Shepherd Boy

Ray Boltz tells this one almost entirely from outside David's head, describing what everyone else saw rather than what David felt. "One by one Jesse's sons stood before the prophet... and each one passed except the last, no one thought to call him." The omission is the point — David wasn't overlooked by accident, he simply wasn't considered a candidate.

The chorus states the gap between perception and reality as plainly as possible: "but when others see a shepherd boy, God may see a king." Nothing about David's circumstances changes in the song; only what's noticed about him does.

Samuel almost made the same mistake himself, ready to anoint an older, more obviously impressive brother, before being corrected: people look at outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. The last verse ties the story back to the giant it eventually produces — "yet the giants fell, and nations trembled" — proof, in the song's logic, that the boy in the field was never actually the least likely candidate.