I Samuel 17:12
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Now David was the son of a man named Jesse, an Ephrathite from Bethlehem of Judah who had eight sons in the days of Saul. And Jesse was old and well along in years.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Forty days the two armies lay encamped facing one another, each advantageously posted, but neither forward to engage. Either they were parleying and treating of an accommodation or they were waiting for recruits; and perhaps there were frequent skirmishes between small detached parties. All this while, twice a day, morning and evening, did the insulting champion appear in the field and repeat his challenge, his own heart growing more and more proud for his not being answered and the people of Israel more and more timorous, while God designed hereby to ripen him for destruction and to make Israel's deliverance the more illustrious. All this while David is keeping his father's sheep, but at the end of forty days Providence brings him to the field to win and wear the laurel which no other Israelite dares venture for. We have in these verses, I. The present state of his family. His father was old (Sa1 17:12): He went among men for an old man, was taken notice of for his great age, above what was usual at that time, and therefore was excused from pubic services, and went not in person to the wars, but sent his sons; he had the honours paid him that were due his age, his hoary head was a crown of glory to him. David's three elder brethren, who perhaps envied his place at the court, got their father to send for him home, and let them go to the camp, where they hoped to signalize themselves and eclipse him (Sa1 17:13, Sa1 17:14), while David himself was so far from being proud of the services he had done his prince, or ambitious of further preferment, that he not only returned from court to the obscurity of his father's house, but to care, and toil, and (as it proved, Sa1 17:34) the peril, of keeping his father's sheep. It was the praise of this humility that it came after he h…
Open source ↗17:12 Ephrathite: Ephrath is a name for Bethlehem (Gen 35:19; 1 Chr 4:4).
Open source ↗Cross-references
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So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).
One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the harp. He is a mighty man of valor, a warrior, eloquent and handsome, and the LORD is with him.”
Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David.
“Whose son are you, young man?” asked Saul. “I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem,” David replied.
Now the LORD said to Samuel, “How long are you going to mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have selected from his sons a king for Myself.”
‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of My people Israel.’”
and Jesse the father of David the king. Next: David was the father of Solomon by Uriah’s wife,
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem,
But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come forth for Me One to be ruler over Israel— One whose origins are of old, from the days of eternity.
We heard that the ark was in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar.