While we left Saul as God had rejected him as King, God told Samuel he already had a replacement in mind.
So Samuel went to Jesse of Bethlehem, and after weeding out everyone but some unassuming sheepherder named David, he anointed the boy. Unlike with Saul, there was no mention of why, and it was assumed at the time it was for something important by all present. At the very least, Saul never heard of it.
Now, around this time, Saul was being tormented by what the Bible calls "an evil spirit sent by the Lord". The description makes it tad vague in some translations whether this was literal or Saul was suffering depression, but either way, his advisers realized having an emo king was bad and advised someone should get a good musician to cheer the king up from time to time. One of them heard of a sheepherder who did some part-time music and wasn't bad at it, so they hired him.
Yep, David was now working for Saul as a result. By all accounts, he did a good job alleviating Saul's emo.
Not long after, the Philistines gathered for battle again, and they planned to challenge the Israelites to take down their champion, this literal giant named Goliath of Gath. Goliath basically dissed the encamped Israelites day in and out and dared at least one of them to have the spine and guts to face him.
Around this time, David was doing an errand for dad where he was delivering a care package for his brothers who were part of the army. While there, he heard Goliath dissing his people, and that Saul promised not only his daughter in marriage to who had the starch to take Goliath down, their father's household would be exempt from paying taxes.
Sweet deal, but David was a bit more mad Goliath was spewing all sorts of venom about God's Chosen People and despite his brothers and the nearby soldiers telling him he'd get impaled on Goliath's spear if he tried to take him on, he wasn't listening.
He even had Saul try to tell him to just walk away while his head was attached, but David was all "My liege, I may be a humble sheepherder, but I've fought off wild animals attacking the flocks and the fiercest bears and lions don't scare me. More importantly, this Philistine mocks God's people, and in the Lord's name, this will be the last day he gets the chance."
Saul had to admire the fact David had more brass than his entire army, and hoping God really was smiling on the kid, he even offered David his arms and armor to make it a possibly fair fight. However, David wasn't used to it, and instead just stuck to what he knew.
A sling (with five large smooth stones) and his shepherd's staff.
When both sides saw this, David got a "is this kid insane?" look from both sides. Goliath in particular thought it was hilarious, but David got a good slung stone right in the forehead, and Goliath got knocked out cold.
As everyone was all 0-0 over this, David grabbed Goliath's sword out of his own sheath and decapitated him right there.
The Philistines crapped bricks seeing some kid hack off the head of their champion, and the Israelites found their spines watching this, and they chased after the fleeing Philistines and made a curb stomp battle of taking them down.
Meanwhile, Saul later had his chief general Abner hunt down David later to officially thank the kid for doing Israel a solid, and not only did David become part of Sauls' forces, but his son Johnathan also hit it off with David then and there.
David's star was on the rise.
Not long after, David was basically Saul's champion, did a great job in every campaign Saul sent him on. Unfortunately, his track record of success started eclipsing Saul's, Saul noticed, and Saul started getting paranoid David might want to bump him off and take the job of King from him.
Ironically, God wanted David to do just that, but David had no clue, had no higher ambitions and was content to serve, not lead. However, Saul at this point was getting paranoid to the point he figured it was time for David to die.
He first tried to kill the guy during his music sessions at the court. Both times it was chalked up to Saul's emo episodes as he was apparently violent on occasion and David dodged a spear in the head twice. After this failed, Saul decided to be a bit more subtle, and, making good on his promise to marry David off to his daughter, told the guy:
"Kill a hundred Philistines on your own and bring back proof, and my daughter Merab is yours."
It's worth noting David made it clear he appreciated the gesture of marrying Saul's daughter, but he was mostly doing things because he was fighting his lord's enemies, not because he had designs on being Saul's son-in-law.
With that in mind, Saul had Merab marry someone else and his other daughter Michel made clear she'd be more interested, leading Saul to figure:
"Well, so much the better. Maybe she'll be a snare to the guy in case he's got ambitions against me."
Despite having some court people secretly feel David out and them coming back that David had no designs on higher rank, and even though David doubled what Saul asked of him for his daughter's hand, simply out of loyalty, Saul's paranoia just got worse.
I'll continue another time, but as mentioned in the first part, Saul was brought down low by his own arrogance and fear. As one can see, pride and jealousy were also the ropes that would drag Saul down in the long run.
No comments:
Post a Comment