Some people are born with presence. They command the room. Others, carefully cultivate the persona, skills or knowledge that makes them the most obviously impressive person in the room. The best dressed person, the body builder, sports star, business or political leader, mostly get to where they are by virtue of their being “a somebody".

But when the prophet Shmuel fails to identify David from amongst his brothers as worthy of kingship, Hashem tells Shmuel “Man sees the eyes but Hashem sees the heart”. David’s brothers looked impressive, fooling the prophet Shmuel, David, on the other hand, didn’t look impressive at all. He had no persona that he’d carefully cultivated to present to the world. Instead, David’s heart was full of faith in and yearning towards his Creator. His heart was pure. And more than anything else, it is this pure-hearted relationship with his Creator that led to David’s displays of warrior-like strength, and made him king-worthy.

Some leaders are full of strength, brains, and charisma. Not so David. David was empty. Empty of ego, self-interest, opinions, stubbornness, he was free to present himself fully to the task at hand, namely, representing the kingship of the Almighty here on this earth. What was special about David? The fact that you could pass him by and not even notice he was there. But the moment he was needed, when Saul asked him to step into his (Saul’s) armor to fight Goliath, David steps right up to the task, and grows three feet taller, fitting right into the kingly suit of armor. This shocks Saul, who is this lad, he asks his advisors, is he worthy of kingship?