Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
Don't want to quote it all. But I read it all.
None of it evidenced that Jesse was the source of David's training in any way. It might be a reasonable assumption. But it is not a fact. Nothing upon which you can hang a teaching.
The Bible almost always mentions the name of the father of everyone of count. Most to all of the prophets. Everything had a genealogy. So having a name mentioned does not constitute special place in God's knowledge. It could be true. But just having the name in scripture does not establish it.
The whole thing is a plausible explanation of what happened. But there is nothing that makes it so. No fact to hang a teaching on. It could be used for some kind of self-help training. But that isn't really proper use of the Word.
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Well I wanted to address this point. In Chapter 17, in a conversation with his Commander of the Armed forces, Abner, Saul asks "whose son is this" and Abner responds "I cannot tell". Later Saul asks David directly "whose son are you". This is not the typical listing of a genealogy as done by historians. Now you could interpret this various ways, but the context is quite overwhelming and cannot be ignored.
1. Saul and Abner have sat for 40 days under the threats of the Philistines, terrified of Goliath, no solution, and yet they are the ones responsible for raising an army that can defend Israel from its enemies. I think any reasonable person would agree that this has probably been their focus and primary concern for at least the last 40 days.
2. A little kid that no one could expect to win just defeated this giant Goliath and led the army to a big victory over the Philistines.
With that as the context Saul says something to the effect of "where did this kid come from?" I think that is quite similar to others wondering "where Joe Montana came from" which today we clearly understand as where did he learn to play like that. Is it stated clearly? I think that David said clearly that he learned what he learned from his father when he said he is the son of Jesse.
Of course, you could interpret it other ways. But I find that it doesn't make sense that Saul wants to know who David's father is when he knows who David's father is. The bible puts chapter 16 and 17 together. How do you read these two chapters and think that Saul doesn't know who David's father is? How could Abner reply "of a truth, as thy soul liveth, I cannot tell"? All you have to do is ask someone in your camp who hired David, they could tell you. So to me, that interpretation is very strange, it makes Saul appear as though he has alzheimers. But if you understand it to mean "where did you learn that" then it makes sense.
Now the NT tells us that "these things were done for our admonition". Clearly there are stories in the OT that were given for us to learn from. So if someone wants to learn how to raise a son who should we look at? Is there anyone you would suggest as a better example and a more detailed example of raising a son?
Second major point, did David go into the battle with the plan of cutting off Goliath's head and using it as a shield or was that just a spur of the moment thing? From my limited experience, if Goliath had long hair it could have been spur of the moment, but if he had short hair like a man of war, then I think it was planned.
Now I can believe that David had both the attitude and the skill with a sling to go up against Goliath. What I cannot believe is that he also had the cunning to be thinking how to leverage slaying Goliath into a route of the army. That to me smacks of good coaching.