David, the "elect of God," was descended from a family which itself belonged to

the elect of Israel. Those

ancestors of his who are enumerated in the Bible by name are all of them men of
distinguished excellence.
Besides, David was a descendant of Miriam, the sister of Moses, and so the strain
of royal aristocracy was
reinforced by the priestly aristocracy. Nor was David the first of his family to
occupy the throne of a ruler. His
great-grandfather Boaz was one and the same person with Ibzan, the judge of
Bethlehem. Othniel, too, the first
judge in Israel after the death of Joshua, and Caleb, the brother of Othniel, were
connected with David's family. As
examples of piety and virtue, David had his grandfather and more particularly his
father before him. His
grandfather's whole life was a continuous service of God, whence his name Obed,
"the servant," and his father
Jesse was one of the greatest scholars of his time, and one of the four who died
wholly untainted by sin. If God had
not ordained death for all the descendants of our first parents after their fall, Jesse
would have continued to live
forever. As it was, he died at the age of four hundred, and then a violent death, by
the hand of the Moabite king, in
whose care David, trusting in the ties of kinship between the Moabites and the
seed of Ruth, left his family when
he was fleeing before Saul. Jesse's piety will not go unrewarded. In the Messianic
time he will be one of the eight
princes to rule over the world.