1 Samuel 16:1-13
Sent for from the sheep
Seven brothers pass and none is chosen. Nobody had thought to bring him in from the flock, and they do not sit down to eat until he arrives.
People of the Bible
David
Shepherd, outlaw, poet, king and murderer, and the one the rest of the Bible keeps measuring kings against.
David is the eighth son, the one left with the sheep when the prophet comes to the house. From there he is a harpist in the court of the man who will spend years trying to kill him, a giant killer, a mercenary captain, a fugitive with four hundred men in debt and distress, a king at thirty, and the man who brings the ark into Jerusalem dancing in a linen ephod. He is also the man who sends for another man’s wife and then arranges for the husband to be killed at the front, and spends the rest of his reign living inside the consequences.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of David
- 01
- 02
1 Samuel 17:32-51
You come with a sword, I come in the name
He refuses armour that does not fit, picks five stones out of a brook, and runs towards the giant. The speech before it is longer than the fight.
- 03
1 Samuel 24:1-22
I will not stretch out my hand
Saul walks alone into the cave where David is hiding. David cuts a corner off his robe and his conscience troubles him for that, and he calls out to him afterwards from a safe distance.
- 04
2 Samuel 6:12-23
Dancing before the ark
He brings the ark up with shouting and the sound of the trumpet, dances with all his might in a linen ephod, and answers his wife’s contempt by saying he will be more undignified than this.
- 05
2 Samuel 11:1-12:14
You are the man
At the time when kings go out to battle, he stays home. What follows is adultery, an attempted cover up, and a letter carried by the man it condemns. Nathan tells him a story and he passes sentence on himself.
- 06
2 Samuel 18:19-33
O Absalom, my son, my son
His son has taken the kingdom and is dead in a wood, and the army has just won a battle for him. He goes up to the chamber over the gate, and the victory turns to mourning for everyone.
Why it matters
Half the Psalms carry his name and the prophets measure every king after him by whether he walked as David did, which is an odd standard for a man whose worst sin is recorded in full. That is the point. The account keeps both: a covenant that his house and his throne will be established forever, and a chapter where a prophet tells him a story about a lamb and then says you are the man. Every genealogy of Jesus runs through him, and the title son of David follows Jesus through all four gospels.
51 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
