One shepherd, and the Good Shepherd
David, the Shepherd King
David is the great king of Israel, the man after God's own heart, the writer of psalms and the ancestor of the Messiah. Yet when the prophet Samuel came looking for a king, David was not standing among his brothers. He was out with the sheep, the youngest and the least considered, doing the work that fell to the boy of the family. The throne came to him, but the field came first. David's life joins two callings that Scripture keeps drawing together: the shepherd and the king. He was taken from tending a literal flock to feed the flock of Israel, and in that movement the Bible sets before us the pattern of a Shepherd King, a ruler whose right to rule is bound up with his care for the weak.
“And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither.”1 Samuel 16:11
“Also in time past, when Saul was king over us, thou wast he that leddest out and broughtest in Israel: and the LORD said to thee, Thou shalt feed my people Israel, and thou shalt be a captain over Israel.”2 Samuel 5:2
The shepherd in Scripture
The first scene comes in 1 Samuel chapter 16. Samuel is sent to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse, because the LORD has provided himself a king among Jesse's sons. Samuel looks on the eldest, Eliab, and is impressed by his appearance, but the LORD tells him plainly that man looks on the outward appearance while the LORD looks on the heart. One by one seven sons pass before Samuel, and none is chosen. Then in 1 Samuel 16:11 Samuel asks whether these are all the children, and Jesse answers that there remains yet the youngest, and that he is keeping the sheep. Samuel says that they will not sit down until he is brought. David is sent for, ruddy and of a beautiful countenance, and the LORD tells Samuel to arise and anoint him, for this is the one. Samuel takes the horn of oil and anoints David in the midst of his brothers, and the Spirit of the LORD comes upon him from that day forward. The shepherd boy is the anointed king, though years of trial lie between the oil and the throne. David's shepherd past surfaces again when he faces Goliath. To Saul he tells how, keeping his father's sheep, he had struck down both a lion and a bear that came to take a lamb from the flock, seizing them and delivering the lamb out of their mouths. The courage and care he had learned in the field became the courage with which he stood before the giant, trusting the LORD who had delivered him from the paw of the lion and the bear. The two callings are joined explicitly at his coronation. In 2 Samuel 5:2 the tribes of Israel come to David at Hebron and recall that even while Saul was king, it was David who led Israel out and brought them in, and they report the word of the LORD to him: that he shall feed, that is, shepherd, the people Israel, and that he shall be a captain, a ruler, over them. The verse names the office of king in the language of the shepherd. To reign over Israel is to feed the flock of God, and David is called to both in one breath.
What it comes to mean
The stated facts are clear and rich in themselves. David was the youngest son, overlooked and out with the sheep when Samuel came. God chose him because he looked on the heart, not the outward appearance. David's experience defending the flock from lion and bear gave him the tested faith to face Goliath. And when Israel finally made him king, they did so with God's word that he would shepherd the people. Scripture states the shepherd and the king together; it does not leave us to guess at the link. Drawn out, the joining of the two roles is one of the Bible's great themes. In the ancient world kings were often called shepherds of their people, but Israel's Scriptures fill the image with moral weight. To shepherd is not merely to rule; it is to feed, to protect, to seek the lost, to bear with the weak, to lead gently. David's years in the field were the training ground for a kingship meant to look like shepherding. The boy who carried lambs and fought off predators was being prepared to carry a nation. We must be honest that David's reign was not a flawless picture of the good shepherd. He sinned grievously, most notably in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah, and his own house suffered the consequences of his failures. Scripture does not hide this. So the shepherd king of Israel is at once a true type of faithful, God centered rule and a sobering reminder that even the best earthly shepherd is a sinner who needs a shepherd himself. The ideal his story raises is larger than the man who lived it.
How it points to Christ, the good shepherd
It is exactly here that David points beyond himself to Christ. The prophets who came after David looked back on his failures and the failures of the shepherds who followed him, and they promised a coming Shepherd. Ezekiel speaks of the LORD gathering his scattered flock and setting over them one shepherd, his servant David, meaning not David returned but the Son of David to come. The pattern of the shepherd king was never fully embodied in David; it was pointing forward to one greater. Jesus is that promised Shepherd King, born in David's own town of Bethlehem, of David's line, hailed as the son of David. He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, and he is the King whose kingdom has no end. Where David defended the flock from lion and bear at the risk of his life, Jesus gave his life in full to rescue his flock from sin and death. Where David sinned and needed forgiveness, Christ was without sin and became the source of forgiveness for his people. So the two callings that David held imperfectly are held perfectly in Christ. He rules as King and cares as Shepherd, and in him the throne and the field are one forever. David's story teaches us to long for such a ruler, and the gospel announces that he has come. The shepherd boy of Bethlehem prepared the way for the Shepherd King of Bethlehem, who feeds his people Israel and gathers a flock from every nation.
Questions people ask
Why was David out with the sheep when Samuel came to anoint a king?
David was the youngest of Jesse's sons, and keeping the sheep was the task that naturally fell to him. He was so overlooked that Jesse did not even call him in for Samuel's visit until asked whether all his sons were present. God chose this overlooked shepherd because, as 1 Samuel 16 says, the LORD looks on the heart.
How does the Bible connect being a shepherd with being a king?
In 2 Samuel 5:2 Israel makes David king with God's word that he shall feed, or shepherd, the people Israel and be their ruler. The verse describes the royal office in shepherd language. To reign meant to feed, protect, and lead the flock, a pattern only perfectly fulfilled in Jesus, the Shepherd King of David's line.