Life of David: 8. David Plays For King Saul

This week we learn more of the characteristics of David. This lesson is shorter than most of the David lessons and chapter 16 tells us some things about David. So, combining what we studied last week and the new for this week, gives a picture of David before his fight with Goliath next week.

This is week 8 in the Life of David series and is found in 1 Samuel 16:14-23.

We learned that King Saul disobeyed God. Samuel had told Saul to fight the Amalekites and destroy everything. But he didn’t. The kept King Agag alive and saved the best sheep and oxen. King Saul told Samuel he was afraid of the people. God was so angry at Saul’s disobedience, He rejected Saul as the king.

Last week we learned that God told Samuel to go find Jesse. One of his 8 sons was going to the next king of Israel. What we learned about David: His dad’s name was Jesse, he had 7 brothers, he was the youngest and a shepherd, he was ruddy, had bright eyes and good looking. He lived in Bethlehem. He was the one God chose to be the next king.

King Saul was feeling upset and would get very angry. God wasn’t with him anymore since his disobedience. One of Saul’s servants said to him “Let one of your servants find a man that can play the harp. If he plays the harp when you are not feeling well, it will make you feel better.”

So, Saul told the servants to “Find a man that can play the harp well and bring him to me.” One of the servants told King Saul that he had seen a son of Jesse play the harp. Jesse was from Bethlehem and his son was very skilled in playing the harp. He was a mighty man of valor (courage or brave). He was a man of war. He is intelligent and handsome. Also, the Lord is with him.

Saul sent messengers to Jesse telling him to send his son David who is with the sheep. Jesse took a donkey, loaded it with bread and a skin of wine and a young goat and sent to King Saul with David.

David went to Saul and stood before him. David loved King Saul and David became his armor bearer. David had an important job for King Saul as his armor bearer.

Saul sent a message to Jesse asking if David could stay with him. So, David stayed with King Saul and when King Saul was feeling the anger, David would take his harp and play it for King Saul. It made Saul feel refreshed and better.

The printables for David in this series are for an older age group than I usually post. Even though this lesson is great for younger ages, some of these lessons about David are not appropriate for early elementary. But David is a great study. So, as you can see from the above picture, there is a Q&A. This could be used with younger groups by using the answer sheet and just asking the questions for discussion. Each post in this series will have a maze and some type of puzzle. The additional application has thought questions about how the students can apply the lesson to their daily life. There are answer sheets for all worksheets except for the last application. Everyone will have a different set of answers. Click here to download.