1 Samuel 17:55

SAUL AND ABNER DO NOT RECOGNIZE DAVID

"When Saul saw David go down against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, "Abner, whose son is this youth"? And Abner said, "As your soul lives, O king, I cannot tell. And the king said, Inquire whose son the stripling is." And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand. And Saul said to him, "Whose son are you, young man"? And David answered, I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite."

"When Saul saw David go down against the Philistine" (1 Samuel 17:54). This should read, "When Saul had seen David go down against the Philistine." Saul would not have inquired about David until after his victory.

Several things appear in this paragraph of great interest. Saul is already jealous of the great victory David won, hence the belittling of his champion by such words as "stripling," and "young man." Neither of these designations was appropriate for a man who had just tried on the armor of Israel's king Saul, who was something of a giant himself.

But why did neither Saul or Abner recognize David. Simply because it had been a long time since David and played the lyre for Saul, and the changes in David's appearance in the meanwhile make their recognition impossible. As the splendid scholar Robert Jamieson stated it, "The growth of the beard and other changes in the now full-grown youth prevented the king from recognizing his former favorite minstrel."[21] Thus, in one day's time, God set in motion the events that would eventually elevate David to the throne as Saul's successor.