DID YOU KNOW?

David first comes to King Saul as a skilled lyre player, sent for by name, who becomes the king's armor-bearer. Which chapter of 1 Samuel tells it that way?

The answer

1 Samuel 16. A servant describes "a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who is skillful in playing," Saul sends to Jesse for David by name, and "Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer" (1 Samuel 16:18-21). 1 Samuel 17 brings him in a second way, as a shepherd boy sent to the camp with food for his brothers (17:15-18). When he goes out to fight, Saul asks whose son he is (17:55).

Why it’s interesting

The second telling starts over with a full introduction, as if the reader had never met him: "Now David was the son of an Ephrathite of Bethlehem" (17:12). Only 17:15 links Saul and David before the errand, saying David went "back and forth from Saul." Most scholars read the two as older accounts woven into one book, and the text keeps both.

Scholarly consensus

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