(17:34-37) But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you.”
David had experience in seeing God use him to protect sheep from lions and bears. David looked at God’s faithfulness in the past, and this built his faith in God for the future. Saul heard something in this young man’s words and spirit that allowed him to concede.
(17:38) Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head.
Saul didn’t understand that this battle wouldn’t be won through the sword or the spear, but with the power of God. Saul gave David his own clothes. Saul did this “since it was believed that to wear the clothing of another was to be imbued with his essence and to share his very being.”[] This could have also been a “calculated” maneuver on Saul’s part to “bind Saul to David [so] that Saul would be able to take credit for, or at least to share in, David’s victory.”[]
Ronald F. Youngblood, “1, 2 Samuel,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 699.
Ronald F. Youngblood, “1, 2 Samuel,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 700.
James is an elder at Dwell Community Church, where he teaches classes in theology, apologetics, and weekly Bible studies.
