Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 17:55

"And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell." — 1 Samuel 17:55 (ASV)

Whose son is this youth? — A serious difficulty, at first sight, undeniably exists here. It is briefly this: In the preceding chapter (1 Samuel 17:18–23), David, the son of Jesse, is chosen to play before the mentally ill king. His playing relieved the sufferer, who became attached to the young musician and consequently appointed him to a position as a personal attendant, which certainly would have involved a lengthy, if not continuous, stay at the court.

In this and the following verses, we read how this same David, at the time of his great exploit, was apparently unknown to the king and to Abner, the captain of the army. The Septuagint, fully aware of the difficulty, determined to solve it by boldly, if not wisely, cutting the knot. They literally removed from their version all the later passages that they could not easily reconcile with the earlier ones. The Greek Version, then, simply omits 1 Samuel 17:55–58, 1 Samuel 18:1–5, and the entire section of 1 Samuel 17:12–31.

Various ingenious explanations have been suggested by scholars:

1. The mental state of Saul when David played before him was such that the king failed to recognize him on this occasion, and Abner probably had never seen him before.
2. Some time had passed since David's last visit to the court, and as he was then in very early manhood, he had, so to speak, grown out of Saul’s memory in a relatively short time.
3. The purpose of Saul’s inquiry was not to find out who David was—that he knew well already—but to determine the position and general circumstances of the young hero’s father. This was because, according to the promise in 1 Samuel 17:25, if David succeeded (which the king evidently expected confidently), the champion’s father and his family would receive extraordinary honors.

The real solution to the difficulty probably lies in the fact that, as stated before, this and the other historical books of the Old Testament were compiled by the inspired writer from well-authenticated traditions circulating in Israel, and most probably preserved in the archives of the great prophetic schools (see Notes on 1 Samuel 17:1, 15).

There were, undoubtedly, many of these traditions connected with the principal events of David’s early career. Two were selected here which, to a certain extent, covered the same ground. The first—preserved, no doubt, in some prophetic school where music and poetry were especially cultivated—narrates the influence David acquired over Saul through his great gift of music.

The power of music and poetry in Saul’s mental illness was evidently the main point of interest to the original writer of 1 Samuel 16:14–23. In the narrative contained in these ten verses, no note of time occurs. The events related were evidently spread over a considerable, possibly very long, period.

The afflicted king might have seen the young musician, perhaps in a darkened tent, once or twice before the Goliath combat. However, we may well assume that the great intimacy described in 1 Samuel 16:21–23 belonged to a period after the memorable combat with the giant.

Following this hypothesis, we may assume with some confidence that King Saul entirely failed to recognize the young player. He had only seen him (or possibly only heard him in his darkened tent) on one or two sad occasions, and Abner probably had never seen him.

As for the king's great love and the position of royal armor-bearer, we have little doubt that these things came to David after the victory over the Philistine giant, and very likely as a consequence of it.

In the later of the two sections of the Goliath history, the compiler cared little for the musical detail; his work was to show that the foundation stone of David’s brilliant and successful life was intense faith in the Jehovah of Israel, a perfect childlike trust in the power of the Invisible King.

In the former of the two sections, the relater—undoubtedly a famous teacher in his day in some school of prophetic music—was only concerned to show the mighty influence of his Divine art upon the souls and lives of men, as exemplified in the story of the early days of the sweet Psalmist-King of Israel.

The musical details connected with the early life of David, the composer of so many of the famous hymns sung in the Temple Service and also in the public gatherings of the people, would be—in the eyes of this writer—of the deepest interest to coming generations.