Young David – episode one
In which David fights off a lion, but still finds the lion "impressive".
Episode 1 | Episode 2 | Episode 3 | Episode 4 | Episode 5
The first episode of Young David, an animated series that serves as a sort of prelude to an upcoming feature-length film about David, premiered on the Minno and Angel streaming services last week.
The episode is very, very short—the end credits start around the 5-minute mark—but it’s fun enough for what it is. And even within its hyper-short runtime, it does do a few interesting things. So here are some quick notes about that:
The basic “plot” of the episode is that David watches some sheep and protects them from a lion. This, of course, is based on the fact that the biblical David said he killed lions and bears while keeping his father’s sheep (I Samuel 17:34-37).
After David kills the lion, he lies on his back, looks up at the sky, and says, “Why did you have to make lions so strong? I mean, they’re very impressive, but…” Watching that scene, I was struck by the fact that David could simultaneously see the lion as a threat to be eliminated and as something impressive that God had created. And then I was reminded of the psalm that cites lions and their predatory ways as one of the many things in creation that point to God’s majesty: “The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from God” (Psalm 104:21). The Bible does not say who wrote that particular psalm, but tradition says most of the Psalms were written by David, and it’s fascinating to think that the guy who bragged about killing lions when they hunted his father’s sheep might have thought it was kind of cool that lions hunted for their prey in general. Or, to put it differently: David was fine with lions seeking their prey from God, he just didn’t want them seeking their prey from him!
The violence in this episode is considerably tamer than it is in the Bible. That’s hardly surprising, for an animated film aimed at children, but it’s still worth noting. The biblical David talked about “seizing” lions and bears “by the hair” and “striking” them dead after they had stolen his sheep, and he cited his experience with this sort of violence as proof that he could kill a mighty warrior like Goliath; but the David of this episode attacks the lion from a distance (e.g. with his slingshot) and grabs it by the tail, to stop the lion before it catches the sheep. He also arguably kills the lion accidentally; he seems to be trying to just knock it off-course as it chases the sheep, and it’s just the lion’s bad luck that it happens to slide off a cliff after it’s hit by the stone. (I am reminded of how Moses accidentally killed the Egyptian, who also fell to his death, in The Prince of Egypt.)
As one who lives with a cat, I highly, highly doubt the lion would just let someone grab it by the tail and then drag that person around like this. If the lion wants prey, why not just turn around and eat the person who grabbed it?
David is “playing” at being a warrior when the episode begins, scratching battle plans on a rock and piling rocks in the shape of enemy troops. There’s a typical boyish energy to all this, but I wonder if we’ll ever see him grow out of it (if, for example, he ends up seeing combat for the deadly serious thing that it is in the upcoming feature film). Will we see David kill Goliath, or any other people? What will it be like when he gets up close and cuts off the giant’s head, etc.?
At one point, David says, “That’s no Philistine, it’s an Amalekite!” He says it like the Amalekites are “worse” than the Philistines… and it’s quite possible the ancient Israelites would have seen them that way, given how the Israelites had orders to exterminate the Amalekites (Deuteronomy 25:17-19, I Samuel 15) but not the Philistines. David himself actually fought the Amalekites while living under the protection of the Philistine king (I Samuel 27:8-11, 30:1-20).
Two of David’s sheep are an adult named Gibor (which means “strong one” in Hebrew) and a lamb named Tali (which literally means “my lamb”).
David’s motto, which he repeats a few times in this episode, is “Chazak V’amatz,” which means “Be strong and courageous.” (He actually says it in Hebrew and then translates it, as though he wasn’t “really” speaking Hebrew throughout the episode.) In the Bible, this phrase is primarily associated with Joshua, but it is used by other people too.1 The biblical David uses it, or some version of it, four times: twice when speaking to his son Solomon (I Chronicles 22:13, 28:20), and twice in psalms that the Bible attributes to him (Psalm 27:14, 31:24).
And that about covers it for now, I think.
There are four more mini-episodes coming out over the next four months:
December 8 — “King”
January 12 — “Shepherd”
February 9 — “Poet”
March 8 — “Worshiper”
These will then be followed by a feature film, called simply David, in 2025.
Past posts on David and Young David:
‘Three — maybe four — Bible-themed projects look for crowd-funding’ (October 24, 2021)
‘Young David animated series coming in 2023’ (June 8, 2022)
‘Livestream news: The Chosen, Testament, The Shift, and more’ (July 6, 2022)
‘Young David series to start streaming next month’ (October 25, 2023)
God tells Moses to strengthen and encourage Joshua in Deuteronomy 3:28; Moses tells Joshua to be strong and courageous in Deuteronomy 31:7, 23; God tells Joshua to be strong and courageous in Joshua 1:1-9; the Israelites tell Joshua to be strong and courageous in Joshua 1:18; and Moses and Joshua tell the Israelites to be strong and courageous in Deuteronomy 31:6 and Joshua 10:25.
Besides David, the other people who use this phrase include King Hezekiah, who says it to the people of Jerusalem in II Chronicles 32:7, and Nahum, in Nahum 2:1.