Theopedia

David

Overview

King David (c. 1010-970 BC) was the second king of Israel, ruling first over Judah and then over the united kingdom after the death of his predecessor Saul. His life is recorded in 1 Samuel 16 onward, 2 Samuel, and 1 Kings 1-2, with a further account in 1 Chronicles 10-29. Scripture credits him with many of the Psalms and with receiving God’s promise, delivered through the prophet Nathan, that his throne would be established forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16), a promise the New Testament reads as fulfilled in Jesus Christ, his descendant (Matt. 1:1; Luke 1:32-33).

Life and Ministry

David was the youngest of eight sons of Jesse of Bethlehem, from the tribe of Judah, and worked as a shepherd for his father’s flock before Samuel anointed him king in Saul’s place (1 Sam. 16:1-13). He first came to Saul’s court to play the lyre for him and was later appointed his armor-bearer (1 Sam. 16:14-23). His victory over the Philistine champion Goliath (1 Sam. 17) brought him public acclaim and the friendship of Saul’s son Jonathan, who “loved him as his own soul” (1 Sam. 18:1, 3). Saul’s own favor turned to jealousy and repeated attempts on David’s life, and David spent years as a fugitive before Saul and Jonathan were killed in battle against the Philistines (1 Sam. 19-31).

After Saul’s death David was anointed king over Judah at Hebron, and seven years later over all Israel as well (2 Sam. 2:4; 5:3-5). He captured Jerusalem from the Jebusites and made it his capital (2 Sam. 5:6-9), brought the ark of the covenant there (2 Sam. 6), and extended Israel’s borders through a series of military victories (2 Sam. 8). When David proposed building a permanent temple for God, Nathan relayed God’s answer: David’s son, not David himself, would build the temple, and God would instead build David a house: an enduring dynasty and kingdom (2 Sam. 7:1-16).

David’s reign was marred by his adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of his soldier Uriah, and his subsequent arrangement of Uriah’s death in battle to conceal it (2 Sam. 11). Confronted by Nathan, David confessed, “I have sinned against the LORD” (2 Sam. 12:13), a confession Psalm 51 develops at length: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Ps. 51:5). Nathan pronounced that David was forgiven but that the sword would not depart from his house (2 Sam. 12:10, 13), and the child born of the affair died within the week (2 Sam. 12:14-18). The rest of David’s reign was marked by conflict within his own family, including his son Absalom’s rebellion and death (2 Sam. 13-18), before Solomon succeeded him as king (1 Kings 1-2).

Theological Contribution

Scripture attributes many of the Psalms to David and presents him as speaking under divine inspiration: “the sweet psalmist of Israel” whose “word was on his tongue” by “the Spirit of the LORD” (2 Sam. 23:1-2). Herman Bavinck cites this description in his account of the Old Testament canon’s formation: the Psalms, alongside the rest of its poetic books, “display the manifold grace of God.”1 Many Psalms bear headings attributing them to David and naming the circumstances of their composition, including Psalm 51’s own heading, which sets it explicitly after Nathan’s confrontation over Bathsheba.

1 Samuel 13:14 and Acts 13:22 describe David as “a man after [God’s] own heart.” Thomas Goodwin explains that this description is not a claim that David was without sin but that “his mind and disposition was fashioned to the Lord’s in all things,” loving what God loves and hating what God hates: “whereby to hate where God hates, and to love where he loves.”2 David’s confession in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” reaches beyond his own case. Matthew Barrett cites this same confession, made “after admitting to Nathan his adultery with Bathsheba,” as Scripture’s own evidence that every person’s corruption is “not just true of him alone but of all mankind.”3

The New Testament repeatedly applies psalms and promises originally concerning David to Christ (Matt. 22:44; Acts 4:25-26; Heb. 1:5; 5:5, among others). Micah McCormick concludes from this pattern that “David was a type of the greater Messiah to come,” so that “an OT typology does seem to be set in motion, a typology in which OT ‘messiahs’ in many places point forward to a greater Messiah to come.”4 The Davidic covenant itself, God’s promise of an everlasting throne for David’s offspring (2 Sam. 7:12-16), is the clearest instance of this pattern and is treated in its own article.

Historical Significance

David’s reign became Israel’s standard for later evaluating its kings: the books of Kings and Chronicles repeatedly measure his successors against him (1 Kings 15:3, 5). His covenant with God grounded Israel’s later hope for a coming king (Isa. 9:6-7; 11:1-10; Jer. 33:14-18) and underlies the New Testament’s own genealogies of Jesus, both of which trace his ancestry through David (Matt. 1:1, 6; Luke 3:31). The angel Gabriel announces to Mary that her son will receive “the throne of his father David” and reign “forever” (Luke 1:32-33), language drawn directly from Nathan’s promise to David.

David’s repentance after Bathsheba also became a model for how God’s discipline of believers differs from his punishment of the unrepentant. Commenting on 2 Samuel 12:18, John Calvin distinguishes God’s rejection of Saul, which was punishment “in vengeance” (1 Sam. 15:23), from God’s taking of David’s child, which “chastised for amendment.” Following Augustine, he separates “the reprobate… punished for their iniquity” from “the saints,” whose sufferings after forgiveness are meant “to prove and exercise their piety.”5

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 5, “Holy Scripture.” ↩

  2. Thomas Goodwin, The Work of the Holy Ghost in Our Salvation, in The Works of Thomas Goodwin, vol. 6 (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1863), 132. ↩

  3. Matthew Barrett, “The Scriptural Affirmation of Effectual Calling,” in “Reclaiming Monergism” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011). ↩

  4. Micah John McCormick, “Messiah’s Obedience for Eternal Life Foreshadowed,” in “The Active Obedience of Jesus Christ” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2010), 181-182. ↩

  5. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845-1846), bk. 3, chap. 4, sec. 33, 565-566. ↩