The Shepherd King

1 Samuel 16:1–13

The End of the Period of the Judges

Israel had lost her Ark to the Philistines, and people said, “The glory has depart from Israel, for the Ark of God has been capture” (1 Sam 4–5, esp. 4:22). But God caused the Philistines so much trouble that after Eli died, the Philistines returned the Ark (1 Sam 6).

Samuel took up the office of prophet-priest-judge and led the people in repentance. This successfully begun the reversal of spiritual and military decline caused by the ineffectual rule of Eli the priest-judge at Shilo. He led them in defeating the Philistines at Mizpah when God’s presence on the battlefield panicked the Philistines (1 Sam 7:1–11). So “Samuel then took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer (which means ‘the stone of help’), for he said, ‘Up to this point the LORD has helped us!’” (7:12). “Throughout Samuel’s lifetime, the LORD’s powerful hand was raised against the Philistines…., And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites” (7:13, 14). And Samuel ruled them well as priest-judge (7:15–17). But like Eli before him, he raised no-goods as sons, so the people feared what would happen when Samuel died (8:1–3).

A King After the People’s Hearts

So the people called for a king “just like all the other nations have” (8:5). The call for a king was not wrong; God had promised that long ago (Gen 49:8–12), and he had even provided for it in Mosaic legislation (Deut 17). But wanting one “just like all the other nations have” wasn’t a great idea. And Samuel told them so. These kings, he said, they’ll take your daughters for their harems, your sons for their armies, and your money for their palaces (8:11–17). The tithe belongs the LORD, but a king’s going to want that tithe (8:17). If you go ahead with this, some day “you will beg for relief from this king you are demanding, but then the LORD will not help you” (8:18). “But the people refused to listen to Samuel’s warning. ‘Even so, we still want a king they said’” (8:19).

Samuel took this to the LORD, who told him, “Do as they say, and give them a king: (8:21). God sent Samuel hunting for the king they were demanding, and he found Saul, a man from the violent and warlike Benjamite tribe (Judg 5:14; 20:21) who would later form part of the backbone of opposition to David (2 Sam 2–3; 16; 19–20). Sometimes this tribe didn’t look any better than Sodom (Gen 19; Judg 19), but that’s just where Israel got her first king. God had Samuel anoint Saul as king (1 Sam 9–10), and he took office.

At first Saul looked like a good deal. “He stood head and shoulders above anyone else” (10:23). He apparently took great care to avoid what Samuel had warned the people about. Rather than building a palace, harem, and standing army, he just went back to farming until he was needed (11:4–5). And when the time came he ably took up the military challenge of the Ammonites (11:6–11). So the people really opened their hearts to this new king; he was proving to be quite the people’s choice (11:12–15).

But he was a petty, jealous, and unspiritual man. This eventually got him in trouble with God and his spokesman Samuel (1 Sam 13). And Samuel told Saul that the LORD was done with him and his kingdom: “The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart. The LORD has already appointed him to be the leader of his people” (13:14). And Saul’s rule went bad. He may still have enjoyed some victories over the Philistines (1 Sam 14), but God had rejected him (1 Sam 15).

A King After God’s Own Heart

It was time for Samuel to anoint a new king—the one God chose to replace Saul. The king from the tribe of Judah who would fulfill the ancient prophecy to that tribe (Gen 49:8–12), which the Benjamite Saul could never have done. God sent Samuel to hunting for an Israelite king among the Moabitess Ruth’s grandsons, in Jesse’s household! “Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, ‘Surely this is the LORD’s anointed!’” (16:6). He must have stood tall like Saul had, but the LORD told Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height,…. the LORD looks at the heart” (16:7).

Samuel worked his way down through Jesse’s sons and seemed to have run out of choices until he asked, “Are these all the sons you have?” (16:11a). Jesse dismissively said his youngest was out herding sheep (16:11b). Not bad training for leading Israel, if Moses had been any example (Exod 2). So Samuel called for him, and when David came in “dark and handsome, with beautiful eyes,” God told Samuel, “This is the one; anoint him” (16:12). Samuel obeyed; he “took the horn full of olive oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers” (16:13a). What follows is both a positive and negative story of anointing. On the positive note, “The Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon David from that day on” (16:13b); on the negative note, “The Spirit of the LORD had left Saul, and the LORD sent a tormenting spirit that filled him with depression and fear” (16:14).

Saul’s “depression and fear” turned him into a paranoid and fool. Just like the young Samuel had entered into service in Eli’s house in preparation for being a priest and judge (1 Sam 2–3), David ended up in service in Saul’s palace, first as a musician to soothe the maniac’s tormented soul (1 Sam 16:14–23) and then as a giant killer (1 Sam 17). But that gave David a growing reputation that made Saul so jealous that he started trying to assassinate the one whom the LORD had anointed to succeed him as king (1 Sam 18). The next few chapters show David on the run among the peasants in the hill country and even among the Philistines on the coastal plains (1 Sam 19–27). Nonetheless, David continued to grow in popularity and power, while Saul slid further and further into the abyss.

Finally, faced with “the vast Philistine army, he became frantic with fear” (28:5). Samuel was now dead, so he tried speaking directly to the LORD to get some guidance. “But the LORD refused to answer him, either by dreams or by sacred lots or by the prophets” (28:6). Just as he had earlier forced matters by making an illegitimate offering (13:1–14), Saul turned to even less legitimate means to sort out his future. He told his advisers, “Find a woman who is a medium, so I can go and ask her what to do” (28:7). Now he was chasing occultic solutions that only a prophet could legitimately provide (Deut 18:9–20).

God wouldn’t talk to Saul or let any living prophet do it for him; but he used a vile pagan channeler and a dead prophet to deliver a message to Saul: God has given your kingdom to David and the lives of you and your sons to the Philistines (18:17–19). Saul collapsed in fear and hunger (18:20). Just what an illegal witch needed in her house—a dead, paranoid, maniacal king who sporadically kills witches (18:3, 9)! She got him on his feet and on his way—to his death.

The panicked Saul went to the battle and ended up severely wounded. He didn’t want the Philistines to capture and torture him so he told his armor bearer to kill him, but he wouldn’t do it. So Saul and his armor bearer ended up committing suicide together (31:3–5), and as he had heard in the witch’s house, his sons also died that day (31:6). The Philistines routed the Israelites (31:7). The abuse that Saul had feared to face alive, came to his corpse. The Philistines rounded up the royal corpses of Saul and sons, decapitated Saul’s corpse, and distributed his carcass and armor for public display on the wall at Beth-shan and in their pagan temple (31:8–10).

As his first military act as King, Saul had rescued the people of Jabesh-gilead from a horrible siege (11:1–11, esp. vv. 1–2). When they learned what had happened to their hero, they mounted a gallant operation to recover the bodies of Saul and his sons gave them an honorable burial back at the scene of his first military victory in Jabesh (31:11–13). Finally, David was going to come to the throne; however, his first act would have to be to lead public mourning for over the fallen Saul (2 Sam 1–2).

Questions, Reflections, and Commitments

• Reflect on how Saul is an example of how God can permit and even facilitate our own choices if we insist on them. What does this tell us about God’s so-called “permissive will”?
• What warning do you think we might see in 1 Samuel 16:13–14?
• Notice how long David had to wait before he could take the throne, even though he knew God had chosen, called, and anointed him for that office. (1) What did David do during that wait and how did it prepare him for kingship? (2) Do you see anything to learn about patience there?

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