The symbol of anointing is central to the questions of spiritual leadership addressed in A Tale of Three Kings. In the biblical accounts on which the novel is based, an anointing with oil (often enacted by a prophet) is the ritual by which God appoints a person to the office of kingship in Israel. The novel opens with an account of David as a young shepherd, receiving an anointing to kingship at the hands of the prophet Samuel, even though it is still years before he will ascend the throne. Saul, likewise, had previously been anointed by Samuel to be Israel’s king, and it is the validity of that anointing that keeps David from striking back against Saul’s assaults. The novel makes no reference to an anointing when Absalom has himself proclaimed king, and the absence of a reference is one of the devices by which the novel leaves Absalom’s potential calling to the kingship an unanswered question for David.

The language of “anointing” is also frequently used in Christian churches, particularly those with ties to the evangelical or Pentecostal traditions, referring to the action of the Holy Spirit upon a person’s life.