People of the Bible

David

Leaders of Israel · Around 1000 BC (traditional) · Appears in 1 Samuel 16 through 1 Kings 2

David is the shepherd boy who killed Goliath and became the greatest king of Israel, a man after God's own heart and the writer of many of the Psalms. His reign, his sins, his repentance, and above all God's promise that his throne would endure forever make him one of the central figures of the whole Bible, and the ancestor of Jesus.

The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.Psalm 23:1 (KJV)

The shepherd God chose

When God rejected Saul, he sent Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint a new king from among the sons of Jesse. Jesse paraded seven strong sons before the prophet, but the LORD chose none of them, for the LORD looketh on the heart. The youngest, David, was out keeping the sheep, and when he was brought in, ruddy and of a fair countenance, God said, Arise, anoint him; this is he. Samuel poured the oil, and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day, though years of obscurity lay ahead before the throne.

David's years as a shepherd were his training ground. Alone with the flock he learned to trust God, killing a lion and a bear that came against his sheep, and he learned to worship, composing songs to God under the open sky. When a tormenting spirit troubled King Saul, David was brought to the court to play the harp, and his music brought Saul relief. So the future king entered the palace as a servant, unknown and unthreatening, waiting on God's time.

Goliath and the years of exile

David burst into fame in the valley of Elah, where the giant Goliath of the Philistines defied the armies of Israel and no soldier dared face him. David, only a youth bringing food to his brothers, was outraged that anyone should defy the living God, and he went out with a sling and five smooth stones, saying, Thou comest to me with a sword, but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts. One stone from his sling struck the giant down, and Israel's fortunes turned. It was the pattern of his whole life: faith facing what strength could not.

But fame bred jealousy, and Saul, hearing the women sing that David had slain his ten thousands, tried again and again to kill him. For years David was a fugitive, hunted through the wilderness, gathering a band of the distressed and the discontented, and hiding in caves. Twice he had Saul at his mercy and twice he refused to lift his hand against the LORD's anointed, choosing to wait for God to give him the throne rather than seize it. Those hard years, full of danger and betrayal, produced many of his most searching psalms and forged the man who would rule.

King of Israel and the everlasting covenant

After Saul's death David was made king, first over Judah and then over all Israel, and he reigned some forty years. He captured the stronghold of Jerusalem and made it his capital, the city of David, and brought the ark of God up to it with dancing and shouting and great joy, leaping before the LORD with all his might. He united the tribes, subdued Israel's enemies, and brought the nation to the height of its power and worship.

When David wished to build a house for God, God instead promised to build a house for David: the LORD declared that David's throne and kingdom would be established forever, and that one of his own offspring would reign without end. This covenant with David became one of the great threads of hope running through all the prophets, the promise of a coming anointed King, a Messiah, from David's line. David responded in humility and wonder, asking who he was that God should so honor him.

His sin and his repentance

The greatest king was also a great sinner, and Scripture does not hide it. At the height of his reign David stayed home from war, saw Bathsheba bathing, took her though she was another man's wife, and when she conceived, arranged the death of her husband Uriah to cover his sin. For a time he hardened his heart, until the prophet Nathan came and told him a parable of a rich man who stole a poor man's one little lamb, and when David burned with anger at the injustice, Nathan said, Thou art the man.

What set David apart was not that he never sinned but what he did when confronted with his sin. He did not excuse himself; he broke, and confessed, I have sinned against the LORD, and poured out his sorrow in the fifty-first Psalm, pleading, Create in me a clean heart, O God. He was forgiven, but he reaped bitter consequences, and his later years were shadowed by grief and rebellion within his own family. Yet through it all he kept returning to God, and his psalms of repentance have given the whole church its language for coming home.

Jonathan and covenant love

One of the most beautiful friendships in the Bible was between David and Jonathan, the son of King Saul. Though Jonathan was the crown prince and might have seen David as a rival for the throne, instead the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and he loved him as his own soul. Jonathan made a covenant with David, gave him his own robe and sword, and again and again shielded him from Saul's murderous jealousy, choosing loyalty and love over his own claim to the crown.

When Jonathan was killed in battle, David poured out one of the great laments of Scripture, mourning that Jonathan's love to him had been wonderful, passing the love of women. And David kept his covenant even after his friend's death, seeking out Jonathan's crippled son Mephibosheth and showing him kindness for Jonathan's sake, giving him a place at the king's own table. In David's faithful, self-giving friendship the Bible shows a love that seeks the good of the other above oneself.

His legacy and where he points to Christ

David is the most fully drawn person in the Old Testament, a man of courage, music, and deep feeling, capable of towering faith and terrible failure. He is the standard by which every later king of Israel is measured, and his psalms have shaped the prayers of God's people for three thousand years, giving voice to praise, lament, and repentance. Before he died he prepared for his son Solomon to build the temple and charged him to keep the ways of the LORD.

God promised David a son whose kingdom would have no end, and the New Testament opens by calling Jesus the son of David. He was born in Bethlehem, the city of David, and the crowds hailed him as David's heir, crying Hosanna to the Son of David. Like David he was anointed in obscurity before he reigned, and rejected and hunted before he was crowned. But where David's throne passed away and David himself sinned and died, the throne of great David's greater Son endures forever, and he is the sinless King the covenant always pointed toward, the shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

A note on the sources: everything above is drawn from the biblical text itself. Where a detail comes from later tradition rather than Scripture, it is named as tradition. Dates for the earliest figures are traditional and approximate, and Scripture does not always give them. The aim is to tell each life honestly, and to let it do what the whole Bible does, point to Jesus Christ the Lord.

Related: Samuel · Solomon · All the people of the Bible