Who is David, Who is the Son of Jesse?

 •  10 min. read  •  grade level: 10
 
Samuel the prophet, who had anointed David to be king over Israel, was just dead. His long life of perhaps over one hundred years in the service of God and Israel had now closed. He had also anointed Saul, and had had to grieve over his disastrous failures. Thus had Samuel been used to preserve and renew the links between Jehovah and His people. Saul was still wielding the power of the kingdom, and nothing outwardly emphasized the serious fact that the Spirit of Jehovah had departed from him. For although God may tolerate that which He has already judged morally, sometimes indeed continuing for a considerable time to do so, yet He can never sanction by His presence powers contrary in principle to each other. Sometimes in longsuffering mercy, and sometimes as in the history before us, for the more effective moral preparation of His chosen instrument, He exercises and strengthens faith in the hearts of the faithful, and further uses it for the perfecting of patience.
David was here set down to learn patience and waiting on God, and God had His own way of teaching it. In a time of need David turns to man for help, instead of to God! He proves its unprofitableness, and very nearly exposes himself to the curse of Jer. 17:5. Let us look at the circumstances.
"And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep. And David sent out ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name: and thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there aught missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel. Ask thy young men, and they will show thee. Wherefore let the young men find favor in thine eyes; for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David. And when David's young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David, and ceased. And Nabal answered David's servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be? So David's young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings." 1 Sam. 25:4-12.
A degenerate descendant of a man remarkable for faith in his day, Caleb, he offers an entirely unprovoked insult to David, who, in his resentment, at once prepares to avenge himself upon the churl. The flesh in David would meet the flesh in Nabal! Had such a conflict been allowed, who can tell how it would have ended? But God dealt graciously with David, softening his heart, and turning him from his purpose by an instrumentality prepared in secret but now fittingly brought forth. So David himself, too, had been beforehand prepared for the conflict with Goliath- not by the unproved accouterments of Saul, but—by the pledges of God's mercy in his deliverances from the lion and the bear. That this is the divine way of using experience is manifest. The great Apostle of the Gentiles thus exercised himself. "For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that He will yet deliver us." 2 Cor. 1:8-10.
God was not slow to avenge His tried and suffering servant. He took the matter into His own hand and made it clear that He would not allow any to revile His anointed with impunity. The purpose of God concerning Israel and the kingdom then in course of development did not interest such a man as Nabal in the least. God was not in his thoughts. Inordinate love of self had shut out every other object as unworthy of consideration. Clearly, he had no sense of the responsibilities attaching to his position as an Israelite, for had this been so, at such a season he would have gladly responded to the appeal David made to him, and have been overjoyed that he had it in his power to fulfill such an obligation of God's law (Deut. 26:12-15). His own blessing he would have found greatly increased by so doing. His serious fault was assumed ignorance of the divine purposes, and of the personality of David, affected as it evidently was, for his admissions betrayed and convicted him of impiety. His heart was not interested in what God had already wrought for Israel, nor in the blessing yet in store for His people. Selfishness had closed his heart against the stranger.
He was willingly ignorant and, like those of whom Paul writes (Rom. 1:28), he refused to have God in his knowledge. In his case it was not simplicity or ignorance, but enmity. Knowledge, however unwelcome, fixes responsibility upon the soul, and exposes to judgment. "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.... Wherefore then gavest thou not my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury?... For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him." Luke 19:22-26.
Nabal had claimed full and absolute right and control over all that God had given him in His fruitful garden ("Carmel"), speaking of them as "my bread," "my water," "my flesh," etc. God gave him an opportunity (which would not have been unrewarded) of owning, and of ministering to, His anointed, the future king; but he who had no faith was here proved wanting and failed to seize the occasion, and so lost everything, even his own life. Both folly and wickedness are manifested here. God alone has absolute right over all things. He says, "The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine," yea, "The earth is the LORD'S, and the fullness thereof." Man is but a steward, and must give account of all to God.
David asks for but a small part of what would all be at his disposal by-and-by. Nabal might perhaps have acceded to David's request if the latter had given him guarantee that it would turn out a profitable investment. All hangs on the personality of David. "And Nabal answered David's servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants nowadays that break away every man from his master." All depended upon his estimate of the one who asked the favor. Blinded as to this, Nabal exposed himself to God's righteous judgment; but the Spirit of God reveals the truth to Abigail, and causes her to take immediate action that should avert the threatened judgment on the entire household, excepting its guilty head upon whom destruction so shortly descended.
"And when Abigail saw David, she basted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground. And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my Lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid. Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send. Now therefore, my lord, as the LORD liveth, and as thy soul liveth, seeing the LORD hath withholden thee from coming to shed blood, and from avenging thyself with thine own hand, now let thine enemies, and they that seek evil to my lord, be as Nabal. And now this blessing which thine handmaid hath brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men that follow my lord. I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: for the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house; because my lord fighteth the battles of the LORD, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days. Yet a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the LORD thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out, as out of the middle of a sling. And it shall come to pass, when the LORD shall have done to my lord according to all the good that He hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel; that this shall be no grief unto thee, nor offense of heart unto my lord, either that thou hast shed blood causeless, or that my lord hath avenged himself: but when the LORD shall have dealt well with my lord, then remember thine handmaid." vv. 23-31.
It is beautiful to see that not only did Abigail save the lives of herself and her household by this timely and judicious action, but she obtained a good degree in Israel, becoming indeed the chosen companion, in adversity as well as in prosperity, of Jehovah's anointed, while David not only avoided the guilt of shedding innocent blood, but his heart was inexpressibly comforted and strengthened by this evidence of God's guard, care. and working on his behalf. The danger past and his necessities met, David's heart was now filled with such a sense of the goodness of Jehovah that he could only worship where he had thought to fight. "And when David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, Blessed be the LORD, that hath pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and hath kept His servant from evil: for the LORD hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head. And David sent and communed with Abigail, to take her to him to wife." v. 39.
How remarkably does all this illustrate the character of this present age! Materialism, progress and development, science and religion occupy the minds of men; but a stolid indifference prevails with regard to the Lord Jesus Christ and His claims. Questions and learned disquisitions, speculative theories without number, have to a great extent taken the place of the simple and precious gospel which has gladdened the hearts and saved the souls of myriads of poor guilty sinners who have turned to, and believed on, the Savior. "Faithful is the word, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. But for this reason mercy was shown me, that in me, the first, Jesus Christ might display the whole longsuffering, for a delineation of those about to believe on Him to life eternal." 1 Tim. 1:15, 16; J.N.D. Trans.
Man's great responsibility is to believe and obey, not to reason and deny, and so lose the blessing. The exalted Savior is also the Judge of living and dead, to whom all must give account. "Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead." Acts 17:31. The wisdom which the fear of God gives to the simple and believing soul delivers from the world's doom and implants the confident expectation that they shall also obtain the complete "salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory."