David: Order in disorder

 

Sun Aug 10^th 2025

First, a bit of an overview……David’s context is one of disorder. In the time of Judges 21:25 there was no King in Israel, and the people did what was right in their own eyes.  But they also wanted an earthly King! God started out with Saul, who had difficulty with it, and did not do well. Then Samuel is sent to Jesse of Bethlehem, and Jesse’s youngest son David, is chosen.

King Saul is prone to fell moods and is told that soothing music will help. David is skilled at playing the lyre and is sent for. He is retained in Saul’s service. Then the Philistines challenge Israel, and Goliath appears. David volunteers to fight this Goliath. To Saul, David is just a shepherd boy. But David says that as a shepherd, he has rescued lambs from bears and lions. Saul lets him take on Goliath. David faces Goliath with confidence in God. There are more than enough Psalms that describe this type of adversarial challenge in the life of a believer.

The David and Goliath story is popular, but also predictable. Israel enjoys protective covenant status, having been chosen to do God’s will. As Israel moves forward in God’s will, victory is guaranteed. David defeats Goliath. The entire incident demonstrates this reality. Everything else is applied psychology or bad theology, whichever way you call it. Notions of the underdog, of surprise elements, of courage in the face of sure defeat – these are all constructs that suit our purposes, our intentions, our arguments. What is at work here is Covenant protection.

But as Israel becomes like the nations, it changes and begins to mirror the nations. As God said to Samuel, the people have not rejected you, they have rejected me. No one understood clearly what that would come down to in the end. But the side with better weaponry and better training would end up winning, once Covenant protection was no longer there. As earthly Kings replaced the Kingship of God, Covenant loyalty was replaced by earthly ambition, and protective status began to fade from Israel. There is no clear cut-off point at which this happens.  But the Israel of today has nothing in common with the biblical early Israel of the Old Testament. That was a different entity. The mighty works of God have been rejected for weaponry and armament.

After the Goliath episode, David moves through a 360 degree turn, from total dependance on God to determining the direction of the way ahead himself. This is part of a new relationship with a different feel.  The same thing as before? No.  It is still a Covenant, but the form has changed and no longer takes its definition and function from early Middle Eastern history. David no longer waits for God to tell him what to do. There is freedom. Now, He decides. He knows God has trust in him. Where does he get this from?

In 2 Sam 7: 15 the prophet Nathan brings a significant word. It is about that final section of the 23^rd Psalm – the promise of the continuing presence of God in this life. This is a new adventure in spiritual growth. And it is made to David. There will always be khesedh – lovingkindness – grace from God…..in David’s life. Always. This is the new promise of relationship. It is experimental. It transcends the Commandments. It is a call to move through independence into inter-dependence. And it requires dealing effectively with the transition.

David must accept the responsibility given and live accordingly. And he does. Sometimes he fails. When that happens, he takes the consequences and moves on. He begins to learn from failure. He begins to understand cause and effect. This man's life is becoming very different from that of the ruddy, handsome, lyre plucking shepherd boy who entered Saul’s service, and with far greater significance than the popular interpretations of how the good guy beat the bad guy or the little guy beat the big guy.

Throughout most of his life, David goes on to fight the real Goliath – in the forces and circumstances that life will throw at us - discovering weaknesses, learning strengths.  Struggling to overcome the notion of being weak, inept and totally dependent on God. David works his way from an initial dependence into independence and almost makes it into inter-dependence, but not quite. We can all look back at past events and say “I should have known better”, but once the opportunity is gone, what use is hindsight if we do not use it to map out a better strategy and so run a better race? In the end, David’s spiritual growth stagnates as he becomes more of a King of the nations than the godly King of Israel.

But in the beginning, David is successful in whatever is set before him, and Saul sets him over the army. David is celebrated, and a popular song that “Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands” unfortunately irks Saul, who begins to see a threat in David. Saul has not exactly figured out what it means to be a King for God. He makes several attempts on David’s life, and both Jonathan and Michal save David on different occasions.

The Challenge of Reinterpretation

Now comes the first David lesson to us, In 1 Sam 21:1-6. Despite being the King’s son-in-law and the anointed future King, David flees from Saul. He has no choice. But he is determined to go forward in God’s will. He heads for the hills with a few friends, supporters and stray folk, to begin a strategy that involves an early form of guerilla warfare. Hit & run?

As David and his men go on, they need sustenance, but they have no food. Then they encounter the little shrine at Nob and meet Ahimelech, the priest in charge. Does he have anything to eat? Yes, there is bread. But it’s holy. Can’t eat it unless you’ve been holy i.e. had no sex for the last three days (see Exodus 19:10-16 for the customs of ritual and tradition). David answers in the affirmative. He may be exactly right in that his flight from Saul may have been in its third day! For David, this is now the mission of the God who granted him victory over Goliath. The God who has always protected him and who now, through the prophet Samuel, has anointed him to take up the leadership of Israel. This is a great and holy mission, and he and his men are in need. Their need is therefore greater than the weight of the established traditional practice, and this is the position David takes. He has weighed the notion of that which is holy and untouchable against the practical needs of him and his men. They need food, their cause is good, and here’s food. That is justification enough. No need for doctrine about who can eat and who cannot. That doctrine has been rendered irrelevant by human need. Interesting, no? Doctrine emerges out of our attempts to understand what God requires, except that it too often reflects the requirements of men, not of God. God does not indoctrinate. 

There’s a powerful principle here about how tradition, ritual, and social law should respond to human need. In years to come, Shakespeare would allude to this when he wrote the Merchant of Venice, through the scene where Shylock demands his pound of flesh from the hapless Antonio. Disguised as a Judge, Portia speaks eloquently about the quality of mercy and suggests that it is not always in our best interests to follow the letter of the law, but rather to place human need first.³² The Law exists to serve the people, and not the other way around. Laws, traditions, rituals, customs, should all work to serve human need, and not as a means of control. And this is where David is at, amazingly, in 10,000 B.C., give or take. Hence Brueggemann takes note of this incident as demonstrating the new change in David.³³

This incident shows how God wants us to work with such aspects of culture in the face of human need. Law and tradition should never be factors that impinge on the current human condition. We should always seek to serve the well-being of people. And if this is not happening, what must we do to make it happen? It is significant that in the NT in Mark 2:23-28 Jesus refers to this incident. Why? Because Jesus constantly reinterprets existing norms all the time! So he refers to David’s behavior as a precedent! The continuity between what David starts and what Jesus finishes is significant. Keep this in mind as we go along. David is growing into a radical, and his behavior demonstrates the confidence of being chosen. He makes his choices and stands by them. He is sure that God is on his side. And he is right about this. But God may not always agree with him.

Revenge, detached

And the 2^nd David lesson…..Our cultural traditions often serve as comfort zones for us. Nothing wrong with that. But we must be careful not to let them limit us. Our human potential far exceeds our cultural limits. But we nevertheless struggle to rise above seemingly inherent issues that are really culturally inbred fixations. Is it so hard to get beyond this to the point of Shakespeare once again? That we all bleed, and that all blood is red? And that was said a long time ago! I guess we haven’t changed much, mostly because we don’t want to. But that is the challenge of this incident. David places human need above all. And then Jesus raises the stakes.

On more than one occasion, David has opportunity to get rid of Saul. He would be justified in doing so because of Saul’s attempts to kill him. But he does not do so.

1 Sam 24:8, 11. The cloak endpiece. Saul is spending the night in a cave. David’s spies identify the location. In stealth mode, David gets within arm’s length of Saul. He has the option to end this situation and go on into the Kingship. But he will not do it. Seeking to encourage reform, he cuts off the end piece of Saul’s cloak. Then when Saul gets up to leave, David calls out to him. Saul recognizes his voice, and David says that he could have done thus and such but has not done so. Saul is grateful, but both depart separately. There is no reconciliation. Saul continues to pursue David. When asked why he had not seized the opportunity, David’s answer is that he will not raise his hand against the Lord’s anointed.

2^nd incident: 1 Sam 26. the spear and the water jug. Unlike the 1^st situation where there is cover of darkness, this is an open space and Saul is smack in the middle of his camp, surrounded by his troops. Nevertheless, David is able to get right up to Saul, well within striking distance. He refuses to harm the King, the Lord’s anointed. Instead, he tries to make the same point again, hoping for a change in perspective on Saul’s part.  He refuses to follow a lex talionis approach, where it would just make sense to kill he who would kill you. Striking a safe distance, he calls out to Saul’s guard that they have let the King down and have not protected him. When David is challenged, he asks them for the King’s spear and his water jug. And these are not found, for David has taken them! The scene is played out to the same ending once again, and both go separate ways, with no reconciliation.

While David is involved in fighting to stay alive, he is not on the offensive when it comes to the Lord’s anointed. Why? It is because of the relationship God confers upon the appointee, in being anointed. David understands this because it has happened to him. You might think of it as a baptism that brings relationship with it. David experiences it as such. Therefore, to attack Saul would be tantamount to attacking the relationship between Saul and God. Whatever God decides as fitting for Saul, David does not want to get in the way. In this sense, he has successfully managed to detach himself from feelings of resentment, anger, and retribution. Not talking forgiveness here. 

This is another new aspect of David’s ongoing change. We often look for God’s revenge upon those who do harm to us, but we can do better. We can resolve the issue on our side of it and leave the other to grow through their end if they can. And if they will not grow, they are better moved away from. We can move away from such negativity and so keep our focus on maintaining our relationship with God. More on David next week. Have a good peaceful week and walk with the Lord Jesus! G.