Acts 13:22

Acts 13:22. And when he had removed him. That is, by death. It was not until Saul had perished that David became king, although he had been anointed during the lifetime of Saul.

David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart. This expression is not found in this form in the Old Testament, but is made up of two passages from Psalms 89:20, where the Eternal, speaking, says, ‘I have found David my servant,' and 1 Samuel 13:14, where Samuel speaking to Saul says, ‘The Lord hath sought Him a man after His own heart.'

In our estimate of the character of this king ‘after God's own heart,' we must ever remember his nobility of aim and purpose, his unwearied labour for the welfare of the peoples committed to his charge, his devotion to God, his longing after a purer and better life, his bitter remorse whenever he fell; and at the same time, without attempting to extenuate the dark and terrible sins which marred his splendid reign, we must remember the wild and half-savage state of society in the midst of which David lived, and the terrible temptation to which an absolute and irresponsible ruler of such a society was then exposed. One characteristic especially distinguished David's rule he rigidly guarded the people from idolatry and all the abominations which attended idol-worship, and kept them faithful to the adoration of the pure and holy God of their fathers.