Original subtitles

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I will fear no evil.

For you are with me.

Dah-veed, meh-lech, yis-rah-el. Chai, chai, vih-kah-yam.

David, king of israel, lives, lives and endures.

Six simple hebrew words.

To this day,

Jews of all ages around the world chant them joyously,

And christians honour and revere king david as the ancestor

From the tribe of judah of the blessed saviour, jesus christ.

And why david?

Because he slew goliath?

Because he conquered jerusalem?

Because he defeated the philistines?

Yeah...

But the far greater reason

Is that he was so close and devoted to god

That god called him a man after his own heart.

A man through whom the messiah would come.

A man who, at the height of his power,

Could confess his sins, cast himself on god's mercy,

And teach us all what it really means to repent.

So join me, zachary levi,

As we tell the story of david, king of israel.

David is born around 1000 bc in the land of israel,

Home to twelve related tribes,

Who were mostly shepherds and farmers.

Four hundred years earlier,

God had led david's ancestors out of bondage in egypt,

Given them the ten commandments at mount sinai

And ordered them to conquer the holy land

That he had long ago promised to their ancestors,

Abraham, isaac and jacob.

While young david grows up as a shepherd,

The first king of israel, saul,

Is ruling a land that's not fully conquered.

He leads his men in a solemn assembly,

Thanking god for their recent victory

Over their most ancient and most bitter enemies...

The amalekites.

The israelite warriors have captured the enemy king, agag.

King saul's eldest son, prince jonathan,

Commander abner,

And the elite warriors known as "the three"

Make up the king's inner circl.

Glory be to the god of israel.

Long live king saul. Long live king saul.

But, while king saul and his men celebrate their victory

The prophet samuel arrives with a message from the lord

That will stun the house of saul.

Samuel!

May the lord bless you, prophet.

I have fulfilled the word of god.

And what is the sound of the sheep in my ears

And the sound of the cattle that I hear?

God anointed you to be king over israel.

He said, "go! Destroy the amalekites

And wage war until you have eliminated all living thing."

Why did you not obey the lord?

Why did you pounce on the plunder

And do evil in the eyes of the lord?

But I did obey the lord.

I have brought agag, king of the amalekites!

And I completely destroyed amalek.

This is all for him.

This is a sacrifice for the lord your god.

Does the lord delight in burnt offerings

As much as in obeying the voice of the lord?

To obey is better than a false sacrifice.

Since you have rejected the lord's command,

He has rejected you as king of israel.

No. Please!

The lord has torn the kingdom of israel from you today

And given it to someone else,

Better than you.

The tearing of the cloak is in a certain sense

Saul himself.

We see in saul a torn saul.

And so, god was asking him

To be obedient

And have his eye on god

And not on anything material.

Wait! Do not leave me this way!

So, what did saul do wrong?

One might think, but he didn't kill agag the king,

He was being merciful.

No, he wasn't.

He did to agag what agag had done to many,

In chopping off the thumbs

And the big toes and humiliating them.

Bring me agag, king of amalek.

The amalekites were a cruel nomadic tribe.

The bible says that they attack the weak.

They go after the women, the children, the elderly.

As your sword has made women childless,

So will your mother be.

Childless among women!

In the old testament, god's law of the king

Says a king must obey god's commandments to the letter

With humility and purity.

He must not substitute his own human judgment for gods.

A king will succeed only as log as he gives all glory to god,

And god alone.

Saul's failure to do precisely what god demanded

Sets in motion a deadly conflict,

One that will reveal for all time

What god means by a true king.

And a man after his own heart.

God now tells his prophet samuel

To depart from saul and embark on a secret mission

To find and anoint a new king of israel.

God sends samuel to bethlehem,

A small town six miles south of jerusalem,

To the house of jesse of the tribe of judah.

Samuel knows that saul's already plagued by insecurity.

And so, samuel says god,

If saul realizes that I am on my way to anoint

His successor, his replacement,

Then he'll seek to kill me.

So, god provides samuel with a cover story.

He's going to bring an offering to god.

That's the cover story.

Upon samuel's arrival in bethlehem,

Jesse presents seven of his sos to be examined by the prophet.

One by one, the prophet looks into their souls,

Searching for something...

For someone.

The prophet thinks he has found the anointed one in eliab,

The eldest, since his appearance is impressive.

But the lord says to samuel,

Don't judge by his appearance or height.

For I do not look at the things man looks at.

For I look at the heart.

The lord has not chosen any of these.

Are these all the sons you have?

There is still the youngest. But he is out in the field,

Watching the sheep and the goats.

Send for him at once.

We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.

A shepherd was on the low end

Of the social scale.

And so, it's not unusual to see

With david's family,

That the youngest son is out taking care of the sheep.

We know from things that david tells us

And from what he does with his slingshot,

That david was a mighty warrio.

We know that he killed a lion.

When samuel comes to meet jess,

To meet all of his sons, we see that the family

Did not view david as a mighty person.

They didn't view him as a warrior.

What name have you been given?

I have been named david.

That's a kind of detail that's hidden in there

That there's a humility about david.

He didn't even tell his family members

About his great exploits.

Samuel looks deep into the eyes of this david

And sees what god sees.

Not only the eyes of a warrior,

But the eyes of a future king.

And so, god says to samuel,

This is the one. Anoint him.

The kings of israel

Would be anointed with the special type of oil,

That is meant to signify the divine choice

Of a leader over israel.

The oil itself does not have magic powers.

But what it does represent

Is that the person who's being anointed by this oil,

Is god's chosen.

As soon as that oil touches the head,

It's representing

The spirit of god resting on this person.

God is not looking for the person who is the biggest

Or the strongest, or has the most followers,

Or the most influence.

And so god knows.

God says it's not what matters on the outside,

But what's on the inside that counts.

From that day on, the spirit of the lord comes upon david.

My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy

Shall follow me all the days of my life.

And I will dwell in the house of the lord forever.

So why did god choose david?

He saw something in the inner being

Of this young man that he could work with.

He was courageous.

Despite samuel's rebuke,

King saul clings to the throne of israel,

Hoping that his own son would rule after his death.

But even though he retains the title of king,

The spirit of the lord departs king saul,

And something else replaces that spirit.

A monarch who is torn,

On the one hand

A desire to be the king that he was called to be.

But the other half of him is the insecurity...

And the fear,

And what the bible calls, in a striking phrase,

An evil spirit that descends upon saul from the lord.

You have a spiritual element there where god leaves him.

So you have a flawed individua.

You have the rebellion that's involved and frustration

And I think personally there's a demonic element in it as well.

Leave me!

Leave me!

The result of it is the instability and depression

And insanity that you have.

One of the king's servants

Suggests that a young man from bethlehem be summoned.

A master at playing the harp,

Who can dispel the king's evil spirit.

Unknown to saul,

David has been anointed to one day be king of israel,

But david leaves the matter of when

And how he would become king

Up to god, and god alone.

As the young shepherd plays,

Relief comes to the king.

Soon, david becomes the king's favourite musician,

Soothing saul's tortured soul.

Rumors are whispered that the first king of israel is weak,

And some say deranged.

The king and his people are now vulnerable.

A superior military force is gathering to crush king saul,

Slaughter the israelites,

And take their lands once and for all.

You have the philistines.

They have been the thorn in the side

Of the people of israel

At that point, for many, many years.

The philistines were a seafaring people

That came from other lands.

They were pirates, marauders, and they were always after war.

And they were tormenting

King saul and his kingdom to the point where

There are no blacksmiths in israel.

The philistines are controlling the weapons trade.

The israelites didn't have weapons.

Now of course, they had slings, they had makeshift weapons,

They had whatever weapons that they could accumulate

From the amalekites.

The israelites were outmatched

Both in numbers and also with weaponry.

To understand the battle,

We first have to understand the dynamics

Of the philistines and the israelites.

We also have to understand the geography,

What the valley of elah is.

It was the trade route that ran from the ports on the coast ino

All the towns and settlements and cities in the judean hills.

And that's why so many wars were fought in the elah valley.

The elah valley was a battleground.

King saul had good reason to be afraid,

Because in the valley of elah

He had perspective because of the hills

And looking down into the valleys

And the amassing of troops.

And so he saw his future unfolding.

We do know in those days,

That when you went to battle,

Oftentimes everyone was killed.

The champion of the philistines is goliath of gath.

He's a giant who has never been defeated.

His bronze coat of armor weighs 125 pounds.

The shaft of his spear is heavy and thick as a weaver's beam,

Tipped with an iron head spear that weighs 15 pounds.

For 40 days and 40 nights,

Goliath taunts and mocks the people of israel

And the god they serve.

According to the text of scripture,

Goliath was six cubits.

A cubit was about 18 inches.

It's the distance from the finger to the elbow

Of an adult male.

Ancient measures are unclear to us.

So, a cubit and a span,

There's some debate about

What the measure of that would actually be.

The medieval hebrew text

Indicates that goliath was around 9.9.

The philistines are trying to demoralize the army

As much as it can,

So they capitulate

A lot easier

To when they roll in.

When you're on the receiving end, that's very demoralizing.

You don't sleep well,

You don't eat well, so if you don't eat well,

It affects your physiology, your ability to carry a weapon.

And if the leader is scared,

Then it just runs down the leash to the troops.

Orders, my king?

That's the psychological warfare part of the battle.

Most battles are truly won here,

Versus here.

If I can beat you mentally,

Before I even kick off the battle, I'm good.

Gather the war counsel.

Yes, my king.

With the battle lines drawn,

David's father, jesse, sends his youngest son to the front

To bring food and provisions to his older brothers

Who are serving in saul's army.

This battle was taking place not far from bethlehem.

You're talking about very close to the area where david

And his family are coming from.

What will a man get who kills this philistine

And removes this disgrace from israel?

Gold, no taxes,

And the hand of the king's eldest daughter in marriage.

The only trouble is,

A dead man can't spend all the gold in the world.

Nor bed a beautiful princess.

Who is this pagan philistine anyway,

That he is allowed to defy the living god?!

Why have you come down here, you arrogant child?

Who is watching the sheep

While you come to watch us die at the hands of our enemy?

What have I done? Can't I even speak?

If none of you will challenge this philistine...

I will!

They saw the taunts

And the threats and the challenges of goliath,

And they cowered in fear.

David thought,

I need to take action.

And he ran into that opportunity.

He was offended in his spirit

That this unrighteous person could

Terrorize and paralyze

All the armies of israel. And he said,

Something can be done, something must be done.

And he took action.

Well, what have you got to say for yourself, young man?

Don't worry about this philistine, my king.

I'll go and fight him.

Don't be ridiculous!

There's no way you can fight this philistine

And possibly win.

You're only a boy.

He's been a man of war since his youth.

I have been taking care of my father's sheep.

When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock,

I go after it with a club and rescue the lamb from its mouth.

If the animal turns on me, I seize it by the jaw

And club it to death.

I have done this to both lions and bears,

And this pagan philistine is like one of them.

Because he has defied the armies of the living god.

All right.

Go ahead.

And may the lord be with you.

I cannot go in these, my king.

Because I am not used to them.

When he shed that armor, it has much to do with him

Realizing it impeded his giftedness.

And in his case,

Even his skills. Because they were someone else's skills.

They were someone else's tools.

And he had his own tools.

And, god had gifted him in the way to use those.

I think the principle here is that each of us,

We're to use what god's trained us in,

Not try to look to somebody else and say

I wish I was like them, I wish I could do it like them,

I wish I had what they had. We take what we have,

And we use it faithfully and steward it responsibly,

And god will bless it and victories will be won.

Armed with only a sling and his belief in the power of god,

David chooses five smooth stons and boldly enters the fray.

What we ultimately learn about this shepherd

Is that he has somehow come to sense

God is at the heart

Of all that he achieves.

Even though I walk through

The valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil.

For you are with me.

You come against me with sword,

Spear and javelin,

But I come against you

In the name of the lord of heaven's armies.

The god of the armies of israel,

Whom you have defied!

This day,

The lord will conquer you,

And I will kill you, and cut off your head!

And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds

And wild animals.

And the whole world will know that there is a god in israel.

And all those gathered here will know

That the lord rescues his people!

But not with sword and spear.

The battle is the lord's!

And he will give you to us!

When david slew goliath,

The philistines were terrified.

They were not ready for battle.

This battle is the lord's.

There is a god in israel.

God is triumphant. It wasn't about him, it was about god.

On david!

It's not about me, it's about thee...

And people saw that in him and they wanted to follow that.

They have a breath of life in them now.

Now they start getting loud.

Courage inspires courage.

The company of great warriors come together around david.

The road is littered with their bodies and their armor,

And their weapons and so forth.

David's life

Inspires the emergence of a class of notable heroes.

They're called david's mighty men.

That shock and awe

Starts to destroy the morale on the inside ranks.

When something like that would happen, and a panic ensues...

The weaker ones in the middle

Start to freak out.

David charges into the chaos of battle,

A clash of bronze, bone, and blood.

David leads the hebrew army

To total victory against the philistines,

The greatest power of the day.

But more than that,

He stepped forward to show the world through his bravery

And through his faith, that god is with us.

But how will this remarkable young man,

Whom samuel secretly anointed as the future king of israel,

Deal with the man who still wears the crown?

Your brothers can inform your father

That you will be in my service and not be returning home.

You will become captain of my guard.

Many battles await you.

Oh, and...

Bring your instrument.

Of course, my king.

With the victory over the philistine enemy,

Not only is david now a recognized warrior for israel,

But a surprising new friendship begins to grow

Between david and saul's own heir to the throne,

His son, jonathan.

Jonathan is a part of the supporting cast,

But he plays a really prominent role.

He early on understands that god has chosen david.

When it comes to israel, the right to rule

Doesn't pass necessarily from father to son.

God will pick the right person to lead.

David understood that. And jonathan understood that,

Which is why jonathan is willing to make way for david.

David!

-Might I have a word? -Of course, prince jonathan.

After what you did today, just jonathan will do.

A beautiful bow.

Yes, the finest in all of israel.

And now it's yours.

Oh no, sir. I can't take your bow from you.

No, david, you have not taken anything from me.

In fact, you have given much to me, and to our people...

Hope.

Courage. Dignity. A future.

These valuable gifts you have given us as a nation.

And now, on behalf

Of the people of israel,

I gift you this.

Thank you.

There is more.

David, son of jesse...

I offer you my allegiance.

Jonathan,

Son of saul,

You will always have mine.

The message or the symbolism is clear.

Jonathan recognizes that david is not just another person,

He's even not just another warrior.

He may actually be more suitable

To lead the people of israel one day than he is.

Jonathan understands the word of the lord,

And follows the word of the lord,

Even if it seems like it's personally disadvantageous.

What a remarkable young man he was.

All of israel celebrates david's victory

Festivities are held at the house of saul

In the city of gibeah.

In an act of humility and submission to the lord,

David presents the trophies of war

To the high priest of israel, ahimelech.

This includes the famed sword of goliath of gath.

All glory be to the lord of heaven's army.

Forever and ever.

-Amen! -Amen.

Amen!

David the shepherd boy is now david the giant killer.

The leadership of israel, as laid out in deuteronomy,

Is three.

The king, the high priest, and the prophet.

The priest is there to help people

In their worship of god.

The separation of the roles of priest, prophet, and king

Is really an innovation of the israelite people.

The whole world now knows that there is a god in israel.

There is a god in israel!

How do you recover from being god's chosen

To no longer being god's chose?

There's a god in israel!

There's a god in israel!

Saul begins to become depresse.

And then what made matters worse?

The more that saul got to spend time with david,

What does saul see?

That the presence of god is on david.

With the rise of david's fame,

The evil spirit in the soul of king saul grows even darker.

And that leads to that intensified anger and jealousy

And depression that saul has towards david.

All over israel, women gather to dance and chant the words,

"saul has slain his thousands,

And david his tens of thousands."

King saul, one of the most tragic people

In all of scripture,

Will be disfigured by his growing jealousy of david.

But as our story unfolds over the next three episodes,

David's epic struggle with saul will reveal something amazing

About his total faith in god.

Because even though david knows that he was chosen

As the future king,

He accepts that saul is still god's appointed ruler.

And only god can determine when or how his reign will end.

Join me next time for another episode

Of david, king of israel .

Coming up next

I have a mission for you.

Avenge my enemies,

And with victory,

The hand of my daughter, princess michal.

The lord as witness to a bond between us.

As long as the son of jesse is alive...

You will never be king!

Stop!

Do not forget about me.

I will not.