The handsome and tall Saul is chosen–Saul who looks like a king, who embodies authority. But the God of the Exodus has not shown God’s favor for Saul. The God who moves from despair, the God who reveals God’s name to those in pain, the God who picks stutterers to be God’s mouthpiece finds no favor with the tall and muscular, gives no preference to the authoritative. And of course, soon Israel needs a new king, but this time God will anoint a king according to the way God has revealed Godself in the Exodus, the God of the people of despair. So Samuel goes to a family with sons strong, tall, and powerful, but none of them is the one. It is revealed that little David, the one too insignificant to be fetched for the arrival of the prophet, the one who daydreams and sings, the little one who his father never dreamed would be anything but a shepherd boy, is the God of the Exodus’s choice.

–From the Promise of Despair by Andrew Root, pg 37

Painting by Suzan Buckner

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