Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 16-17.
We normally think of David’s father as being a man of no particular note. However, reading between the lines a little bit in this passage, combined with some of the things we learn in later passages about David’s nephews, suggests that Jesse was a man of great prominence in the tribe of Judah. In this passage we see that Samuel knew who Jesse was, and was worried that King Saul would quickly learn that he had gone to see him and anoint one of his sons. Additionally, Jesse was an important enough person that the idea that Samuel would go to him to conduct a sacrifice was believable.
Then we have two stories which seem to describe different ways in which David entered into King Saul’s service. While the two stories conflict with each other, they do not contradict each other. If one realizes that the book we are reading is a compilation of oral traditions you realize that each story came from different oral traditions and each needed to end with David in King Saul’s service. The first story explains how David came to play the lyre for King Saul, the second story explains how David came to be a war chief for King Saul. I believe that David began playing the lyre to soothe King Saul before the Goliath incident, but did not fully enter into King Saul’s service until after the incident. But since the oral tradition did not contain the account of David vs Goliath, it needed to explain David entering into long term service with King Saul and thus talks about David becoming Saul’s armor-bearer and then remaining in King Saul’s service. For those who wonder about how an armor-bearer became a war chief, remember the account about Jonathan going up against the Philistine camp accompanied by just his armor-bearer. Jonathan’s armor-bearer fought alongside him there. As such, I am convinced that both stories took place, but that the part where King Saul made David one of his armor-bearers and took him permanently into his service took place after David defeated Goliath.
I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.