Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
I'm going to finish 1 Samuel in our cruise through the Bible looking at 'Heart/ hearts' today; there's a lot of ground to cover so buckle up, lol. We'll start with a reference from the Part 4 post...1Sam 13:14...
"But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's command."
The 'man after his own heart' was, at that time, likely still a teenager slinging rocks at trees and stumps and such in the hills around Bethlehem. His name was David, the youngest of 8 sons of a fellow with a questionable reputation named Jesse. I say 'questionable reputation', because whenever anyone wanted to discredit or downplay David, they referred to him as the 'son of Jesse'....which makes me think Jesse was not highly regarded in the area.
After Saul's disobedience regarding the spoil from the Amalekites, God sent Samuel to Bethlehem, to Jesse's house, to anoint the new king.
Samuel, still mourning Saul's downfall, went, even though he believed Saul would kill him should he get wind of it. (1 Sam. 16:2). He told the elders of Bethlehem he had come there to make a sacrifice, and asked the elders of the town to consecrate themselves and join him. Then he specifically consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them. (1 Sam. 16:5).
When everyone had arrived, Samuel saw Jesse's oldest son, Eliab, and, impressed by his height and strength and bearing, believed this was the man he'd been sent to anoint. But God told him no, this was not the one, explaining
"The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." - 1 Sam. 16:7; 'Heart' is Strong's H3824, the same word used in 13:14 above.
David's heart...his innermost being...was his qualification for the kingship. All seven of David's older brothers appeared before Samuel, and he announced over each of them, 'God has not chosen this one.' I am not sure if he ever really told them WHAT God was choosing at this point...did they assume it was the kingship? Or could they have assumed it was some other task or office? Samuel is not recorded as mentioning the kingship anywhere in the narrative. But after the seventh brother, he turned to Jesse and asked, "Are these all the sons you have?" (1 Sam. 16:11) Jesse rather sheepishly replied (no pun intended but I will take it, lol), "There's the youngest, but he's tending the sheep." Of course, David is fetched and comes in and Samuel dumps the oil on him. We still do not know what was said, but the Spirit of God came upon David and he...went back to the sheep. Until one of Saul's aides happened to remember that he knew of a young shepherd who sang and played the harp really well, and David got a sporadic music gig playing for Saul when his demonic depression/ anxiety came upon him. Apparently Saul never thought of him as anything but a background servant/ hired musician because he literally didn't even look at him enough to recognize him later. David would come and play for Saul for a bit and then...go back to the sheep. Nobody seems to think of David as one who was anointed to be king...which is why I think Samuel was really vague about just what exactly God was choosing David to do. Perhaps this was to protect David should Saul hear anything about it. And maybe they all decided he had been anointed to be a ministering musician/ worship leader, as that seems to be all anyone associated with him at the time.
Until the Israelites and the Philistines went to battle again, setting up camps opposite each other in the Valley of Elah. The Philistines had a big ol' dude named Goliath, who was descended from those Anakites the Israelites were so afraid of back in Numbers 13, and who came out daily to hurl insults at Israel and their God, trying to provoke someone to come out and battle him one on one, which would certainly be suicidal. Jesse sent David with some provender to his brothers, and David got there in time to hear that day's jeering and insults. He, of course, was ticked at the insults and began to ask the soldiers what would be the reward of the man who killed Goliath and removed the disgrace. I don't think that he, at that moment, was considering doing it himself so much as he was trying to motivate the actual soldiers into standing up to the oversized bully. But his older brother heard David's questioning...
When Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, "Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle." -- 1 Sam. 17:28 (Also Strong's H3824)
Oh, but Eliab didn't know David's heart at all. Yet he was convinced he knew the 'why' behind what David was doing.
That, my friends, is judgment. The kind we are instructed NOT to engage in. Because we do not know the heart at all. God saw David's heart and chose him to be king. Eliab had not a clue of what was in his younger brother's heart.
Word, of course, got back to Saul about the young man who was going through the camp talking about slaying the uncircumcised Philistine who was insulting the armies of the living God and sent for David. David, seeing no one else seemed to be willing, apparently decided he was going to have to do it.
David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him." 1 Sam. 17:32; 'heart' is Strong's H3820.
David, of course, kills the Philistine and becomes Saul's general and son-in-law. The people start praising David over Saul and Saul becomes insanely jealous, leading David to ultimately flee to the Philistines, looking for a place to hide from Saul. But his reputation has preceded him, and the servants of the king of Gath, Achish, report it to him in David's hearing.
David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. - 1 Sam 28:24; 'heart' is H3824 again.
David then proceeded to behave as if he were a madman having a fit, and Achish had him thrown out. So David became a fugitive, living in the Judean desert and moving from place to place, defending Israelite towns and people as he moved about. One such person, a wealthy landowner named Nabal, spurned giving David and his men any provisions during a festival, despite the fact that David's band had actively protected Nabal's holdings. David, furious over Nabal's scorn, called for his sword to go to battle against him. Nabal's wife, Abigail, intervened with provisions from her own allowance and prevented David and his men from slaughtering the household. But Nabal was a stingy, ill-tempered fellow and Abigail waited until he was sobered up after the feast to tell him what she'd done.
Then in the morning, when Nabal was sober, his wife told him all these things and his heart failed him and he became like a stone. About ten days later, the LORD struck Nabal and he died. -- 1 Sam 25:37-38 (Heart: H3820 again. I thought it would be a word that specified the physical organ, but, no, this is still the innermost part...heart, mind, will, etc. Referencing the emotional center...the same as 1 Sam 17:32. I believe he was so angry he had a stroke.)
David married Abigail, had a run-in with Saul after being betrayed by the Ziphites and, for the second time, refused to kill the king. But he knew he couldn't trust Saul and he'd been too close to capture, so he returned to Achish...who, this time, believed David to be Saul's enemy and therefore a good ally. He gave David Ziklag for his base, and reveled in the reports of David raiding Israelite villages. Only, of course, David was raiding Geshurite, Girzites, and the Amalekite villages instead, leaving no survivors to send reports back to Achish. The Phililstines planned a big assault against Israel, and Achish was counting on David and his men to fight for them...and David and his men actually traveled to the Philistine camp as if they were part of that force.
Saul and the Israelites set up camp at Giboa, and Saul looked over the enemy camp from his vantage point.
When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart. He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. -- 1 Sam 28:5-6; 'Heart' is, again, Strong's H3820
The terror Saul was experiencing and the silence from God drove him to a medium to inquire of Samuel's dead spirit...which terrified the lady, as she clearly did not expect an actual supernatural response to her inquiry. The apparition...whether it was actually Samuel or not is kind of open to interpretation...confirmed that God had rejected Saul and that the Philistines would defeat him and his army on the next day.
Meanwhile, while Achish was confident David would fight against Saul, the other Philistine leaders were just as certain that he would turn against them in battle and had him sent away. So David was not it the battle that saw both Saul and Jonathan slain and the Israelite army routed. He had his own problems, but as 'heart' is not mentioned again in 1 Samuel, I'll just refer you to the scripture if you want to see what happened.
So...God knows the hearts of people; other people do not. And deep-seated, intense emotions can drive our actions...or overwhelm us to actual physical consequences. All in all, what happens in the heart...matters in many ways. And that's a good thing to keep in mind when contemplating the new year.
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