David, the boy harper; a story of David's boyhood and youth

Preface

HE stories of Joseph, Samuel, and Daniel seem by right to belong to the children and youth of the Church and the world; but it seems to have been overlooked that David, the king of Israel, was ever a boy, with a boy’s hopes and ambitions, and a boy’s love oi wild and thrilling adventures.

If David had not been the boy he was — brave, true, and loving — he would never have become the great general, wise king, and godly man that we find portrayed in the Scriptures.

It is to emphasize the truth that the boy makes the man, that this story of David is written.

Index

PAGE.

I. Samuel Anoints David, 7

II. David and His Nephews, - - - - 19

III. A P'AMiLY Party, 30

IV. David’s Encounter with the Bear, - - 40

V. The Vision, 50

VI. A Summons to the Palace, . - . - 62

VII. David Stands Before the King, - - - 73

VIII. The King’s Banquet, 84

IX. Back to the Sheepfold, 95

X. Selim Finds a Home, 106

XI. Amasa Brings News from the Army, - - 117

XII. David Kills Goliath, 128

XIII. David and Jonathan, - - - - - 139

XIV. David Marries the King’s Daughter, - 149

XV. Michal Saves David’s Life, - - - - 160

XVI. The Lad with the Arrows,,- - - - 172

X^II. David Stoops to Deception, - - - - 184

XVIII. The Cave of Adullam, 195

XIX. The Journey to Moab, 206

XX. David’s and Jonathan’s Last Meeting, - 218

XXI. Dark Days and Bright, ----- 229

XXII. To Moab and Back, 242

XXIII. Danger and Deliverance, . . - - 254

XXIV. The End of King Saul’s Reign, - - - 266

XXV. David Crowned King of Judah, - - - 278

XXVI. King of All Israel, 290

I

A n old man entered the gates of the hill town of Bethlehem a little before noon of a summer’s day, and asked to be directed to the house of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, whom he had come to honor by inviting him to a feast of sacrifice to the Lord.

It was the judge of Israel, the Incorruptible Samuel, who from his home in Ramah made a yearly circuit of Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh, in each of which places he held a kind of ecclesiastical court.

Bixt why had he come to Bethlehem? The startled Jesse asked himself this question as he hastened to receive and welcome his distinguished guest. Could it be anything concerning his boys? the anxious father asked himself, as he thought of his eight goodly sons, the pride and joy of his heart.

The first question of the old judge confirmed the father’s fears, for he asked to see the young men of the household.

One by one they passed before him, tall, wellformed young fellows, with manly look and military bearing; but of each one the old man said, with a shake of his head, ‘‘God hath not chosen this one,” until seven sons of Jesse had passed in review.

‘Ts there not yet another?” the old judge asked the anxious father.

‘‘There remains yet a lad who keeps the sheep,” the good Jesse replied; “but he is but a stripling.”

“Send for him!” is Samuers command, and a servant is quickly sent to David, who hears with wonder and delight that the man whom he had often longed to see is a visitor at his father’s home.

Breathless with running, the boy David appeared before the waiting Samuel, his sunny hair and rosy face as beautiful as a girl’s, but his well-knit frame and hardened muscles proclaiming him an active and manly youth, in spite of the fact that he was not as tall and brawny as his older brothers.

“This is the Lord’s anointed,” the old man said; “for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.”

Out from the folds of his garment, Samuel drew a horn of anointing oil, and poured it on the head of the wondering lad, who stood speechless with surprise and awe. The visit was soon over, and life went on in the same old way. None of the members of the family seemed really to believe the words they had heard the old man speak, and perhaps did not quite comprehend the purpose of the anointing.

But David never for a moment forgot how Samuel had told him that the Lord had chosen him to be king of Israel, and he often wondered whether he must fight for his crown, and whether long years would pass before he should change his humble shepherd’s home for the splendors of a royal palace.

Jobab, the keeper of the sheep, often noticed a rapt look on the boy’s face, and thought to himself, “The lad is never the same since the day the old man from Ramah came.”

But David wasted no time in dreaming. He watched over the sheep with the same tender care that he had always shown; he called each one by name ; and one little lamb, whose mother lo David, the Boy Harper

had been devoured by some wild beast, was his constant pet and companion.

‘‘I heard a lion roar last night in the forest,’’ Jobab, the keeper, said one morning, as David came from breakfast, carrying the lamb, who had run to meet him, on his shoulder.

‘‘I wish he would bring his roarings where we could stop them forever,” the brave boy said, as he patted the head of the little motherless lamb.

The wish was speedily fulfilled. On the evening of the same day, while old Jobab slept and the boy David lay looking up at the stars, with the lamb asleep beside him, a dark form, indistinct in the evening shadows, came bounding into the circle of sheep, and before the boy realized what was done a mountain lion had seized the pet lamb, and rushed off with it in his mouth. Grasping his staff, David hurried in pursuit, his only thought being the danger that threatened his pet.

‘‘Thou hast devoured the mother, and now thou wouldst destroy her offspring, thou cruel beast,” he muttered, as he caught sight of the lion skulking in the shadow of the bushes.

Quick as thought he sprang upon the startled beast, and snatched the trembling lamb from

II between his jaws. The lion, robbed of his prey, rose up with a mighty roar, and would have torn his assailant to pieces; but the fearless boy caught him by the beard, and rained blows upon him with his olive-wood staff until the roaring ceased, and the savage animal lay dead.

''What art thou doing, lad?’’ old Jobab called out, as he came limping along as fast as his stiff joints would allow him.

"Why did’st thou not wait for me to come and help thee?”

"If I had waited, yonder lamb would have been torn to pieces and devoured. I fear he is hurt as it is,” David answered, as he lifted the lamb to its familiar place on his shoulder, and felt how its whole body trembled with the frightened beating of its little heart.

"Only a scratch,” the old shepherd announced, after looking the lamb carefully over. "Well done, my boy. I could not have dispatched the old robber any better myself; but if I had not been heavy with sleep I would have been here sooner to help thee, hadst thou needed help.”

Jobab was soon asleep again ; but David could not sleep. A song of praise was in his heart, and, going to the mouth of a nearby cavern, he took therefrom a goatskin case, from which he drew a quaintly-carved harp, and striking its responsive strings he began to sing:

‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, thou hast put all things under his feet. All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”

He sang very softly, that he might not awaken the sleeping shepherd, and his eyes were fixed upon the stars. A hush has fallen upon the sleeping world. The bare hillsides, dotted with sheep, looked dim and distant in the uncertain light, and the boy was alone with God. How often he had felt this blessed Divine companionship since the day of his anointing, and how sure he felt at such times of the fulfillment of God’s promise to him!

Morning came, and David told the astonished family at home of his successful encounter with the lion, and showed them the lion’s tawny skin in confirmation of his story.

“Those mountain lions are but cowardly creatures/’ Eliab, David’s oldest brother, said, contemptuously. “If thou shouldst go down into the army, as Abinadab and Shammah and I are going soon, thou wouldst soon find out what real fighting means.” As he said these words he squared his broad shoulders, and looked down upon his younger brother.

“The Lord who delivered the lion into my hands will teach my hands to war and my fingers to fight,” David answered, while Shammah laughed, and said in the patronizing way that older brothers often assume: “Thy fingers like better the dallying upon the strings of that instrument of music the old harper gave thee. That is easier, I think, than handling the sword and spear.’’

“My David is no coward, if he does love his songs and his harp,” the mother hastened to say, for she saw the quick flush come to the boy’s face at the unmerited taunt.

“Old Asaph had been a soldier in his day, and a brave soldier too,” said David, who had been the old harper’s admirer and confidant, and who had learned from him a few grand but simple harmonies, to which he sang his psalms.

“No one can be a soldier who is not tall and stately like the king,” Eliab hastened to say, for it always nettled him, as the oldest son of the family, when the youngest was praised or noticed.

“The king is indeed a goodly man,” said Jesse, proudly, “and I do not wonder that he has chosen my three tall sons to fight for him; but David is only a lad as yet ; he will yet shoot up like a young cedar, that puts on a year’s growth in the space of a few weeks.”

“Thou speakest truly, my husband,” said the motherly Nahash, “so did our goodly Joab grow in stature, when his mother, Zeruiah, had almost despaired of his ever reaching the noble height and bearing of his brave father, Suri, whose early death at the hands of the cruel Philistines needs avenging by all our sons and grandsons.”

“When come our good sister, Zeruiah, and her three brave boys to visit us again, dear mother?” David asked, as his older brothers scattered in their various pursuits and left him alone with his mother, who was never too busy to talk and sympathize with her highly-gifted and sensitive boy, who opened his heart to her more freely than to any of the others.

“I look for them, to-day, my David,” his mother answered, with a loving look at the boy’s bright, happy face. “Our Zeruiah must needs come often to weep by her husband’s grave. I would that she might be at home again, as in the days of her happy girlhood; but she must hold her husband’s possessions for the sake of her sons until they are a few years older, and are ready to make homes of their own.”

‘‘Joab is just my age, and Abishai is older, while Asahel is younger,” David said, musingly; ‘‘yet Asahel is taller than either of us, and so swift of foot that I may well despair of overtaking him in a race.”

“They will be good company for thee, my boy,” his mother said. “Thy brothers are so much older, and so full of thoughts of battle and of glory, that I fear thou art sometimes lonely, with only old Jobab and the sheep for company.”

“No, mother dear, I am never lonely, not even when the dark thunderclouds sweep over the mountain, and Jobab has gone home, because of his lameness and his fear of wet, and the sheep and I have taken refuge in the old cave on the hillside,” said David, while the rapt look the old vshepherd had often noticed kindled his eye and flushed his cheek. “I see the white horses of the Lord of hosts in the sweeping clouds, I hear the rumble of his chariots in the music of the thunder; but in my heart there Is peace. Why should I fear any more than the gentle sheep around me? The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want; yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.’’

‘‘Nevertheless I fear for thee, my son,” said his mother. “The Philistine garrison is encamped so near us, and raiding bands of soldiers are ready to pillage and destroy. Besides, they have driven the wild beasts from their accustomed hiding-places, and they come nearer the dwellings of man than was ever their wont before. If thy father did not so feel the infirmities of age, he would not thus leave thee alone in the midst of dangers.”

“Remember, dear mother, that I am not alone. One ^greater and stronger than my father is ever with me, and not one hair of this head, which so lately felt the anointing oil at the hand of our honored judge of Israel, will he suffer to be harmed. Sleep sweetly, my mother, for while I keep the sheep, the Lord is my keeper, my shade upon my right hand, and he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”

With a simple repast of bread and cheese, together with a few bunches of grapes, which his careful mother had provided for him, the happy boy went singing out of the house and across the fields to the hillsides, on which the sheep were feeding.

Jobab received his share of the meal, and ate it in silence. He had been broken of his rest by the events of the night before, and the chill of the morning air made him shiver and shrink into the ample folds of his shepherd’s cloak of goatskin.

“Thou needest not stay longer with the sheep,” David said, noticing the worn look on the old man’s face. “My sister’s sons are coming to-day for a long visit, and while they are here they will help me watch the sheep and milk the flock of goats. Thou mayest well take time to sit by a blazing fire and warm those aching joints.”

“Few lads would I trust with the care of the flock,” the old man said; “but I can trust thee, my boy, for thou art willing to give even thy life for the sheep, and the man or boy who will do that is a good shepherd. But do not venture to spend the night in the open air while the wild beasts roam about the hills as they are doing now, since those wilder beasts in the valley have driven them out. Call the flock after thee into the safe retreat of the cavern, and at the door of the cave keep a bright fire burning, and no beast will then molest thee.’’

The old shepherd laid down the piece of bread he was vainly trying to eat, for he had little appetite, and drawing his mantle about him he walked slowly and painfully away; for he was indeed ill, and it was many days before he was able to take up his accustomed duties again.

David watched him as he limped across the fields until he disappeared behind the ridge that hid the one long street of Bethlehem.

i

II

I T was almost nightfall before the expected guests arrived at the hospitable home of Jesse, and Nahash, the grandmother of the three boys, tried to persuade them to stay with her until the morning; for she did not know of Jobab’s illness, or that he had left David alone with the sheep.

“Entreat us not to stay, good mother of our mother,” Abishai said, with the fine courtesy which was native to him. “We be but boys, and we have much to tell our good David, and could scarce wait for the slow motion of the country folks with whom we traveled from our home to yours.”

So, laden with a goodly supply of fresh food, as necessary to growing, active boys then as now, the three brothers went springing across the fields and up the hillsides, chasing each other and shouting, until a stranger might have thought they were fleeing from a band of pursuing Philistines.

Asahel outstripped the others, and surprised the startled David as he was calling his sheep together into the cavern, as Jobab had pledged him to do.

The shadows of the cave hid them from the other boys, who might have laughed at their warm greeting, and the two manly youths, who strangely resembled each other, were not ashamed to fall on each other’s necks with loving words and embraces.

Joab and Abishai came panting into the cave, and threw themselves down on a pile of straw that lay in an old stone manger at the right of the entrance to the cave.

‘‘Asahel flies like a bird, and calls it running like a man,” Joab stammered out as soon as he recovered his breath. “I always expect to see him lose his balance and land in a tree, he spurns the earth so in his flight. As well try to overtake the eagle as to outrun that long-legged brother of mine.”

“He is so light of foot that even the sheep did not hear him coming,” said David; “but glad was I to hear thy shouts in the valley, for I knew thou wouldst soon be here, and I have greatly longed to see thee.”

“We came with a party of countrymen, who brought provisions to sell to King Saul’s army,” said Abishai, in his quiet way. ‘^They drove a flock of kids before them, and our progress has been very slow, or we should have been here two hours ago.”

^‘There was one slow little kid that I carried more than half the way, or we would not have been here yet,” Asahel said, with his quick, bright smile.

‘‘The poor little thing was undersized, and will scarce make a mouthful for one of the king’s captains. I tried to buy it when we reached here, but the man would sell it to none but to one of the king’s soldiers.”

“They have halted in the village for the night, and Uncle Eliab can buy it for thee in the morning,” said Joab ; “he is one of the king’s soldiers, and not even the king himself is brighter or braver.”

Meanwhile David’s pet lamb had crept to its favorite place beside him, and curled up like a kitten within the hollow of its protector’s arm.

David dipped a cloth in a vessel of water, which was standing near, and carefully bathed the wounded place in the lamb’s shoulder where the teeth of the lion had entered, while he told the three boys the story of his encounter with the lion, and how he had rescued the lamb alive.

“Perhaps the old lion’s mate may come to-night hunting for him,” the impetuous Joab said, springing up and peering out of the mouth of the cave towards the olive thicket, where David had killed the lion.

“She will not find her mate if she comes,” said David. “His carcass is buried, and his skin I carried home. My mother will make of it a warm covering for my bed, and thus he who would have done me harm will do me good when the colder nights of winter come.”

“I hope no one will tell our mother about the visit of the lion,” said Asahel. “She would scarce sleep if she thought we were in danger ; but I am not afraid. If one unaided could meet and overcome the king of beasts, we need not fear now, since we are four, and provided with this goodly store of stones and staves.”

The fire at the entrance of the cave was soon lighted from smoldering embers buried in the ashes for the purpose, and the four boys sat down with their faces towards the cheerful blaze, and talked of boyish games and possessions, and told stories of exploits and adventures, which have been dear to boys’ hearts since the world began.

At last, tired out with their journey, the three brothers threw themselves down on the straw in the manger and slept, while David only awakened at intervals to put fresh wood on the fire, which kept up a cheerful glow at the mouth of the cave.

No wild beast disturbed their slumbers, and the light of a radiant morning shining into the cavern awakened the four boys, who all sprang up at once, and Asahel challenged the others to a race down the hill and up the long street to the well of Bethlehem, which was by the gate, and whose waters were crystal clear and of a most refreshing coolness.

Abishai willingly staid with the sheep, while the three younger boys started off on a morning race that no one enjoyed more than David.

Asahel was swifter of foot; but he did not know the land so well, for David sprang from rock to rock, and down the uncertain slope like a wild goat of the mountains; so it was David who first reached the well, and unslinging the earthen jar from his shoulder he dipped it in the cool water, and stood ready to offer a draught to Asahel and Joab when they reached his side.

'‘The first draught belongs by right to thee,’' said Joab, "for thou hast fairly beaten us both.

The eagle can fly, but only the mountain goat can spring down the hillside, as thou hast done. If we had followed thee we should both have broken our necks.”

“I drink of this water often,” David said, still holding it out. “I can well wait for thee, for it is many days since thou hast tasted water like this. Sometimes when I am away to the south with the sheep when the pasturage is poor, I think with longing of this water, for there is no water like this from the well by the gate.”

After all had satisfied their thirst, the jar was filled afresh to be carried back to the cavern, and the four boys enjoyed a hearty breakfast together, after which the sheep were led down to a rippling stream for their morning drink.

So the happy days passed by, with no more exciting incidents than those furnished by contests in running, leaping, wrestling, shooting at a mark with bows and arrows, and occasionally bringing down a pigeon or a partridge with smooth stones thrown from a sling. David excelled in the latter pastime. Even when a roebuck was coming straight towards him with great leaps he rarely failed to bring it down, and many a savory meal did his mother and sister prepare with these spoils of the chase. The partridges were sometimes roasted by the boys, who held them over the fire on green sticks until they were done, and no other meal ever tastes quite so delicious to a boy as one he has prepared himself.

At last a day of mist and rain kept the boys confined in the cavern, which, from its size and formation, was well adapted for a rude stable, and, indeed, it had been so used since the day of Boaz, David’s great-grandfather, from whom the landed possessions of David’s family had descended.

‘We have scarce taken time for song,” Asahel said. “Yon harp will grow rusty with disuse. Sing us one of the songs with which thou wast wont to charm thy flocks, and even set old Jobab to dancing.”

The boys laughed as they thought of the picture the slow old shepherd would make if he should try to dance.

“I will sing you a new song that you have never heard before,” David said, as he lifted his harp lovingly from its case, which hung on a wooden peg, which was driven into a crevice of the rocky side of the cavern.

He played a few soft notes, and then began to sing, his music seeming to fill and thrill him until he quite forgot his listeners, and even himself.

Praise ye the Lord, for it is good to sing praises unto our God ; for it is pleasant, and praise is comely. He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars, he called them all by their names. He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry. Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem ! praise thy God, O Zion !”

Hardly had the music ceased, when a strange face looked in at the door of the cave, and a military figure, followed by half a dozen comrades, came into the cavern, whose door was so high that they needed not to doff their helmets as they entered.

''Such music as that is wasted in these wilds,’’ the soldier said, looking at the youthful musician, who in his surprise still held his harp in his hand.

"The king loves well the music of the harp, and if he knew of such a singing-bird as this in his realm he would call thee to a golden cag*e, and feed thee on the finest wheat and honey.”

"I am ready to serve my king whenever he needs my service,” the boy said, his heart beating swiftly at the thought of such undreamed-of honor as to play before the king.

‘‘I will speak of thee to him, and thou mayest yet hear further of this matter,” said the soldier, as he noticed the eager look on David’s face. ‘‘But to-day I seek not a golden bird to sing to the king ; but a bird for him to eat. The king is not well; the cares of the kingdom weigh heavily upon him, and the desire for food has departed from him. On these hills we hope to find a cunning hunter, who will snare for us the wild game of the mountains, if, haply, our king may eat and be strengthened.”

“These two plump partridges and this goodly pigeon have we taken this morning with the sling and stone,” David hastened to answer, “and proud will we be if the king’s servant will accept them at our hands.”

“We be no foraging band, like yon dogs of Philistines, to take aught for the king without making payment,” said the man, haughtily; “but here is gold, and we will send a servant for more game, if so be the king’s pleasure requires.”

“This tender lamb and kid will furnish forth our feast for the morrow,” said one of the soldiers, who had not yet spoken, pointing to the two pet animals, who alone of all the flock had staid inside the cave with the boys.

“We have others at home that are fattened to be killed, said David, “and our father owns the sheep and kids, and will gladly sell thee as many as thou desirest ; but these two are our children, our little motherless ones, that would die without our care.”

Some of the rough soldiers laughed at this expression of tenderness; but the tall soldier who had entered first, and who was as brave as he was gentle, recognized a kindred spirit in David, and asked him why he cared so much for the little beasts.

David told the story of the lion which had devoured the mother of his little lamb, and which had left the marks of his cruel teeth in the shoulder of the lamb, and modestly told how the Lord had given him strength to overcome the lion, and to kill him single-handed. He then briefly explained that his brother Eliab had bought the travel-worn little kid for his nephew, Asahel, and that it was highly prized because of its helplessness and loving intelligence, and because it was a present.

“We will seek thy father’s house and buy of him, said the tall soldier, and, taking the game they had bought, the little band of soldiers hurried down the hillside to a spot at some little distance, where they had left their horses in the care of a servant.

How eagerly the four boys watched the glittering trappings of the horses, and how proud they felt as they saw the soldiers mount and gallop away towards the house of Jesse!

^^Our soldier uncles have no horses as yet,’’ said Abishai ; ‘'but when the king finds out how brave and noble our Eliab and Abinadab and Shammah are, he will mount them on horses as fine as those we have seen to-day.”

This was a congenial topic, and the boys, who had been wonderfully moved by this exciting visit, found plenty to talk about until long after their usual bedtime.

in

OUR weeks had flown swiftly and pleas- * antly away since the coming' of the daughter of Jesse and her sons to the paternal home. The time had come for her to depart to her own home, and the boys knew that only a few more days remained for them to be together.