The next stop-over was David the youth, just when Samuel was showing up at his father Jesse’s house in Bethlehem in search of G-d’s chosen one, whom he was to anoint as the next king over Israel⁷⁴.

Jesse had eight sons, seven of whom were with their father in Bethlehem. When Eliab the firstborn walked in, tall and handsome, Samuel thought, “Surely the L-RD’S anointed is before Him.”

Then G-d answered Samuel with words which are among my most favorite of His sayings, and which I have totally taken to heart: “Do not look at his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for G-d does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the L-RD looks at the heart.”⁷⁵ Amen!

All seven sons filed by before Samuel but G-d chose none of them. 

What? Did G-d not send him to the house of Jesse to anoint one of the man’s sons? Yet none of the seven were it.

“Are these all your children?” Samuel inquired, somewhat astonished. Then Jesse told him of his youngest son who was out on the pastures tending his father’s sheep.

No one got to sit down until the youngest of eight brothers was fetched. In came David, a youth smelling after the fresh outdoors, his head crowned by a thick shock of shiny red locks, beautiful sky-blue eyes sparkling in a ruddy sun-tanned, lovely face, his young body, partially covered with a fleece, well-shaped and equally ruddy from the sun⁷⁶.

Samuel’s heart instantly went out to this youth, something he did not imagine possible after having been so fond of Saul and greatly grieved over him failing to obey G-d which resulted in G-d’s rejection of him⁷⁷.

“This is the one,” G-d said right away. “Up, anoint him.”

Then Samuel anointed David, the youngest and least important of eight brothers, right there in the midst of all of them. Immediately the Holy Spirit came upon him mightily from that moment on forward. 

The Holy Spirit now took me straight to the battle field, where King Saul and the Israelites were encamped over against the Philistines, who once again came to attack Israel as was their practice out of their malice of heart toward G-d’s people, always seeking to destroy them in never-ending enmity⁷⁸.

Their champion, a big mouthed giant called Goliath, for forty days morning and evening kept insulting and challenging the Israelites to send one of their champions forward to do a one-to-one battle. Whoever would win by killing the other, his people would become servants of the people of the victor⁷⁹.

Just as the Philistine shouted again his insults, David walked up to greet his three oldest brothers who had joined Saul in the battle. Their father Jesse had put together some supplies for his sons and sent David to bring them to his brothers⁸⁰. 

David witnessed the men of Israel fleeing from before Goliath, afraid of him. Dismayed at the sight, he inquired of the men standing near-by what the prize would be for the man who would kill this Philistine and take away the reproach from Israel. Upon their reply he decided to be that man.

Then he said something one could wish today’s leaders of Israel would have the faith and nerve to say to the international community of nations regarding a Palestinian state on Israel’s covenanted soil: “For who is this uncircumcised Philistine [Arafat; and now Abbas], that he should taunt the armies of the Living G-d?”⁸¹