Makers of Civilization – DAVID (ABOUT 1000 B.C.)

DAVID – The Jews crossed over the River Jordan into the Promised Land and slowly they took the land from the tribes who lived there. They had increased in numbers and had now got a king to rule over them called Saul. But he was disobedient to the commands of God and so God turned away from him and told Samuel the Prophet to go and anoint another man to succeed Saul.

He sent him to the home of a man called Jesse who had eight sons. Samuel went to Bethlehem where Jesse lived and said he had come to sacrifice to God and that Jesse was to come with all his sons. One by one seven sons came before Samuel but God said: ‘Not this one-not this one.’ And Samuel said to Jesse: ‘Are these all your sons?’ And Jesse said: “There is one left, but he is out in the fields with the sheep.’ So Samuel said he must send for him and they would not eat till he came. And when David came Samuel knew that he was the one who was to be king, so he took the horn of oil and anointed him, and then he went away and left David to go on looking after the sheep.

Some time later the Jews were fighting a fierce tribe called the Philistines and David’s three elder brothers went to be soldiers. The Philistines had a man who was a giant, called Goliath, and he chal- lenged the Jews to send out a man to fight him, and if Goliath was defeated the Philistines would give in. But none of the Jews was brave enough to come for- ward. At that time Jesse sent David to take some food to his brothers in camp, and while he was greeting them he saw Goliath and heard him shouting. So David offered to fight him. He refused to wear armour because he was not used to it. He went down to the little river and took five small round stones from it and he took out his sling. When Goliath saw him he jeered at him because he looked so young. But David called out: ‘You come out to me with a sword and a spear, but I come to you in the name of God!’ So David took a stone and put it in his sling and slung it and it hit Goliath on his forehead and killed him. So the people brought David back to the camp cheering him and saying: ‘Saul has slain his thousands but David has slain his ten thousands.’

 

 

Now Saul was a man who sometimes had times of madness, and the only thing that made him quiet was music, David was a very good player on the harp, so they called him to play to Saul when he was mad. David stayed in Saul’s palace and became a very great friend of Jonathan, Saul’s son. But because David had killed Goliath, Saul was jealous of him and one day when David was playing, Saul took up a spear and threw it at him to try to kill him. Fortunately he escaped but after that his life was never safe. His friend Jonathan tried to save him, and at last one day Jonathan decided that David must go away and so, though it made him very sad, he left the king’s palace.

Saul and Jonathan stayed behind to fight the Philistines alone and at last in a battle the Philistines killed Jonathan and two other sons of Saul, and Saul was so unhappy that he killed himself. Then the Jews had no king so they found David and took him for their king and God blessed him and made him great, and the Jews became a very powerful people under his rule. David saw that they needed a strong capital city so he went to Mount Zion and built a great city there on the top of the hill. It was some- times called Jerusalem and sometimes the City of David. David offered sacrifices there to God who had chosen him to be King of the Jews.

God helped David to defeat the Philistines and make the Jews a strong nation and David loved God and sang songs of praise to Him which we call the psalms. But even though David was a great king he did not forget his humble boyhood. In the most famous of all the psalms he wrote he remembered how he had once been a shepherd boy and he likened God to a shepherd looking after His people, the Jews, as a shepherd looks after his flock. Perhaps some of you know it. This is how it begins: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters.’ Christians and Jews still sing David’s song when they meet to sing praises to God.

But one day David did a very dreadful thing. He was on the top of his house on a very hot night and he looked down into a nearby courtyard and saw a very beautiful woman. He sent his servants to find out who she was. She was called Bathsheba and she was married to a man called Uriah. And David wanted Bathsheba to be his wife. Now Uriah was fighting with the army and when he came home on leave David gave him a letter to take back with him to Joab, the commander of the army. In the letter David told Joab to put Uriah in a very dangerous place next time they went out to fight, so that he would be killed, and Joab obeyed the King and Uriah was killed. As soon as Bathsheba had finished mourning for her husband David took her into his house and she became his wife and a son was born to them.

But God was angry with David, and He sent Nathan the prophet to David with a message. Nathan came to David and told him a story. He said: “There were once two men living in a city. One was a rich man and the other was a poor man. The rich man had many cattle and sheep but the poor man had only one lamb which he loved very dearly and it lived in his house with his own children. One day a guest came to the house of the rich man and he wanted to make a feast for him. Instead of killing one of his own beasts for the feast he sent his servants to the poor man’s house and they seized his lamb and killed it and prepared it for the feast.’ When David heard this story he was very angry and said that the rich man ought to be killed for what he had done. Then Nathan looked at David and said to him quietly: ‘You are the man.’ David was very much ashamed, and asked God’s forgiveness and Nathan said that God would forgive him because he had repented, but that his son would die. Soon afterwards the little boy became very sick and though David fasted and prayed, God did not spare the child and he died.

When David was an old man he wanted to build a beautiful temple in honour of God and he told Nathan. Nathan said that God would not allow him to build a temple for him because he was a man of war, but that his son who should reign after him would be a man of peace and he should build a temple in Jerusalem. David accepted his word and gave up his plan, but it made him very sad.

After Bathsheba’s first son died a second son was born to her and he was named Solomon. He grew up to be a fine young man and his father was very proud of him. When David was a very old man and knew that he must soon die he sent for Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet and told them to anoint Solomon King, so that when David died there should be no quarrelling as to who the new king should be. And they did as they were told and soon afterwards David died and his son Solomon reigned in his stead.

THINGS YOU CAN DO

1. Read some of the stories of David in your Bibles:

1 Samuel xvi. 1-13.

1 Samuel xvii. 1–54.

I Samuel xii. 1-15.

2. Learn by heart Psalm xxiii. 1-4.
3. Dramatize the story of the visit of Samuel to the house of Jesse

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