“A man after God’s own heart.”

1 Samuel 13.13-14.

Throughout the books of the Old Testament which we call the “Deuteronomistic history”—’cause their author was showing how ancient Israel didn’t follow the book of Deuteronomy, and this is the reason the Israelis were banished from their land—the kings of northern and southern Israel were all compared with the greatest of all their kings, the third king of Israel, David ben Jesse.

True, Solomon ben David had expanded Israel’s borders and influence to their greatest limit, was ridiculously wise and outrageously wealthy, and had built God a really cool gold-covered cedar temple. But none of that matters to the Deuteronomist. David was his absolute favorite. Every king who followed, either “walked in all the way of David his father,” 2Ki 22.2 or “walked in all the sins” of some other forebear, but certainly not David. 1Ki 15.3 David was the paragon of what Israeli kings oughta be, and if you wanted to be a true “son of David,” you’d be just like David.

But wait: Didn’t David murder one of his loyal soldiers in order to steal his woman? Well yeah, he did do that. The Deuteronomist faithfully recorded the story in 2 Samuel 11. David was also a seriously lousy father; Amnon was a rapist, Adonijah an insurrectionist, and Absalom was both. The character flaws David exhibited would completely disqualify him from Christian leadership—which just goes to show you what an abysmally low bar there was for good kings. Not for nothing did we Americans decide to do away with monarchy. Power corrupts, y’know.

Still, the Deuteronomist loved him some David, and plenty of Christians are big fans too. More than one of my pastors, growing up, did entire sermon series on David. Multiple times! Regularly pointing out that, seriously flawed human being or not, David was bananas for the LORD, and loved him like crazy. David is, they loved to point out, “a man after God’s own heart.” As should we be.

They’re not wrong! But here’s why I decided to write a Context article about the phrase, “man after God’s own heart”: What they mean by that phrase, and what the scriptures mean by that phrase, are two wholly different things. And whenever Christians preach about being a person “after God’s own heart,” they’re not preaching the biblical meaning. They’re preaching their own idea.

Their idea, which we see all over the place in popular Christian culture, looks like this bit from Albert Barnes’ 1834 book Notes on the New Testament: Necessary and Practical, vol. III, Acts of the Apostles, which you can nowadays find bundled in a massive one-volume edition called Notes on the Whole Bible.

A man after mine own heart— This expression is found in 1 Samuel 13.14. The connection shows that it means simply a man who would not be rebellious and disobedient as Saul was, but would do the will of God and keep his commandments. This refers, doubtless, rather to the public than to the private character of David; to his character as a king. It means that he would make the will of God the great rule and law of his reign, in contradistinction from Saul, who, as a king, had disobeyed God. At the same time it is true that the prevailing character of David, as a pious, humble, devoted man, was that he was a man after God's own heart, and was beloved by him as a holy man. He had faults; he committed sin; but who is free from it? He was guilty of great offenses; but he also evinced, in a degree equally eminent, repentance (see Psalm 51); and not less in his private than his public character did he evince those traits which were prevailingly such as accorded with the heart, that is, the earnest desires, of God. Barnes at Acts 13.22

In more contemporary English: David was a devout, humble man who upheld and promoted God’s will. And when he sinned, ’cause David sinned big-time, he repented big-time. He just loved God so, so much.

In fact the way I’ve heard preachers describe him, David is “after God’s own heart” in that David chased after God’s own heart. He wanted to follow God and his will, so so much; just look at all the psalms he wrote about loving God, and calling upon him, and trusting in him; “the Lord is my shepherd” and all that. Seriously, bananas for the LORD.

I mean, doesn’t this sound like what “man after God’s own heart” oughta mean?

Unfortunately it doesn’t.

Now here’s where my article’s really gonna annoy you. Same as it did me when I first researched “a man after God’s own heart,” looking for insights… and instead found this. Samuel ben Elkanah’s word כִּלְבָב֗וֹ/khe-leváv-o, “according to the heart of him,” is a Hebrew euphemism meaning “which he [personally] decided upon.”

1 Samuel 13.13-14 KWL

13Samuel told Saul, “That was stupid—

to not guard YHWH your God’s command

which he ordered of you.

In so doing, YHWH would’ve set up

your monarchy over Israel forever.

14Now your monarchy cannot stand.

YHWH must actively seek for himself

a man whom he personally chooses.

YHWH will appoint him

to be the chief over his people,

because you didn’t guard

over that which YHWH ordered you.”

The phrase has nothing to do with David’s love for the LORD, David’s character, David’s anything. It’s not describing David. It’s describing the LORD’s activity: He’s gonna pick King Saul’s successor. Not Saul, not Samuel, not the patriarchs of the Israeli tribes, not the people democratically. It’s the LORD’s will, and nothing else.

We can preach plenty about David’s love for God; it’s all over his psalms. But we can’t legitimately preach about it from the phrase “man after God’s own heart”—because that’s not what iyš khelevávo means. It means “man whom he personally chooses.”

Now when the LORD chose David, the youngest of Jesse ben Oved’s seven boys, he did tell his prophet Samuel, “Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” 1Sa 16.7 KJV We can say all sorts of things about David’s heart from that passage. Bearing in mind, of course, that “heart” in the ancient west Asian culture means “that which you think with,” not that which you feel with, which is a medieval idea. God was looking at David’s mind, at the thoughts deep within; at his character. Feelings come and go, and we’re meant to master them instead of letting ’em master us—and it looks like David didn’t always do so great in that area. But his thoughts were regularly on the LORD. And God can definitely work with that.

There are two other bible passages where this word-form khelevávo is used; it’s in both the 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles version of the same story, where David decides to build the LORD a temple and the LORD tells him no—but the LORD will instead build David a dynasty. In both passages, David rejoices that the LORD does great things “according to thine own heart,” 2Sa 7.21, 1Ch 17.19 i.e. following his own personal choices. God just naturally does great things.

Outside the bible, you have Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, of all people, choosing a man “according to his own heart” to rule Judah for him—namely Mattaniah ben Josiah, the 21-year-old uncle of the 8-year-old King Jehoiachin ben Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar deposed and imprisoned to Babylon. Mattaniah was thence renamed Zedekiah. 2Ki 24.17 Kings all over western Asia had made decisions “after their own hearts,” meaning by themselves, without counsel. Not necessarily wise decisions like the LORD invariably makes, but still—my point is the decisions are about the decider, not the decidee. The statement “man after mine own heart” isn’t about the man.

I know; I know. People have written entire sermons about how “man after God’s own heart” means David’s character reflected God’s character, or David’s will reflected God’s will, or other such nice things about David. And some of those observations can legitimately be taken from other scriptures. But “man after God’s own heart” only means “man whom God personally chooses,” and no more. Sorry. Now go dig around for better bible verses!