. That was the reward I gave him for his news! 11 How much more—when wicked men have killed an innocent man in his own house and on his own bed—should I not now demand his blood from your hand and rid the earth of you!” – 2 Samuel 4:9-11

David had them killed. It might have been easy for him to let them slide. They were his men. They killed for him. Maybe he could have even claimed they didn’t know peace had been made, but that’s not who David was. He was a righteous man and believed in justice, and God continued to reward David for those traits. David was able to consolidate his power over all the Israelites and beat back the Philistines. God was so happy with David that God made a lofty promise, which he delivered through His servant, Nathan.

“‘The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: 12 When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. – 2 Samuel 7:11-13

David responded just as he should have. He thanked God sincerely and humbly. God was true to his world and gave David further victories and made his name great above all others. It’s probably because David had proven to be such a good person that, when he did fall short, it seemed so bad. His transgression was not a small one though. David knowingly had sex with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. Uriah was one of David’s most faithful servants. When it was revealed that Bathsheba was pregnant, David did not do the right thing by admitting his transgression and asking forgiveness. Instead, he brought Uriah home from the war being fought in an effort to get him to have sex with Bathsheba so that no one would know the child was David’s. Unfortunately for David, Uriah was so loyal and committed to his duties that he did not go to his wife as David planned. Instead of being moved by just how good a person Uriah was, David was so committed to hiding his own sin that he took and action that can only be considered evil.

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote, “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.” – 2 Samuel 11:14-15

How could someone so obedient and loyal to God do something so terrible? It’s hard to say. To make matters worse, David had no shame about what he did. He took Bathsheba to be his wife, and she bore his son. He lived on as if he hadn’t done anything wrong. It’s amazing that as much as David knew God’s greatness, he somehow made the mistake of thinking that God wouldn’t know what he did. God did knew though, and he sent Nathan to David once more.

“This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’” – 2 Samuel 12:11-12

Just as David was quick to respond with harsh punishment against his servants when they committed murder for selfish reasons, God handled David the same. He did not kill David, but David suffered nonetheless. He lost multiple children. Turmoil entered into his family with one of his sons, Absalom, playing usurper and taking the kingship away from David. David lost the hearts of the people who had previously adored him without question. Even many of David’s loyal soldiers turned against him. God had given David so much, and because of David’s sin, God wound up taking most of it away. David achieved great heights, but because of his actions he took a great fall. There is a lesson there for all of us. No matter how good we think we are, we should always remain humble because we are always just one bad act away from ruin.

There is another lesson though. Even when we fall short and God is angry with us, he is still with us. God punished David harshly, but he didn’t forsake him. When David was down and surrounded by enemies, God delivered him. David responded by doing the one thing that he may have done better than fighting and winning battles. He sang God’s praises (2 Samuel 22:1-51). In a way, David proved that he was the good servant of God he had always been. He just wasn’t perfect and never had been. When we fall short in our lives, we are in good company. Everyone has strayed from God’s path at some point, even pillars of the Bible like David. He fell short, but he still understood who God was, and even with all he lost, he still recognized God’s goodness.  

We can’t just love and praise God when we are reaping the benefits of following Him. We have to do the same when we are going through low points also. We also have to trust that if God promises us something, that promise will come true, even if it seems like it couldn’t possibly happen. God promised David great things for his family line. Although David betrayed the faith and trust that God had put in him, God still kept his promise in the most fantastic way by using David’s family line to bring salvation to the whole world though the birth, life, and death of Jesus.  If God can show David such faithfulness, what can he do for us?

Chris Lawyer