The David of 1 & 2 Samuel is a divided character from the beginning. Is he a little boy or is a valiant warrior? Is he pure-hearted or self-serving and ambitious? Does he do battle with the harp or with the sword?

But the key through-line in the dividedness of David is this: is he a shepherd or a king?

The prophet Samuel warned the Israelites against having a king like all the other nations. Samuel tells the people that the king will take and take and take from you. He will not stop. A king is self-seeking. He uses his people to enrich himself and to make his name great. Shepherds are a different story. A shepherd is a servant. As Jesus says that a good shepherd even lays his life down for the sake of his sheep while a hired hand deserts them.

The competing roles of king and shepherd run right down the middle of the story of David. And the text of 1 & 2 Samuel forces the reader to ask this question: Why does God love David?

Is it because he knows this small, insignificant shepherd boy will grow up to be a mighty king? Or is it the little shepherd boy that God loves? If we read the story through the lens of the latter, then perhaps it is the case that as David’s story progresses he is losing touch with his true self as he grows up into this mighty king.

The story can be read this way: the more powerful David gets, the more difficult it gets for David to access his shepherd’s heart. Read this way, we can see that David is very rarely in touch with the tender heart God loves.

Chris Green, in his book The Fire and the Cloud, draws attention to an African slave spiritual about David:

Little David was a shepherd boy,

Notice the “David” the slaves identify with: little David; not King David. Allen Dwight Callahan says that for the African slave-poets, “Once ‘Little David’ is no longer little, he is no longer worth singing about.”

The rest of David’s life, as 1 & 2 Samuel narrates it for us, is a struggle between “little David” and “King David.” Only one of the two “Davids” has the capacity to hear the voice of the Lord.

Don’t forget that David’s Lord identifies himself as the Good Shepherd.