David was the sort of man that when he walked into a room, all eyes turned to him. For the most part, everyone loved David. He was admired and respected. Even Jonathon, king Saul’s son had an especially close attachment to David. When he found out his father planned to kill David, Jonathon interceded on David’s behalf and warned David about his father’s intentions.

It says in 1 Samuel 18:12 that “Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him.” The word translated afraid, yârê’ (yaw – ray´) means to stand in awe. Yare’ is not simple fear, but reverence, whereby an individual recognizes the power and position of the individual revered and renders him proper respect” (3372). Yare’ is most often used to describe the fear a person has of God and represents having an appropriate attitude toward his authority.

One of the things about creation that is sometimes forgotten is that man was created in the image of God. After sin entered the world, the image of man became tarnished and his separation from God led to a diminishing of the spiritual aspect of his personality. I think David is an example of what happens to a man when his relationship with the LORD is restored and his spiritual growth takes precedence in his life.

Like Jesus, not everyone appreciated David’s spiritual superiority. Saul was jealous of David and could not help wanting to get him out of the way so that the people would continue to worship him instead of God. The difference between Saul and David was that Saul wanted fame and thrived on the special attention he got from being king. His desire to kill David was similar to that of the Pharisees who wanted to kill Jesus because he gave glory to God and acknowledged that what people saw in him was the goodness of God.