1 Samuel 15:34 – 16:13
After Jesus, no one is mentioned more in the bible than David. Scripture describes him as a man after God’s own heart (i.e. takes after). Today we are introduced to him in our reading from 1 Samuel.
So what is our active and all-wise Lord God doing here? Let’s look at the context to see what part of God’s great story we are coming in at.
The Israelites came into the promised land, the land of milk and honey, and proceeded to do exactly what God told them not to do, which was to intermarry with pagans and worship their gods.
From time-to-time God would raise up a Judge or leader, to lead them to military victory that led to renewed faith and Israel was restored until the next time. They would again fall into idolatry and the cycle would continue.
Now Samuel is the last Judge or Leader, and as we heard last week anointed Saul as the first King of Israel because the people wanted a King to protect them and lead them into battle like all the other nations around them.
By doing this they were in fact rejecting God as their King. Saul is becoming unstable and for much of the time has forgotten God.
This is we were we come in today. This week’s reading contains a bit of a pause from the main thread concerning the rise and fall of Saul. God sees the pain in Samuel, and this week, we look pretty much exclusively at what our wonderful and faithful God does for faithful Samuel.
Like Samuel, God grieves too, “and God was sorry” (15:35). In Hebrew, in this case, it is the same word as grieve. Not because God made a mistake and was sorry about how things worked out. God knows exactly how things will work out.
He is grieving for Samuel and his people because he truly weeps and has compassion over us. The grief of God is a profound and beautiful thing because it comes from his love for us, and of course represented most gloriously at the cross.
God also comforts Samuel. He is clearly distraught over the activities of Saul as king. Although he began as a strong and faithful king, during the course of his reign, Saul became increasingly paranoid, perhaps infatuated with his own sense of rule.
God asks Samuel the question, “How long will you grieve over Saul?” (v. 1). Not an impatient or taunting question at all. It’s a question to comfort. The whole tone of the passage indicates how practical, loving, intimate, and helpful God is to Samuel.
He assures Samuel that it was he, God, who rejected Saul. Just as God himself was rejected by the people in favour of Saul
God then does an amazing thing. He promises Samuel that he will restore kingship. Samuel had been faithful to God since he was a little boy, and God here vindicates his faithfulness by telling him that he had not heard the voice of God in vain or incorrectly.
The rejection of Saul begs the question; who is, then, to lead this monarchy? So God reveals the selection of a new king from the line of Jesse from Bethlehem (16:1).
Now this promise of God to Samuel depends on Samuel remaining obedient. He must prepare for proper worship (filling the horn, getting a heifer). He obediently risks his life by entering dangerous territory. And he engages in a possible confrontation with a greater group as powerful elders emerge in fear. S
Samuel remains faithful.
One of my favourite names of our Lord is the God of Surprises. In the unique and divine short list for King, God does not choose the first-born male, Eliab. This is unheard of, not least of all in the Jewish Law.
He does this because he wanted Samuel, the nascent King David, and all the clan of Jesse and the tribe of Judah, that the Lord God Almighty is sovereign and won’t be limited by mortal’s understanding of him.
Why? “For the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (16:7b).
God’s ways are often confounding to us, but that should not be surprising considering how little we know compared to God. God defies cultural convention, expected norms, even when norms may have good reason.
God finishes some very busy God-work by anointing. Samuel knows that something strange is going on, so he asks, “Is there no one left (v.11)?” Already Samuel is confused since the first-born has already been rejected.
Samuel knew that the promise was made, and that God is faithful, but son after son has been rejected.
Now it turns out that the youngest son was not present despite the declaration that the king would be “among the sons” (v. 1). David was so much not even on the radar that he did not make the journey.
But just as God rejects the expected, he then selects the most unexpected. David is anointed King, “and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David mightily from that day on!” (16:13, my exclamation mark).
The story now returns to Saul, but we now see kingship in a new light, that God is active and surprising and most importantly, behind the Israelite king. The Davidic line begins, and unlike the previous institution of kingship, which was a human institution, God has accepted this kingship.
This line will transcend earthly rule, to the point where God will again grieve, comfort, promise, surprise and anoint in the form of Davis’s descendent, Jesus the Messiah.
In all these wonderful passages, filled with the promises of God, we remember that in Jesus, the answer to all of God’s promises is ‘Yes.’ These things we see God doing in today’s passage all point to the very nature of God.
It is the nature of God to grieve with us and comfort us, he promises us that we are actually born for specific purposes, like Samuel, not just some random life, but for God’s purposes that could only be brought to pass by us in and through the promise keeper himself, Jesus Christ.
He promises to give us this life and he does it always in the most surprising way. When it looks impossible, a door opens and life changes.
Finally it is in the nature of God to anoint us for the journey on which he brings us. The anointing is from the Holy Spirit and is a seal on us, a guarantee, that sanctifies and gives power to us to live this life filled with peace and joy. Let me pray...