Beauty and talent, Adam's gifts to David, did not shield their
possessor against hardship. As the supposed son of a slave, he was
banished from association with his brothers, and his days were passed
in the desert tending his father's sheep. (13) It was his shepherd life
that prepared him for his later exalted position. With gentle
consideration he led the flocks entrusted to him. The young lambs he
guided to pastures of tender grass; the patches of less juicy herbs he
reserved for the sheep; and the full-grown sturdy rams were given the
tough weeds for food. Then God said: "David knows how to tend sheep,
therefore he shall be the shepherd of my flock Israel." (14)
In the solitude of the desert David had opportunities of displaying his
extraordinary physical strength. One day he slew four lions and three
bears, (15) though he had no weapons. His most serious adventure was
with the reem. David encountered the mammoth beast asleep, and taking
it for a mountain, he began to ascend it. Suddenly the reem awoke, and
David found himself high up in the air on its horns. He vowed, if he
were rescued, to build a temple to God one hundred ells in height, as
high as the horns of the reem. Thereupon God sent a lion. The king of
beasts (16) inspired even the reem with awe. The reem prostrated
himself, and David could easily descend from his perch. At that moment
a deer appeared. The lion pursued after him, and David was saved from
the lion as well as the reem. (17)
He continued to lead the life of a shepherd until, at the age of
twenty-eight, (18) he was anointed king by Samuel, who was taught by a
special revelation that the despised youngest son of Jesse was to be
king. Samuel's first charge had been to anoint one of the sons of
Jesse, but he was not told which one. When he saw the oldest, Eliab, he
thought him the king of God's choice. God had allowed him to be
deceived, in order to punish Samuel for his excessive
self-consciousness in calling himself the seer. It was thus proved to
him that he could not foresee all things. (19) However, Samuel's error
was pardonable. God's first choice had rested upon Eliab. Only on
account of his violent nature, his swiftness to anger against David,
the position destined for him was transferred to his youngest brother.
(20) Eliab was in a sense compensated by seeing his daughter become the
wife of Rehoboam. Thus he, too, enjoys the distinction of being among
the ancestors of the Judaic kings, and Samuel's vision of Eliab as king
was not wholly false. (21)
The election of David was obvious from what happened with the holy oil
with which he was anointed. (22) When Samuel had tried to pour the oil
on David's brothers, it had remained in the horn, but at David's
approach it flowed of its own accord, and poured itself out over him.
The drops on his garments changed into diamonds and pearls, and after
the act of anointing him, the horn was as full as before.
The amazement was great that the son of a slave should be made king.
Then the wife of Jesse revealed her secret, and declared herself the
mother of David. (23)
The anointing of David was for a time kept a secret, but its effect
appeared in the gift of prophecy which manifested itself in David, (24)
and in his extraordinary spiritual development. His new accomplishments
naturally earned envy for him. None was more bitterly jealous than
Doeg, the greatest scholar of his time. When he heard that Saul was
about to have David come to court as his attendant, Doeg began to
praise David excessively, with the purpose of arousing the king's
jealousy and making David hateful in his eyes. He succeeded, (25) yet
Saul did not relinquish his plan of having David at court. David had
become known to Saul in his youth, and at that time the king had
conceived great admiration for him. The occasion was one on which David
had shown cleverness as well as love of justice. A rich woman had had
to leave her home temporarily. She could not carry her fortune with
her, nor did she wish to entrust it to any one. She adopted the device
of hiding her gold in honey jars, and these she deposited with a
neighbor. Accidentally he discovered what was in the jars, and he
abstracted the gold. On her return the woman received her vessels, but
the gold concealed in them was gone. She had no evidence to bring up
against her faithless neighbor, and the court dismissed her complaint.
She appealed to the king, but he was equally powerless to help. When
the woman came out of the palace of the king, David was playing with
his companions. Seeing her dejection, he demanded an audience of the
king, that truth might prevail. The king authorized him to do as he saw
fit. David ordered the honey jars to be broken, and two coins were
found to adhere to the inner side of the vessels. The thief had
overlooked them, and they proved his dishonesty. (26)