In the "Godliness" saga, Jesse and his grandson David—and the story of their relationship—function as allusions to the biblical story of Jesse and David. In the Old Testament, Jesse is a shepherd whose son, David, famously goes on to kill Goliath. Anderson's Jesse views the other farmers in the Winesburg community as traitorous philistines, and he hopes that his grandson David can conquer his "enemies" in Ohio:
[Jesse’s] earnestness affected the boy, who presently became silent and a little alarmed. Into the old man’s mind had come the notion that now he could bring from God a word or a sign out of the sky, that the presence of the boy and man on their knees in some lonely spot in the forest would make the miracle he had been waiting for almost inevitable. “It was in just such a place as this that other David tended the sheep when his father came and told him to go down unto Saul,” he muttered.
Jesse can see and understand his grand mission according to its biblical precedent, but David himself is confused and scared by Jesse's delusions. Unlike the biblical story (which affirms the power of faith), Anderson's retelling of this tale becomes a warning about the dangers of self-importance and religious delusion.
