Eliab, David’s oldest brother, overheard what David said to the men. Hot anger flashed up in him against his youngest brother: “Who did this little greenhorn think he is, being barely out of his diapers and still wet behind his ears?” 

Ever since Samuel anointed David instead of him, Jesse’s firstborn - tall, handsome, a real man and warrior - to be the next king of Israel, he could not speak kindly to David. He felt offended by G-d and highly annoyed and humiliated that He passed over him and all of his six brothers in favor of this milk sucking youth keeping sheep (which was the lowest job usually assigned to the youngest member of a family), who looked like a girl so pretty and not like a man. 

“David is not fit to be a king,” Eliab thought, embittered. He simply could not accept G-d’s choice of the youngest brother. It pricked his pride terribly, preventing him from feeling happy for David, and being proud of him.

Consequently he shouted angrily at him, “Why have you come down?” (‘Did he already want to play king?’) 

“And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness?”, implying that David was a poor sort of a shepherd. “I know your insolence and the wickedness of your heart…” 

The way Eliab saw it – blinded by jealousy and bitterness - was that David already thought himself superior to his brothers and failed to show the respect due the heir in their father’s house. 

“Because Samuel anointed him he now thinks to be already acting as the future king of Israel?”, Eliab grumbled in his mind. “The dupe is on a ‘bunny-trail’ if he thinks that he, the midget, could defy and kill that giant trained in warfare⁸². Ha, what a joke!”

G-d and Samuel made a mistake to anoint his baby-brother to be king. “It will never be,” Eliab thought bitterly. “Carving flutes and singing pretty little songs to the lyre is not the stuff that makes for kings.”⁸³

But David kept on asking until someone told King Saul of him, who summoned David, while Eliab kept close after him to see what else his brother was up to. When he heard David say to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight with him,” he almost chocked on his own saliva.

“Oh my G-d,” he caughed, “my baby brother is really on a bunny-trail! He’ll get himself killed!” 

But when he saw David getting clothed in Saul’s armor who was well over a head taller than David, he had to hold his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. David really looked like a midget in Saul’s armor, the tip of the sword actually touching the ground.

“This is hilarious!”, Eliab muttered under his breath, watching with malicious pleasure his brother trying to walk in this warrior’s outfit.

“Forget it! I can’t go in this,” David exclaimed and took it all off. Then he went, with his stick, slingshot and five smooth stones, to confront Goliath.

The Philistine disdained David’s youth and handsome appearance, cursing and insulting him. Eliab stood like frozen to the ground in utter disbelief about David’s foolishness, unable to view this as faith. It was much worse even than a bunny-trail and he began to fear for David’s life, for their father Jesse loved him.

Every man, both Israelite and Philistine, watched like transfixed this youth who wore no cover whatsoever approach the giant enclosed in full armor, a bronze javelin slung between his shoulders and carrying a spear the size of a weaver’s beam, and a huge shield⁸⁴. Everybody could hear what the Philistine roared at David but David’s words got swallowed up by the noise the Philistines made, beating on their shields with their swords and shouting, “Goliath! Goliath!”

But then David seemed to be shouting as well, as now Eliab could hear him say, “… that all the earth may know that there is a G-d in Israel; and that all this assembly may know that the L-RD does neither deliver nor save by sword or by spear; for the battle is the L-RD’s and He will give you into our hands!”⁸⁵ 

David’s words caused Eliab to feel ashamed and convicted of wrong doing, but he was too proud to acknowledge it and repent. Instead, he turned and walked off, no longer wanting to watch. 

“He is mad, he is a religious fanatic and it’s not faith but presumption that got him to speak and act that way,” he reasoned to himself.

Suddenly there arose an ear-shattering, earth-rocking shout; then one could hear the metallic beat of swords against swords and on shields, and the thunder of a multitude of trampling, running feet. That clamor could make one’s heart stop and blood freeze in its veins – so frightening was the sound.

David had won! He had killed the giant Philistine!

G-d vindicated David’s faith and His own holy Name by guiding that small projectile like a powerful rocket deep into Goliath’s forehead, right between the eyes, making the giant fall face forward like a felled tree. Goliath’ own sword in hand, David beheaded this big-mouthed Philistine⁸⁶.

Without a doubt, this was quite a “bunny-trail” David had been on. His deeds, his reign, and his psalms have endured more than three thousand years, having encouraged and comforted uncountable millions, enriching them with joy and delight, providing them with counsel and guidance.

But who knows anything about Eliab? Most don’t even know his name and that he was David’s eldest brother, the heir in their father’s house.

Indeed, G-d does not look at the outward appearance of man, and chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and the weak things of the world to shame the things that are strong, as well as the base things of the world and the despised, even the things that are not that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before G-d.

Just as it is written, “Let him who boasts boast in the L-RD.”⁸⁷