This question may best be answered by considering the purpose for which he was raised up. When Saul was disobedient, Samuel said to him, "Thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord hath sought Him _a man after His own heart_, and the 10 Lord hath commanded him to be captain over His people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord commanded thee."[19] The office to which first Saul and then David were called was different from that with which other favored 15 men before them had been intrusted. From the time of Moses, when Israel became a nation, God had been the king of Israel, and His chosen servants, not delegates, but mere organs of His will. Moses did not direct the Israelites by his 20 own wisdom, but he spake to them, as God spake from the pillar of the cloud. Joshua, again, was merely a sword in the hand of God. Samuel was but His minister and interpreter. God acted, the Israelites "stood still and saw" His miracles, then 25 followed. But, when they had rejected Him from being king over them, then their chief ruler was no longer a mere organ of His power and will, but had a certain authority intrusted to him, more or less independent of supernatural direction; 30 and acted, not so much _from_ God, as _for_ God, and _in the place of_ God. David, when taken from the sheepfolds "to feed Jacob His people and Israel His inheritance," "fed them," in the words of the Psalm, "with a faithful and true heart; 5 and ruled them prudently with all his power."[20] From this account of his office, it is obvious that his very first duty was that of _fidelity to Almighty God_ in the trust committed to him. He had power put into his hands, in a sense in which 10 neither Moses had it nor Samuel. He was charged with a certain office, which he was bound to administer according to his ability, so as best to promote the interests of Him who appointed him. Saul had neglected his Master's honor; but 15 David, in this an eminent type of Christ, "came to do God's will" as a viceroy in Israel, and, as being tried and found faithful, he is especially called "a man after God's own heart." [19] 1 Sam. xiii. 14. [20] Ps. lxxviii. 71-73. David's peculiar excellence, then, is that of 20 _fidelity to the trust committed to him_; a firm, uncompromising, single-hearted devotion to the cause of his God, and a burning zeal for His honor.