David

by J.L. Ferguson, Barrhead | Category: Character Studies | Jun 1969

Like many of the great characters of Scripture, David was in rich maturity while still a comparatively young man. Son of a little-known Bethlehemite, he was crowned king in Hebron when 30 years old. What a tremendous depth of experience was crowded into the years between his first anointing and his crowning! Only in the case of Joseph is there a parallel in age and experience.

The early years

The shepherd boy in the fields of Bethlehem was clearly in training. His classroom was the plains where he gained an appreciation of the glory and majesty of God which was later to find rich expression in his writings. In caring for the flock and disposing of its foes he acquired an approach to life which was later to give character to his reign.

"He chose David also His servant, and took him from the sheep-folds; from following the ewes that give suck He brought him, to feed Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance. So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands" (Psalm 78.70-72).

Integrity of heart, skilfulness of hands - these were the early characteristics which later God was so effectively to use. He was to follow in the kingly succession a man who began by seeking lost asses and finished by losing a kingdom. In sharp contrast, David kept his father's sheep and was to retain a kingdom for his posterity. Choice study indeed for thoughtful youth today - the wise use of the formative years.

Between the anointing and the throne

David had three anointings, (1) by Samuel in 1 Samuel 16.13, (2) by the men of Judah in 2 Samuel 2.4, and (3) by the elders of Israel in 2 Samuel 5.3. Between the first two anointings were the years of his deepest persecutions. Historically they are recounted in considerable detail in chapters 19 to 31 of 1 Samuel. In his many Psalms he describes his inner feelings, his "broken sobs".

The days of David's triumph over Goliath were short-lived, but impressions were made on the minds of many in those days which fashioned all their after-life. Ostensibly, in those early days the lovers of David were many - Saul (1 Samuel 16.21), Jonathan (18.1), all Israel and Judah (18.16), Michal (18.28). But the love of Saul soon turned to envy and hate and drove David into the strongholds and hiding-places of the wilderness. There his real lovers manifested themselves. They were fierce men who resorted to him. But they were loyal men and true and he taught them the fear of the LORD.

In these years Saul hunted David mercilessly. He fled to Ramah, to Nob, to Achish of the Philistines, to Adullam's cave, to Judah, to Keilah, to the hill-country of Ziph, to Engedi, to the wilderness of Paran, back again to Achish, to Ziklag. Once and again it says he went "whithersoever he could".

His inner thoughts in those days

But David put the years of his affliction to great spiritual profit. Seventy three Psalms bear his name. There was also Psalm 2 (see Acts 4.25) and possibly there were others. Read as a Psalter by themselves they throw great light on the inward emotions of this great man. Most of them were written during those years of persecuted waiting and many of them are among the most treasured portions of the Scriptures. The heart-longings which he breathed into these writings have ever since comforted and enriched all those who love the Lord. And what a field they cover of deep, personal affection for his God and His dwelling place, of reverent appreciation of the majesty of His glory, of hopeful mourning in all the affliction of his low estate, of grief for sin in himself and the arrogant men around him! Yet woven through it all are those profound Messianic predictions which have so mightily moved the hearts of God's children. Here was a man, on the one hand hunted through the years like a "hind of the morning", on the other hand enjoying such close, sweet fellowship with his God as we would long both to have and be able to express to others as he did. Truly David's Psalms, written in the hiding places of the wilderness can be ranked in their Old Testament greatness with the letters from Paul's pen in the dungeons of Rome.

The Song of the Bow

At last his enemy was laid low. Not that David regarded Saul as such. To him, he was the LORD's anointed and he resisted every desire on the part of his followers to harm one whom the LORD had put on the throne. When he learned of his death he expressed the fineness of his feelings in the Song of the Bow (2 Samuel 1), and mourned the passing in such tragic circumstances of the man who many a time would have slain him, and of his son who loved him, but not sufficiently to break with home and go into danger with him. Truly the song of a generous heart!

The throne and its covenant

So David. at 30 years was at last enthroned at Hebron by the men of Judah. seven and a half years later all Israel acknowledged him. and for thirty-three years he reigned in Jerusalem. Everywhere he went the LORD gave him victory until he reigned over a territory uniquely large in Israel's history. The wealth of the captive nations he regarded as not his own, but dedicated to a purpose which lay deep in his heart - a house for the LORD. In return God gave him the covenant of the house, the throne and the kingdom (2 Samuel 7), as sure to David as the Covenant of the Seed and the Land was to Abram (Genesis 15).

A dwelling place for the LORD

When God "found David". He chose a man who was after His own heart. who would do all His will. Straight from his crowning in Hebron by all Israel he went to Jerusalem and took the stronghold of Zion. His first thoughts were for the ark of the covenant which had been in the house of Abinadab for the best part of a century, completely ignored by Israel's first king. True. David erred in his first attempt to bring it to Jerusalem. He had to learn that no amount of sincerity in the heart of the worshipper is permitted by God to alter the pattern of service already decreed by Him. No amount of joy on David's part could commend a new cart to the LORD. So he quickly learned his lesson and the Levites brought up the ark in the God-given way.

The deep longings of his exile days were finding expression. There yet remained David's most profound desire a dwelling house for the LORD. So whenever the kingdom was at rest, and he himself in a house of cedar, he asked of Nathan that he might now build a house for the LORD to rest in. And to him was given in writing, the specification of the magnificent temple, which he committed to his son Solomon for execution, together with the immense store of his dedicated treasures. This was the crowning joy of David's life.

The dark shadows

But there came a sad day for David, a day when kings went out to battle and David sent Joab instead, He himself remained at home and fell a prey to the adversary. The lust of the flesh, in a moment of passion, so blinded him that he contrived the death of a man who was his peer in valour. The entail of sorrow was crushing. It involved being disgraced by one son (2 Samuel 13.14), banished by another (15.19), revolted against by a third (1 Kings 2), betrayed by his friends, deserted by his people, bereaved of his children.

David mourned in deep contrition over his sin in the matter of Uriah. He received forgiveness at the hand of the Lord, but the inexorable law of the reaper ran its course. The child died and finally David wept his way up Olivet while his murderous son put him to shame in the city. Then the pathetic cry, "0 my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, 0 Absalom, my son, my son!"

The golden sunset

Yet "the holy and sure blessings of David" brought him back to the throne, and in full kingdom glory he saw his son Solomon divinely selected for succession, with the writing from the LORD detailing the construction of a magnificent house for God, and with far more wealth available than would be required in the building, and with a well-ordered Levitical priesthood prepared to function in it.

These then were the last words of David:

"David the son of Jesse saith,

And the man who was raised on high saith,

The anointed of the God of Jacob,

And the sweet psalmist of Israel:

The spirit of the LORD spake by me,

And His word was upon my tongue.

The God of Israel said,

The Rock of Israel spake to me:

One that ruleth over men righteously,

That ruleth in the fear of God,

He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth,

A morning without clouds;

When the tender grass springeth out of the earth,

Through clear shining after rain ... "

(2 Samuel 23.1-4).

In retrospect

He was a man after God's own heart (Acts 13.22), who for his own generation served the counsel of God and did all His will. His longings for a resting place for the LORD exceeded any desires he may have had for personal comfort (Psalm 132.4-5). Not only was he capable of thinking God's thoughts after Him, but he was eminently fitted to put these thoughts into action and into the choicest of writings. Singer, poet, warrior, loyal to friend, generous to foe - little wonder that later kings of Judah were well-spoken of when the Spirit recorded that they walked either in the ways, or in the first ways of David. From him came the Christ, who will yet sit on the throne of His father David and reign over the house of Jacob for ever.

Yet he was a man of like passions with us, frequently seen in his Psalms in deep depression of spirit, battling on against the adversary, caught up in fleshly desires, stooping unworthily in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, then weeping his way back in profound contrition. Great David, what an inspiration to us all!

J.L. Ferguson, Barrhead | Jun 1969
Character Studies