King David was a human covenant partner who would lead all Israel and all the world to worship God. As befitting this role, Scripture presents David as an Adam figure. Like Adam, David began with great potential. Yet, also like Adam, David committed a great sin with tragic consequences. Even so, like Adam, David continued to have great hope and faith in God. Although David damaged his own reign as king, he believed God would restore Israel and the world through one of his heirs.

In this section, we explore how David is presented in Scripture as an Adam figure.

God’s Anointing as a New Creation

God’s act of anointing David is presented with echoes of the original Genesis creation. This means it is a kind of new creation: not a new universe but a new reality unfolding in the midst of the original one. The narrative indicates this by surrounding God’s choice of David with echoes of Genesis. The prophet Samuel observes and considers seven sons of Jesse; the number seven reminds us of the seven days of creation. David appears as the eighth, connoting a new creation, and a new Adam figure.

Samuel then anoints the young David to be king, and “the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward.” This reminds us of how the Spirit hovered over the creation to bring forth life from it. True to form, when David sang and played the harp for King Saul in his court, the distressed Saul would “be refreshed and be well.” The peace David brought Saul through music resembles the shalom of the completed creation and the Edenic garden.

David as Adam

Then, David is wrapped in the mantle of Adam. Adam had dominion over the beasts. When David offers to battle the Philistine giant, Goliath, arch-rival of Israel, he introduces himself to King Saul as one who kept sheep safe from the lion and the bear. Even as a boy and lowly shepherd, David provided a type of Edenic peace for the sheep, separated from the wild predators who lived outside his protection.

Similarly, David’s victory over Goliath carries promise: David would be a good shepherd, or Adam-figure, protecting all Israel as a kind of flock. When Goliath and David exchange taunts, they threaten to make each other food for wild animals. Goliath says, “I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.” David replies in kind, but replaces the word “field” with “earth.”

Is this subtle word choice really significant? Yes. David thinks of “earth” as in, “heaven and earth.” He situates himself in the story of “heaven and earth” from Genesis, remembering that the God of Israel is the Creator of all, and calling his fellow Israelites to remember the same.

David and Goliath threaten each other with the vision of making the other into animal food, but David’s threat carries an extra punch: He threatens to send Goliath backward in the creation order. This threat had precedent in Israel’s history and memory: When Israel was in Egypt under Pharaoh, God undid the creation order. He relaxed the water-land boundaries of creation and caused animals to overtake Egypt in a disordered mess. Then God brought Israel and others who joined them out through water and into a new garden land. For God to unravel the creation order is for God to defeat the foe.

Of course, David taunts Goliath to challenge the giant Philistine himself, but also to uplift his and Israel’s role as the “Adamic humanity” that rises above the beasts. When David separates Goliath’s head from his body using Goliath’s own sword, he replays, wittingly or not, the principle of separation from the Genesis creation: God had separated the elements from each other to make a garden land for Adam and Eve. Now David uses Goliath’s own sword to separate Goliath’s head from his body to ensure the garden land for Israel.

A Brotherhood Reversing Cain and Abel

David and Jonathan then become an ideal model of brotherhood. Their brotherhood reverses the utter failure of brotherhood expressed by Cain and Cain’s line. Cain murdered his biological brother Abel out of jealousy. David and Jonathan undo that fallen brotherhood.

King Saul is set on murdering David. In that sense, Saul repeats Cain’s hatred rather than redeems it. Although Saul’s son Jonathan is heir to the throne and has every reason to be jealous of David, he is not. Instead, Jonathan loves David like a brother. Jonathan makes a covenant with David, and vice versa. In fact, Jonathan lays down his royal robe, armor, and weapons, giving them all to David. Jonathan shares with David all the privileges and emblems of brotherhood. Meanwhile, David pledges himself in brotherhood to Jonathan.

A Marriage Like Adam and Eve

David then marries King Saul’s second daughter Michal. Their marriage is a bit like that of Adam and Eve, although there are many dissimilarities, too. Those dissimilarities carry portents of David’s future. In the original garden, God played the matchmaker who brought Adam and Eve together. Here, King Saul played the matchmaker who brought David and Michal together. Saul’s motivations are self-centered, however. He had already tried to kill David with a spear in a fit of paranoid rage. Now, Saul wants David to become a son-in-law to neutralize David as a political rival and gain prestige for his own reign. The political nature of this marriage between David and Michal cannot be understated.

In the original garden, Adam exclaimed a short poem of gratitude that Eve was like him and would be united to him. David, too, exclaims that he comes from a humble family and wishes to not be or appear pretentious. He knows he is a lowly shepherd while Michal is a princess in the royal family. David’s exclamation is surely weighty and real for him. But did he love Michal, as Michal loved him? Is he grateful for her as a person like Adam was grateful for Eve? The narrative does not tell us.

In the original garden, God fashioned Eve out of Adam’s “rib” or “side.” In David’s story, another body part is involved: the foreskins of a hundred Philistines. This is a stunning twist. King Saul set this condition as a “wedding gift” and “bride price.” He secretly hoped David would die trying. But David succeeded in battle and brought the dismembered members to King Saul. This only made King Saul worry more about David’s growing popularity with the people, which highlights a larger “marriage” unfolding: the “marriage” of all Israel with David as king.

David’s Enthronement as King is a Covenant Marriage

Before the narrator tells us that Michal loved David, we are told that “all Israel and Judah loved David, for it was he who marched out and came in leading them.” David is winning the love and trust of all the people. This is the larger “marriage” or “romance” that is unfolding in the Book of Samuel.

After long years and a bitter fight put up by Saul’s leading general after Saul’s death, David wins the support of all Israel. He is received as king over all Israel. His enthronement is portrayed as a marriage like the marriage of Adam and Eve. When God brought Eve to Adam, Adam exclaimed, “Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” When God brings all the tribes of Israel to David, they say, “Look, we are your bone and flesh.” This language is not accidental. The political union between the nation of Israel and the house of David is portrayed like the marriage union between Eve and Adam. The leaders of Israel’s twelve tribes acknowledge that God Himself promised David, “It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over Israel.”

In no way does this suggest that David was a perfect man. He was not an unfallen version of Adam who lived a life completely faithful to God. Quite to the contrary: David shared in fallen Adamic human nature. In fact, later when David was king and sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah, his sin is narrated using terms of the original fall: David “saw… and took” Bathsheba. But this reinforces the larger point connecting David to Adam. David was a figure like Adam, in more ways than one.

Understanding David as a “new Adam” in his day helps us understand why Jesus is presented to us as a “new David” and “heir of David” and therefore also a “new Adam” in a much fuller sense.