Sent to Jesse's household, Samuel passes over David's older brothers and anoints the youngest, a shepherd boy, as Israel's future king, "for the Lord looks at the heart." David also begins serving Saul as a musician to soothe his troubled moods.
Further context
2 min readSamuel is still mourning for Saul when he is told to stop and fill his horn with oil, because a king has been chosen among the sons of Jesse of Bethlehem.
His objection is practical and frightened: how can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me. The instruction he gets in reply is to take a heifer and say he has come to sacrifice, which is true and incomplete, and it is worth noticing that the prophet who condemned a king for a partial obedience is given a cover story.
The elders of Bethlehem tremble when he arrives and ask whether he comes in peace, which indicates what a visit from him had come to mean.
Seven sons are brought past him. The eldest, Eliab, is tall and impressive, and Samuel's immediate reaction is, surely the LORD's anointed stands here. He is corrected in the sentence the whole episode exists for: do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.
That correction lands on the prophet who had presented Saul to the nation with the words, do you see the man the LORD has chosen? There is no one like him among all the people. The criterion that produced the first king is being disowned by the man who used it.
Seven sons pass and none is chosen. Samuel asks whether these are all, and the answer is that there is still the youngest, out tending the sheep. Nobody had thought it worth bringing him in from the field for a sacrifice. They send for him and wait, standing, until he arrives.
He is ruddy, with a fine appearance and handsome features, which is a slightly awkward detail immediately after a speech about not judging by appearance, and the anointing happens in the presence of his brothers. From that day the Spirit of the LORD comes powerfully on him.
Jesse's response when Samuel arrives is its own small commentary. Seven sons are produced and the eighth is left in the field, and when asked whether these are all, the father has to be prompted to remember him. Nobody in the household considered him a candidate for anything, and he is described as the youngest, which in Hebrew carries the sense of the smallest and least significant rather than simply the last born.
Nothing else changes. He is not made king, given a title, or told what any of it is for. He goes back to the sheep, and the next thing anyone wants him for is his skill on the lyre, when Saul's servants are looking for a musician to play for a man tormented by an evil spirit. He ends up in the royal household as a court musician and armour-bearer, employed by the man he has just been anointed to replace, and Saul likes him a great deal.