Who was Jesse in the Bible?
Jesse appears in Scripture mostly as a link in a chain: he is the man whose youngest son became Israel's greatest king, and whose name Isaiah later attached to the Messiah. His story raises the question of why God repeatedly chooses the overlooked household, and why the promised King is named after Jesse rather than after the famous David.
The Man Himself
The Bible records very little about Jesse directly. What it does record is his place in a family line that runs from Ruth's story straight into the opening pages of the New Testament.
Morrish Bible DictionarySon of Obed, a Bethlehemite, and father of David. Little is recorded of Jesse, but his name constantly occurs in the description of David as "the son of Jesse." Ruth 4:17, 22; 1 Sam. 16:1-22; 1 Sam. 17:12-20, 58; Ps. 72:20; Matt. 1:5-6; Luke 3:32. The Lord Jesus is referred to as a branch and a root of Jesse. Isa. 11:1, 10: cf. Rev. 22:16.
Bethlehem tied the whole family together, generation after generation.
Truth & TestimonyBethlehem was important in the life of David, the son of Jesse. His great-grandfather Boaz, his grandfather Obed, his father Jesse and he were all born there (Ruth 2:4, 11; Ruth 4:17; 1 Sam. 16:1; 20:6). It was there that Samuel the prophet and judge of Israel anointed him to be king in the place of the unfaithful and rejected king Saul (1 Sam. 16:1-13).
The Father Who Overlooked His Own Son
When Samuel came to Bethlehem to anoint a king, Jesse presented seven sons and left the eighth out in the fields. That omission is not treated as an accident but as a picture of how human judgement works.
C. H. Mackintosh"There remains yet the youngest." Surely he could not be the chosen one, thought Jesse. Man cannot understand the ways of God. The very instrument which God is about to use is overlooked or despised by man. "Arise, anoint him: for this is he," is God's perfect reply to the thoughts of Jesse and Samuel.
Samuel himself made the same mistake first, drawn to the eldest son's appearance.
An Outline of Sound WordsWhatever the notable features of the first seven sons of Jesse, none of them had been chosen by God to rule over His people; but David, the youngest, who had not even been called, had to be sent for, for he was the one to be anointed.
A Name Used as an Insult
Because Jesse was a nobody, "son of Jesse" became a convenient way to belittle David. Nabal, a wealthy landowner, used it exactly that way when David's men asked him for food.
Hamilton SmithHe professes to have no knowledge of David; for he asks, "Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse?" No doubt he knew of David's great victory over the giant, and how the women had sung his praises; but probably he looked on David as one whose head had been turned by his great deeds and the songs of women, and who, aiming at the throne, had become a rebellious servant who had broken away from his master, king Saul.
Why Isaiah Says "Jesse" and Not "David"
Isaiah 11 does not promise a shoot from the stem of David. Commentators see the choice of the older, humbler name as deliberate.
William KellyOne cannot help thinking, with others, that the reference to the stem of Jesse is significant. Elsewhere the Messiah is viewed as David's son, or is called David himself. Here He is a Shoot or Rod from the stock of Jesse, and a Branch out of his roots for Israel, and the Root of Jesse for the peoples and nations. There seems to be a purpose in drawing attention to the lowly condition into which the royal line would have sunk by the time of Christ's birth. It was from that family, when it counted for nothing in Israel, that David was anointed for the throne.
Another writer draws out both the felled condition of the family tree and the meaning carried in Jesse's own name.
Numerical Bible NotesThe stem has been cut down; it is better described as Jesse's than David's, for royalty no longer attaches to it: and so the Son of David comes into no outward status or glory, but the opposite. And yet Jesse also bears witness in his name that "Jehovah exists;" and He is the God of resurrection. The Sprout, though lowly, still has the energy of life in it. In Him the felled tree is to revive, and to outshine all its former glories.
Root as Well as Shoot
Isaiah calls the Messiah not only a shoot from Jesse but the root of Jesse — a reversal that puts Christ before the man He descends from.
F. B. HoleHere "Jesse" is used, we believe, to heighten the contrast, for David had become a name of great renown, whereas Jesse only reminds us of the otherwise unknown farmer from whom David sprang. From one small and unknown the great Messiah was to spring, and yet to be the Root from which Jesse sprang.
That root becomes a rallying point far beyond one village or one nation.
J. N. Darby"In that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will seek Him, and His resting place shall be glorious," Isa. 11:10. "All nations shall call Him blessed," Ps. 72:17.
Summary
- Obscure. Jesse was a Bethlehem farmer, son of Obed and grandson of Boaz — little is said of him, yet his name keeps appearing as the tag attached to David.
- Overlooked. He left his youngest son with the sheep when the prophet came; God's choice fell on the one his own father did not think to call.
- Insulted. "Who is the son of Jesse?" was Nabal's sneer — the name marked David as a nobody with no claim worth honouring.
- Cut down. By Isaiah's time the royal line was a felled stump, so the prophet names it after Jesse rather than David, and the Messiah comes up out of that lowliness.
- Root. The One who springs from Jesse is also the root Jesse sprang from — and that root becomes a banner the nations seek.