BibleProject | One Story That Leads to JesusSample

Saul continues to spiral, skirting God’s commands and playing the blame game. God tells him to fight against the Amalekites, the nation that tried to annihilate the Israelites after the exodus. After their victory, Saul lets his soldiers plunder the Amalekites’ livestock—exactly what God told him not to do!

Samuel confronts him. Saul again refuses to take responsibility for his actions. The soldiers did it! We saved them for sacrifices! They made me! Samuel will have none of it. Saul’s refusal to rule as God commands leads to God regretting and rejecting Saul’s kingship.

God chooses a new king. Unlike Saul, David doesn’t look like much. His size and youth meant that even his father didn’t think him worth calling in from the fields. God tells Samuel not to look at David’s “appearance," a word that hyperlinks this passage to Genesis 3. Eve looked at the appearance of the forbidden tree and chose what looked good to her. Now, Samuel trusts Yahweh’s wisdom over what he sees. He anoints David king over Israel.

There’s more to this shepherd boy than meets the eye. When a towering Philistine picks a fight with Israel, only David answers the challenge. As Hannah prophesied, the weapons of the proud and powerful are useless in this fight. David steps into the ring armed with a staff, a sling, and some river rocks. His unshakeable confidence in Yahweh drives the narrative. David takes Goliath down with a stone, leaving the Philistines’ champion in the same condition as their god Dagon—sprawled in the dirt, head rolling from his body.

God chooses a leader nobody expects, who overthrows a wicked superpower no one else can defeat. It’s a promising start for Israel’s new king and a pattern we will see again in Scripture.

Reflection Questions

• Saul disobeyed God’s clear command against taking the Amalekites’ cattle because he listened to the voice of his army over God’s. Can you think of any other stories in the Bible where, instead of listening to God’s words, a person trusted the voice of another? What happened?
• You may recall from the video two days ago that biblical authors often use details about a character’s appearance to convey important information about the person. Meditate on the description of Goliath in today’s reading: “His height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels” (1 Sam. 17:4-5). Why do you think it matters that Goliath is exceptionally tall and wearing snake-like armor?