The Good Shepherd

​Now back to our young shepherd. How do we unpack the preparation leading up to the passages in I Samuel? Let’s first take a look at how David came to existence in scripture: 

I Samuel 16:1-13 (KJV)

16 And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons.

2 And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord.3 And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will shew thee what thou shalt do: and thou shalt anoint unto me him whom I name unto thee. 4 And Samuel did that which the Lord spake, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, Comest thou peaceably? 5 And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, andcalled them to the sacrifice. 6 And it came to pass, when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord's anointed is before him. 7 But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. 8 Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, Neither hath the Lord chosen this. 9 Then Jesse made Shammah to pass by. And he said, Neither hath the Lordchosen this. 10 Again, Jesse made seven of his sons to pass before Samuel. And Samuel said unto Jesse, The Lord hath not chosen these. 11 And Samuel said unto Jesse, Are here all thy children? And he said, There remaineth yet the youngest, and, behold, he keepeth the sheep. And Samuel said unto Jesse, Send and fetch him: for we will not sit down till he come hither. 12 And he sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to. And the Lord said, Arise, anoint him: for this is he.13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. SoSamuel rose up, and went to Ramah.

A couple items specifically worth touching on here in verse 11 and verse 12: Verse 11 having to do with being a shepherd and verse 12 having to do with his youth. I think we have some misconceptions of what shepherding is like, especially back in this time. Below is an excerpt about a modern-day shepherd in a third-world country so we have a little glimpse into what a shepherd does in a day. As you read be mindful of a young boy doing all these things by himself thousands of years ago:

"What does a shepherd do the whole day?

He accompanies the sheep.

Is that all he does? Walk with them? Play the flute? Daydream? A dream job, indeed!

Have you had these kinds of thoughts when you saw sheep / goats dotted around on the landscape…? Or perhaps the shepherd, as much as the sheep, are so much a part of the land that one may not have spared a thought?

Ademma, Gopalappa (her husband) and Sangappa, a neighbor and Director of the Cooperative dispel such doubts.

Ademma & Gopalappa are “new” shepherds, in the sense that they don’t come from generations of shepherds. They are the landless agricultural labourers of the village, now members of Gramasiri, a co-operative of landless labourers, promoted by Timbaktu Collective; the sheep /goat rearing, an initiative for supplementing livelihoods that now has become a successful business venture for many families…

Ademma starts her day at dawn and sometimes even before that. She cleans up the sheep pen, fills up the water trough while her husband (Gopalappa) goes and brings tender green leaves for the lambs. The manure collected from the pen is composted and goes towards an additional income for them. The farmers are happy to buy this compost as sheep/goat manure is very good for the soil and land. Some of the farmers pay the shepherds Rs.200 + vegetables to pen their animals for a night on their land.

After finishing their morning ablutions and tea, Ademma gets to cooking food which she packs up for Gopalappa along with a bottle of fresh water. Too often the days are too hot.

Gopalappa, in the meanwhile, has checked over the sheep for ticks and other pests hosting on them. He has also cleaned up and dug out stones, sticks, thorns or the like lodged in the hooves of the animals. “If we don’t do this regularly, the animals could end up with unknown wounds”, he says. The sheep by this time have become restless, looking forward to being released from their pen, itching to range across the wide expanse of the Cherukuruwastelands.

Cherukuru of Roddam mandal is endowed with and surrounded by almost 400-500 acres of “wastelands” – a veritable haven for grazing. Perhaps this is the reason why, come evening, the road in and out of Cherukuru gets blocked for an hour or two. Traffic comes to a halt as the road is awash with the bobbing heads of returning animals. The air is filled with their bleats peppered with the deeper moos of cattle and once-in-a-while barking of the dogs. Yes, indeed. Cherukuru is rather unusual in that sense. The 45 sheep/goat owning families own over a 1000 head of these small ruminants, which become the traffic-jammers each evening.

So, Gopalappa takes off for his day-long wandering behind the sheep, sometimes taking the sheep to richer pastures, sometimes going with the sheep-wisdom that intuitively searches out the better places. There is huge tank bed just behind the village that is a favourite with the sheep and the shepherds.

Interestingly, this Serengeti-like-grassland landscape is also the residence of Blackbuck herds that run away at the sight of an alien jeep but quite peacefully co-exist with the local, domesticated animals. And, of course, where there are wild herbivores, there are the wild carnivores too. “One of the main things we have to do when our sheep graze is to keep an eye out for the foxes. They are a wily lot. They hide and come out of nowhere, scattering the grazing sheep in all directions. And if we are not alert to them, we would have lost a couple of our herd in the blink of an eye”, says Sangappa. He goes on to add, “The sheep are a peculiar lot. God knows what makes them run toward danger, but that is what they do. Once they sense the presence of a fox, they run towards it in panic!” So, yes, the shepherd has to be constantly alert, keep his eye keen and his ears tuned to the presence of a predator. Sometimes, it is not only a fox, but a more dangerous cat – a leopard – very rarely visible. Sometimes they follow the herd at a distance, watching and waiting for just that one chance that will gain him the day’s meal.

The herd has a pattern too, grazing for a few hours in the morning, then resting through the high heat of the noon, and then grazing once again for a few hours in the evening. “We need to find them water from streams or little kuntas, so they can have a drink before they rest. We also have to find a good shady place to rest.” And that is when the shepherd gets to rest his feet too. The long miles they wander tires him out. “By sundown, we start calling out, finding the more adventurous ones who have strayed beyond the herd… and we head home”.

How do they know their goats? Especially among the hundreds that are returning? Don’t they get mixed up? “We know each and every one of our animals. We can pick ours out amongst a hundred. Just like you can find your child even in a crowd of a hundred children! It is also the animal that keeps track. They find their group and their own home. The animals too are territorial… they don’t really allow animals from other herds to come in easily. Just like us humans”, he says smilingly.

Ademma is ready by then, the water troughs filled with fresh water, so the sheep can drink and bed down for the night. Besides the regular grazing, they also make special feeds and preparations so the sheep grow well and stay healthy. Puny, undernourished animals won’t fetch a good price. Then there is also the ever danger of illness, especially those that can spread like wildfire among the sheep, sometimes killing a lot of them. “The sheep also require sustained attention. They contract, like humans, a variety of illnesses which gets treated by the [Shepherd]” (A day in the life of a shepherd, n.d.).

​A few areas of important and parallels to David’s life include waking at dawn and the day isn’t over until the sheep are back in their pens and all accounted for at night. David would have spent all day walking with his sheep, getting to know them intimately, and providing green grazing pastures and water features for the animals. He would have been dealing with the immense 20-30-degree temperature fluctuations in the desert depending on the season and altitude. David would have constantly been on the lookout for predators because due to Israels diverse geographical and climate diversity, in ancient times this territory was home to major predators specific to the geography and general to location including: Asiatic lions, Arabian Leopards, Syrian brown bears, Asiatic cheetahs, Reed Cats, wild and rabid dogs, hippopotami, Syrian elephants, crocodiles, and Levant vipers, to name a few. 

As a side note, even “The Knights Templar, members of a Roman Catholic monastic order of “warrior priests,” who came to Israel between the 12th and 14th centuries as part of the Crusades” noted how treacherous the journey on the road to Israel became not only from raiders and thieves but the wild animals attacking travelers to and from the roads into Israel. To be a shepherd in ancient times was no laughing matter and required stamina, care, strength, intelligence, practice, and discipline (Tourism, 2017).

The second item I want to touch on is the verse 12 which references David’s age. There is speculation and investigative work surrounding how old David was when he killed; however, it’s not definitive how old he was, just that he was the youngest of his brothers. We do know that age is not reflective of how God chooses his key figures of the bible. He chooses whomever he wants for his purpose. 

Something of note, culture during this ancient period favored the first-born son during this time. The Jewish Virtual Library regarding has the following to say regarding “Firstborn” children in Ancient Israelite society: 

Biblical legislation gave the firstborn male a special status with respect to inheritance rights and certain cultic regulations, The latter, a part of a complex of cultic requirements, also applied to the first issue of the herds and the flocks, which, in the popular consciousness, were considered particularly desirable as sacrifices. Abel pleased God by offering Him firstlings of his flock (Gen. 4:4). The requirements of the cultic codes were based on the notion that the God of Israel had a claim on the first offspring of man and beast, which were to be devoted to Him in some manner. This notion also governed the prescriptions regarding the offering of the first fruits (see *First Fruits).

In biblical Hebrew usage the term bekhor, "firstborn [male]," and its derivatives, are somewhat ambiguous. The characterization of the human bekhor as reshit on, "the first fruit of vigor" (Gen. 49:3; Deut. 21:17; cf. Ps. 78:51; 105:36), stresses the relation to the father and adumbrates the first-born's status of principal heir and successor of his father as head of the family. At the same time, the specification that the bekhor be "the first issue of the womb" (peter reḥem; Ex. 13:2, 12, 15, etc.; cf. Num. 8:16), which reflects the religious significance of the first products of the procreative process in human and animal life, stresses the biological link to the mother. Whereas it was usually possible to ascertain the paternity of human beings, this clearly did not hold true of animals, and there was never any attempt to base animal cultic regulations on considerations of specific paternity.

Two rather distinct conceptions can be made out: a socio-legal one, which assigned exceptional status to the first male in the paternal line; and a cultic one which assigned special status to the first male issue of the maternal line. The socio-legal conception was preserved in legislation governing inheritance. In cultic legislation, the bekhor of the legal tradition was required – in order for the cultic regulations to apply – to be also the first issue of his mother's womb.

According to Deuteronomy 21:15–17, a father was obliged to acknowledge his firstborn son as his principal heir, and to grant him a double portion of his estate as inheritance. (Pishenayim means "two-thirds" [see Zech. 13:8], but the intention of the text is that the firstborn shall get whatever fraction a double portion may come to; in the case posited in the text, where there are only two sons, it is two-thirds, but where there are three sons, it is one-half, and so on; cf. the correct inference drawn in BB 123a from I Chron. 5:1ff., which expressly terms Joseph's status as "firstborn" – Joseph received twice the portion of any of his brothers [Gen. 48:5, 22; ef. Rashbam to BB 123a].) This obligation was to apply irrespective of the status of the son's mother in a polygamous family. This inheritance right is termed mishpat ha-bekhorah, "the rule of the birthright" (Deut. 21:17), and the legal process by which the first-born son was so designated is expressed by the verb yakkir "he shall acknowledge." Undoubtedly the acknowledgment involved certain formal, legal acts which are not indicated in biblical literature. In a different context, God acknowledged Israel as his firstborn (Ex. 4:22; ef. Jer. 31:8). A son, addressing his father, might also refer to his own status as firstborn son (Gen. 27:19, 32).

It is evident from the composition of biblical genealogies that the status of bekhor was a pervasive feature of Israelite life. In many such lists there is a formula which specifies the status of the first-listed son. For example, Numbers 1:20: "The sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, were…" (cf. e.g., Gen. 35:23; 36:15; Ex. 6:14, and frequently in the genealogies of I Chron.). Even in genealogies which do not specifically indicate the status of the first son listed, it is clear that he is the firstborn. There are suggestions in the Bible that primogeniture carried certain duties and privileges in addition to the estate rights (see Gen. 27; 48:13; Judg. 8:20; I Chron. 26:10, etc.). The second in line was termed ha-mishneh (I Sam. 17:13; II Sam. 3:3; I Chron. 5:12).

The status of the firstborn in royal succession is not clearly defined. The Israelite kings were often polygamous, and the relative status of several royal wives figured in determining a succession, making the Deuteronomic law cited above appear more like an ideal than a reality so far as the king was concerned. A king might, for a variety of reasons, also be disposed to officially reject one of his sons, Accordingly, there were instances where the first in the royal line of succession did not, in fact, succeed his father. It is not known whether the firstborn in families of the high priests had a special status. From the exception noted in I Chronicles 26:10 it is inferable that the firstborn of a levitical clan was normally placed in charge of his brothers. There is some evidence that the first-born daughter (bekhirah) was customarily married off before her younger sisters (Gen. 29:16ff.; I Sam. 18:17ff.).

In the Genesis narrative one sees how primogeniture was disregarded in the clan of Abraham. The son most suited to carry on the line of Abraham – with its attendant responsibility for transmitting the clan's unique religious belief – was acknowledged as the head of the family even if it meant passing by the firstborn; indeed even if it entailed banishing him from the household (Isaac was preferred to Ishmael, ch. 21: Jacob to Esau, ch. 27).

The terminology employed in Genesis, when compared to that of Deuteronomy 21:17, is problematic, and allowance for a degree of inconsistency in technical usage must be made. In Genesis, Jacob contends with Esau over two matters: first, the bekhorah, which Jacob secured from Esau, who despised it, in exchange for a cooked meal (Gen. 25:29–34); and second, the berakhah ("blessing") which Jacob secured by deceiving his elderly father into thinking that he was blessing Esau (Gen. 27). Of the two terms, the berakhah counted for more, probably because pronouncing the blessing was considered to be the act formally acknowledging the firstborn as the principal heir. Berakhah connotes both the blessing which is to be pronounced and the effects of the blessing, i.e., the wealth transmitted as inheritance. In Deuteronomy 21:17 the term bekhorah refers specifically to the estate rights.

Owing to his favored status, the firstborn was considered the most desirable sacrifice to a deity where human sacrifice was practiced. On the verge of a defeat, Mesha, king of Moab, sacrificed his eldest son and acknowledged successor (II Kings 3:27). In a prophetic passage, the sacrifice of the first-born is singled out as that offering which might be supposed the most efficacious for expiation (Micah 6:7). The importance of the bekhor is dramatized in the saga of the ten plagues God inflicted upon the Egyptians, the last of which struck down their firstborn (e.g., Ex. 11:5; 12:12). This serves as the etiology of the legal-cultic requirement that the male firstborn of man and beast in Israel were to be devoted to God. The Lord acquired title to Israel's firstborn, human and animal, by having spared them when he struck the firstborn of the Egyptians (Num. 3:13).

The priestly tradition goes on to explain that the Levites, as a group, were devoted to cultic service in substitution for all the firstborn Israelites (Num. 3:12). This would seem to be the historicization of a situation that in fact obtained independently of the particular events surrounding the Exodus. The laws governing the redemption of the firstborn (Ex. 13:15; 34:19, Deut, 15:19) presumably derived from a cultic matrix. At one time firstborn sons were actually devoted to cultic service as temple slaves, Nazirites, and the like; subsequently other arrangements were made for supplying cultic personnel while the erstwhile sanctity of the firstborn was lifted through redemption (cf. Lev. 27:1–8, and see below). This underlies the priestly traditions of the history of the levites and their selection for cultic service” (Enterprise, 1998-2019).

Now that we have a clearer understanding of the “firstborn” and the status which came with this privilege returning to David, we read David’s father, Jesse; in fact, had multiple sons. Some determine the exact number is eight sons, naming the first three as Eliab, Abinadab and Shammah, and David as the youngest. The Book of Chronicles names seven sons of Jesse—Eliab, Abinadab, Shimea, Nethanel, Raddai, Ozem and David—as well as two daughters, Zeruiah and Abigail” (Jesse, 2018). 

​I do want to emphasize, David was not first, second, third, or fourth in line. Coming in dead last in an ancient culture which looked only at the first and second born a primary indicator through which we see evidence that God will use a “nobody”and make him or her a “somebody” for His divine purpose. Emphasizing this point further we go back to scripture, 1 Timothy 4:12 (KJV), “Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”

It seems God made a crucial decision in the following verses as they describe how the Sons of Jesse were chosen to go into battle against the Philistines. The following is an excerpt from 1 Samuel 17:

12 Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehemjudah, whose name was Jesse; and he had eight sons: and the man went among men for an old man in the days of Saul. 13 And the three eldest sons of Jesse went and followed Saul to the battle: and the names of his three sons that went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, and next unto him Abinadab, and the third Shammah. 14 And David was the youngest: and the three eldest followed Saul.15 But David went and returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem.

As a member of this family we can imagine David was probably the runt of the litter, probably picked last for kickball, and was stuck with the greatest number of chores. As anybody can attest to growing up with siblings, he was probably roughed up and given a challenging time during childhood in social and familial settings. 

As we discussed earlier the privileges associated with being the first and second born would allow for a more privileged upbringing but to be last in line in a family this size had to be nearly devastating. David probably felt pretty unlucky, hardened, and maybe even a little degraded emotionally. He was also stuck with arguably the least reputable job as a shepherd which is extremely hard work. Who knew the slogan “over-worked and under-paid” predated even many ancient workplace establishments?

With that being said, anybody who has been in a situation where you are grinding out real manual labor will attest to thebody and mind adaption; as well as, the ancillary benefits of self-confidence and life skills. It allows ample time in solitude, growing in personal strength and reliance on God. 

God strategically chose somebody who wasn’t born in a place of favor but a place of low stature. Manual labor instead of outsourceable labor. Somebody who was tough from their personal experience in the early years of life instead of a brother who had it much easier, with the best jobs, and the least amount of physical challenges. Not a silver spoon but a modest woodencup. 

In verse 13 of I Samuel 17, it says the three eldest and most favored by rank went with the King’s men to fight and David returned to his flock. It also says “but David went and returned from Saul” in verse 15, emphasizing the word returned, which is plausible, David and his brothers had already made the journey from their home in Bethlehem to Saul’s location and subsequently returned home. Based on contemporary estimates,the location on the map from Eshtaol (the location of where they believe the battle between the Israelites and Philistines takeplace) and Bethlehem is approximately 33.3km to 44.4 km (20.69 mi to 27.58 mi) depending on which modern road taken; however, David walked or rode an animal however the latter is less likely. Additionally, the most direct route is over the mountain ridge pass between the two locations. Not a simplefeat. This is also, presumably, the same route David took when bringing supplies to his brothers who were on the front lines of the battle (Langfur, 2019). 

If David wasn’t already a seasoned traveler and incredible endurance athlete from his years of shepherding it is unlikely many men, if any, could endure this type of traveling and daily activity.