King David

Michelangelo’s David

David (c.1043–c.973 B.C.) is one of the most loved and revered figures in Hebrew history.

He was born the youngest son of Jesse of Bethlehem and anointed by the prophet Samuel to be king of Israel. David is honored as the “ideal king”—symbol of the bond between God and nation.

His soul reembodied as the Lord Jesus Christ.

File:Unción de David por Samuel, de Antonio González Velázquez (Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando).JPG

Samuel anointing David, by Velázquez

Anointing by the prophet Samuel

When the disobedient King Saul rejected the word of the LORD and the LORD rejected him from being king, “for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry,” the LORD directed Samuel to fill his horn with oil and go to the house of Jesse the Bethlemite. For among his sons he would find the next king.

After Samuel called Jesse’s family to sacrifice, the prophet looked at one of his sons, Eliab, thinking this was surely the LORD’s anointed. “But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” Not until Jesse’s youngest son, David, stood before Samuel, did the LORD tell him, “Arise, anoint him: for this is he.” When Samuel anointed David, “the spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward.”

David with the Head of Goliath, Caravaggio

The slaying of Goliath

I Samuel 17 records how, as a young shepherd boy, he single-handedly slew the Philistine giant Goliath. In the Biblical account of David and Goliath, Goliath represents David’s dweller-on-the-threshold. Before David could be crowned king of Israel, the Great Law required that he slay Goliath, the champion of the Philistines. This was a spiritual initiation. God initiated the soul of David that he might prove himself before Goliath and the Philistines and before King Saul and his people.

So David, the naked soul, took his staff in hand and chose five smooth stones (symbolic of the five secret rays?) out of the brook and put them in a shepherd’s bag. With his sling in hand, he drew near to Goliath. And Goliath mocked him and “cursed him by his gods,” for David was “but a youth and ruddy and of a fair countenance.”

But David demonstrated his confidence in himself and in his God. He said to Goliath, “I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand.” His courage was unparalleled. He told Goliath exactly what he was going to do and he did it, affirming again, “The battle is the LORD’s and he will give you into our hands.” Not for one moment did David even consider that the battle was his alone: he knew it was his and God’s.

So when Goliath arose, David ran toward him and “put his hand in his bag and took thence a stone and slang it and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead and he fell upon his face to the earth.” David’s feat must become our feat. And our soul must mature, pressing her soles into his footprints. For one day we, too, will be called upon by God to slay our dweller-on-the-threshold in defense of our soul’s ongoing tenure in the Community of the Holy Spirit.

David’s initiation was all about empowerment and communion with God. The confidence David exuded was based not only on his faith in himself and in his God but on his direct communion with God. God told David that he would empower him and give him the victory over the Philistine and his hosts, and he did.

When the soul is empowered by God and she knows it, because all the forces of her being are poised for the victory that she knows is hers, she is fearless not only before the ragings of her own ego and her own dweller but also before the ragings of the entire false hierarchy of fallen angels.

King of Israel

As the successor of Saul, David rose to become king of all of Israel, reuniting the twelve tribes as one nation and greatly extending its borders. He established Jerusalem as the capital and there enshrined the ark of the covenant.

God prophesied through through Nathan, “He shall build me an house, and I will stablish his throne for ever.” The throne that God committed to establish unto David through Solomon, his son, is the throne of the mighty threefold flame. It is the throne of the Christ Self of all who are of the seed of David.

God committed his promise for the establishing of the kingdom of Israel, the kingdom of all who were the descendants of Sanat Kumara through Solomon and through all those who would come after him. And he made this promise to David unto Solomon and to David’s seed, “I will be his father, and he shall be my son: and I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from his that was before thee: But I will settle him in mine house and in my kingdom for ever: and his throne shall be established for evermore.”

The seed of David is the seed of God in the earth who have a threefold flame, who have a Christ Self, who have the mighty I AM Presence. And those who do recognize one another recognize that light. And they are in every nation and race and religion, scattered over the earth as God promised to Abraham, “I will make thy seed as the sands of the sea shore innumerable.”

The seed of Abraham descended unto David, the seed of David descended unto the Lord Jesus Christ, which has been established by the orthodox writers of Matthew through the descent and lineage of Joseph, even while Joseph is disclaimed as being the real father of Jesus. It is a contradiction, but nevertheless considered a necessity by Matthew, who had the physical orientation in his attitude toward the gospel. But the real descent of the light of David, the seed of David, incarnated as Jesus Christ is that it is the very same living soul who first incarnated as the temporal king wearing the temporal crown of Israel, yet bearing his sins, who reincarnated to be the king in the spiritual sense who declares, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

Reincarnation as Jesus

The reincarnation of David as Jesus was prophesied by one of the greatest prophets of Israel, who wrote:

And there shall come forth a rod [a scepter of authority] out of the stem of Jesse [out of the Son, or the Christ Flame of Jesse] and a Branch [the Christ Consciousness of David] shall grow out of his roots [shall evolve out of his communion with the LORD]: and the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.”

David himself knew that he would be born again to perform a mighty work for the LORD. Therefore he exclaimed:

My heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope. For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the Path of Life: in Thy Presence is fulness of joy.

David longed for the day when he would see God face to face, prove His laws, and be found in His image. He would not be satisfied with less. Thus he declared, “As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.”

Legacy

The Book of Psalms is David’s tribute to his Maker. It shows forth the love, the wisdom, and the power of a soul determined to become the Christ. It shows how faith, hope, and charity, as seeds of Light implanted within body, mind, and soul, compel the totality of selfhood to engage its energies in the daily striving to be acceptable in the sight of God. The cry of David, the shepherd-king, was answered in the life of the carpenter of Nazareth: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.”

Thus in the Psalms the Israelites have recourse to the teachings of one who has attained Christ-mastery while gentiles also reflect upon the meditations of the Savior, all striving for the same goal set forth by him who is known as both the king of Israel and of the New Jerusalem. And so it is not surprising that today in the Cenacle overlooking the city of Jerusalem, Christians pray in the Upper Room on the site where Jesus and the disciples celebrated the Last Supper, where Christ appeared after his resurrection, and where the descent of the Holy Spirit took place. And in the lower level of the same house, there is a temple where Jews worship at the Tomb of David—“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.”

See also

Jesus Christ

Sources

Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 27, no. 61.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, “On the Soul,” Pearls of Wisdom, vol. 38, no. 29, July 2, 1995.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, “Lesson Three from the Holy Spirit: The Anointings by the Holy Spirit,” June 30, 1994.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, March 8, 1981.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Mary’s Message of Divine Love.

Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Lords of the Seven Rays.