Chronicles: David’s Road To Kingship
Out of Nowhere?
As we continue down the historical line in the book of Chronicles, we ultimately find ourselves naturally going from Saul to David. In fact, 1 Chronicles ends Saul’s reign and begins David’s within the same chapter. 1 Chronicles 10:13-14 says, “So Saul died for his unfaithfulness which he committed against the LORD, because of the word of the LORD which he did not keep; and also because he asked counsel of a medium, making inquiry of her, and did not inquire of the LORD. Therefore He killed him and turned the kingdom over to David, the son of Jesse.” So this is clearly the beginning of David’s reign, but is this all his kingdom hanged on? Was David simply just waiting for Saul to die in order to take over or was God preparing him from the start? As we look at the life of David, we can begin to see how God had prepared this man from the very beginning to be ruler over His people and so much more. When talking about David, The Bible Project beautifully mentions, “He’s actually the most developed and complex character in the entire Old Testament. The amount of pages dedicated to telling his story outnumber any other single person in the Bible except for Jesus.” It’s pretty clear when you read scripture, that David is a prominent character who can’t be overlooked. He wasn’t just some pawn filling in for Saul, He was God’s vessel that He prepared beforehand to be a great king. With that in mind, let’s see how exactly David got to this point.
The Preparation
To see where David’s life really takes a change, we have to go all the way to 1 Samuel 16. In this chapter, we see God tell Samuel to go to the house of Jesse to anoint the future king there. This is where the famous story of Samuel going through all of Jesse’s sons comes into play. The oldest, brightest, strongest, and best-looking men that Jesse had to offer to Samuel came to him to see if it was them who was supposed to be king. When Samuel looks at all these men, he asks Jesse if he has any more sons because the Lord hasn’t picked any of them. This is where David enters the scene and the rest is history. God tells Samuel that this is the one that is to be king and Samuel anoints him right there on the spot. But what happens once David is anointed since Saul is still king? 1 Samuel 16:22-23 tells us, “So Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Let David now be my attendant for he has found favor in my sight.” So it came about whenever the evil spirit from God came to Saul, David would take the harp and play it with his hand; and Saul would feel relieved and become well, and the evil spirit would leave him.” Before David ever became king in place of Saul, he served Saul in any manner that Saul requested. This is an amazing, humble act of service from David, and is mostly a part of the reason he was selected to be king over his brothers. Anyone who is picked to be the king would probably not be willing to serve others while they waited to take the throne. Not so much with David. His path to the throne was one full of service because David realized that without God’s provision, he wouldn’t have this position anyway.
Heart of A Warrior
Furthermore, David wasn’t just a humble servant, he was a confident warrior as well. Of all the stories in the Bible that I probably don’t need to go over because they’re that well-known, David and Goliath would be up there. So while I won’t dive into how David took down Goliath, I will touch on what David’s response was to Saul and his army when he first saw and heard Goliath. 1 Samuel 17:26 says, “Then David said to the men who were standing by him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and rids Israel of the disgrace? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he has dared to defy the armies of the living God?” What a statement! Imagine being face to face with the strongest army in the world and standing up to them solely because they dishonored the name of God. This type of bravery and boldness is what every God-honoring king should have. Yes, they should be humble servants, but they should also be warriors who fight to uphold the name of God, no matter who may be against them. One of the final steps to the road of kingship for King David is by far one of the most important.
This step, of course, was a full reliance upon God’s sovereignty. King Saul at the time had multiple occasions where he tried to kill David out of anger or jealousy for his eventual taking of the throne. Yet no matter how many times David could have ended Saul’s life, he never takes the opportunity. Even when David had Saul all alone in a cave and had his own men convincing him to finish the job, David refused. Look at his famous response to his own people in 1 Samuel 24:10 “Behold, this day your eyes have seen that the LORDhad handed you over to me today in the cave, and someone said to kill you, but I spared you; and I said, ‘I will not reach out with my hand against my lord, because he is the LORD’S anointed.’” While the road to David’s kingship wasn’t perfect by any means, it was in fact used to make David into the person he was when he took his rightful place as king. As we continue on with our study of David’s life later this week, I hope this opening study was an eye-opener to us as we see just what exactly our Lord favors in His leaders. No matter where or what God calls us to lead, may we do so humbly with the heart of a warrior, always relying on God’s providence.
Sources
[1] Blue Letter Bible. (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/
[2] Mackie, T. (2024, August 30). David: What’s the big deal? BibleProject. https://bibleproject.com/articles/david-whats-big-deal/
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