1. And the LORD said to Samuel. In the preceding episodes, the typical form of divine communication was Samuel’s report of what God had said, although at Samuel’s first sighting of Saul, a brief direct message from God is offered. As we have observed, these reports open up a certain margin of doubt as to whether the purported divine injunctions are really God’s or Samuel’s. The present episode unfolds systematically through repeated dialogue between God and Samuel, and so God’s judgments are rendered with perfect, authoritative transparency. Evidently, the writer (or redactor) felt that the initial election of David had to be entirely unambiguous. As the story continues, God will no longer play this role of direct intervention.

I have seen Me among his sons a king. The verb “to see” (raʾah) followed by the preposition l^e has the idiomatic sense of “to provide,” but it is essential to preserve the literal meaning because this entire episode is built on the repetition of the thematically weighted word “to see,” just as the previous episode turned on “to listen.”

2. For should Saul hear, he will kill me. Suddenly, a whole new political perspective is thrown on the estrangement between Samuel and Saul. The prophet may claim the higher ground of divine authority, but it is the king who has the armed divisions, and who might be ready to use them if Samuel should take any active steps to replace him. At this point, Samuel’s “grieving” over Saul begins to look like grieving over the mistake he made in first choosing him. God, understanding Samuel’s political predicament, suggests to him a cover story for his trip from Ramah to Bethlehem, in the tribal territory of Judah.

3. invite Jesse to the sacrifice. The kind of sacrifice in question, zevaḥ, involves both the ritual act and a feast made of the substantial parts of the animal not burned on the altar.

4. came trembling. Their reaction is another reflection of the dangerous political situation: the estrangement between Samuel and Saul appears to be generally known, and the elders are terrified at the idea that Samuel may have come to designate a new king, or otherwise subvert the reigning monarch, which could bring royal retribution down on Bethlehem.

and they said, “Do you come in peace?” The Masoretic Text has “he said,” but both the Septuagint and the Qumran Samuel scroll show the plural. Both also add “O seer” to the question of the elders.

6. he saw Eliab. Nothing could illustrate more vividly Samuel’s persistent unreliability as seer (roʾeh). Having made a fatal mistake by electing Saul, “head and shoulders taller than all the people,” convinced he was directed by God, Samuel is poised to repeat his error in being impressed by the “appearance” and “lofty stature” of Jesse’s firstborn. This whole story is also a heightened and stylized playing out of the theme of the reversal of primogeniture that dominates Genesis. Instead of an elder and a younger son, Jesse has the formulaic seven sons, plus an eighth, the youngest of all, who will be chosen.

7. for I have cast him aside. The language of rejection links the strapping Eliab with the lofty Saul.

does God see. These words, absent from the Masoretic Text, are supplied by the Septuagint.

the LORD sees with the heart. Some construe this as “into the heart.” In any case, the heart is the seat of understanding, or insight, in biblical physiology.

8–9. The verbatim repetition reflects the stylization of the episode, which is set off from the surrounding narrative by its formal symmetries. After the first three named sons, the rest pass by in summary by invocation of a narrative “et cetera” principle, with the formulaic wrap-up at the end of verse 10, “the LORD has not chosen these.”

11. he is tending the flock. By his sheer youth, he has been excluded from consideration, as a kind of male Cinderella left to his domestic chores instead of being invited to the party. But the tending of flocks will have a symbolic implication for the future leader of Israel, and, in the Goliath story, it will also prove to have provided him with skills useful in combat.

12. he was ruddy, with fine eyes and goodly to look on. David’s good looks will play a crucial role in the magnetic effect he is to have on women and men. But he is not big, like his brother Eliab, and Samuel has no opportunity to make a judgment on his appearance, for David is brought from the flock sight unseen, and then God immediately informs Samuel, “this is the one.”

13. anointed him in the midst of his brothers. The anointment takes place within the family circle and is a clandestine act.

14. And the spirit of the LORD had turned away from Saul. In the transfer of election of monarchs, one gets the picture of a kind of spiritual seesaw. As the spirit of the LORD descends on and seizes David, it departs from Saul. That vacuum is promptly filled by “an evil spirit from the LORD.” In the theopsychology of ancient Israel, extraordinary states were explained as investments by a divine spirit. The charisma of leadership, now passed to David, was a descent of the spirit. Saul’s psychosis—evidently, fits of depression later manifested as paranoia—is possession by another kind of spirit from the LORD.

15. Saul’s servants. These would be his court officials or attendants.

16. we shall seek out a man. The Hebrew is literally “they will seek out a man.”

a man skilled in playing the lyre. In modern terms, what they have in mind is a kind of music therapist. But David’s mastery of the lyre evinces both his power over the realm of the spirit (or of spirits) and his future association with song and poetry.

17–18. See for me . . . I have seen. The insistence on this verb picks up the key word of the preceding episode. Saul first uses it in the sense God did in verse 1, “provide.”

18. Look, I have seen a son of Jesse. This volunteered information is a bit peculiar because, before any real search is undertaken, one of the young men in court already has a candidate, and from a different tribal region. Is it possible that word of David’s clandestine anointment has circulated among limited groups, and that the anonymous “lad” may be a kind of pro-David mole in the court of Saul? It is also noteworthy that, just as at the beginning of his story, in his quest for the lost asses, Saul did not know what to do and was dependent on the counsel of his “lad” (naʿar); here one of his lads (neʿarim) offers the needed advice for dealing with his melancholia.

a valiant fellow, a warrior. These details of the characterization are surprising, for all that should be known about David is that he is a handsome shepherd boy with musical skills. The influence of the subsequent narrative has clearly made itself felt here, and these epithets may even be an editorial maneuver to harmonize this episode with the next one, in which David makes his debut before Saul not as a lyre player but as a military hero.

20. a donkey laden with bread. The Hebrew uses what appears to be an ellipsis “a donkey of bread.”

bread . . . a skin of wine . . . a kid. As Robert Polzin has shrewdly observed, these items replicate the items that Samuel told Saul would be carried by the three men he was to encounter (10:3). David, then, is beginning anew the process on which Saul launched.

21. and Saul loved him greatly. As Fokkelman has noted, Saul is the first of many people in this narrative reported to love David—the very man he will come to think of as his bitter enemy.

he became his armor bearer. This is not the position proposed by Saul’s courtiers. Perhaps there was no set position of court lyre player, and so Saul gives David an appointment that will ensure his constant proximity.

22. Let him stand . . . in my presence. The Hebrew idiom means to be in someone’s service, though it also can suggest being presented to a dignitary, its evident meaning in verse 21.

23. would find relief. The Hebrew employs an untranslatable pun: the verb “would find relief,” rawaḥ, is a transparent cognate of ruaḥ, “spirit.”

the evil spirit would turn away from him. In an elegant verbal symmetry the episode that began with the (good) spirit of the LORD turning away from Saul concludes with the evil spirit turning away from him, thanks to David’s musical mastery over the domain of spirits.