The Chapters – Quick Access

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	28	30
31

Basics

BOOK: 1 Samuel

Description: historical book telling of the period moving from judges to rule by kings, Saul the first king and David in preparation to take over.

Author: Possibly a combination of Samuel, Nathan and Gad

Date written: somewhere about the turn of the first millennium BC

Chapters: 31

Brief Synopsis

• Gets its name from Samuel the last of the judges, a prophet instrumental in making Saul king and setting up David for later kingship.
• At the beginning of the book old Eli is a poor chief priest who eventually dies and Samuel is left as –judge-prophet-leader.
• The people demand a king to be like other nations and eventually Saul becomes first king.
• However Saul is self-centred rather than God-centred and the Lord tells Samuel to anoint David, a shepherd boy, in readiness to become the next king when Saul eventually dies.
• Saul eventually seeks to kill David and David thus embarks on a life on the run until someone will kill Saul.
• This happens at the end of the book in a battle.

Why Read 1 Samuel

There is a sense, we believe, that when you move into 1 Samuel, you move into a completely different genre or style of history that more resembles the later two thirds of Genesis with its changing events based on specific people. In Genesis it was the Patriarchs, here is Samuel, Saul and David with a background throughout that, although similar to Judges with discipline coming from the Lord in respect of hostile neighbors, here in this book it is just one hostile neighbor, the Philistines in the south.

It is a significant book of the Old Testament on four accounts:

1. It provides the continuation directly on from Judges,
2. It shows a transition from judges to prophet to king,
3. It reveals in great clarity, the nature of the king God wants, as distinct from the king the people want,
4. It shows the development of David, paving the way for him to become the most famous king of Israel, and the ongoing rule of kings until the Exile when priests take over again.

Divisions & Parts

The three divisions, we note, make clear the general structure:

• A. Samuel’s Story: Ch.1-15
• B. Saul’s Story: Ch.9-15
• C. David’s Story: Ch.16-31

The first division, and Part 1, [see the Contents below] opens with a poor-quality priesthood leadership that leads a spiritually weak nation which comes under the judgment of God. Into this context Samuel is born, with divine help, and gradually becomes a somewhat low-key although at times clearly spoken prophet.

In Part 2 below, we see the spiritually low state of the nation and an almost entertaining and amusing episode with the Philistines when they capture the ark of God and suffer the consequences of that, followed by a restoration of Israel under Samuel.

Part 3 sees the people asking for a king because Samuel’s sons who follow him into leadership are not up to the job. Even the first prophet-leader had his failings. Part 3 is the transition to having a king.

We have suggested the second division starts in what we have called Part 3 because it is there we are introduced to Saul although he doesn’t take up his reign properly until the end of chapter 11.

Part 4 reveals just how far short the people’s choice of a king falls, with Saul being a mix of a modest, low self-esteem individual with a brash and hasty-acting insecure leadership-style with low spiritual awareness, and thus probable low knowledge of Israel’s history, which results in him crossing the boundaries between spiritual and administrative leadership, which in turn results in him being rejected by God by the end of chapter 15.

In the third division, we have made David the focus, because although Saul is still a key player, the significance is all in respect of David. This is especially so in Part 5 where David is serving under Saul until Saul’s jealousy, which amounts to a paranoia that seeks David’s death again and again, means David flees from Saul.

Thus Part 6 is all about the trials and tribulations of David being on the run from Saul until eventually Saul dies in battle with the Philistines. You could split what we have called Part 6, into 6.1 where David is simply on the run from Saul and then 6.2 from chapter 27 when David, bizarrely as the future king of Israel, makes himself part of the Philistines and becomes an under-cover guerilla leader until Saul’s death at the very end of the book. It is both an entertaining and challenging book with lots of significant lessons.  

CONTENTS

• Part 1: Ch.1-3: Establishing Samuel as a Prophet
  • 1: The Birth of Samuel
  • 2: Against the House of Eli
  • 3: The Lord Calls Samuel
• Part 2: Ch.4-7: The Ark taken and returned & Israel Restored
  • 4: The Philistines Capture the Ark & Eli Dies
  • 5: Fun & Games with the Philistines
  • 6: The Ark Returned to Israel
  • 7: Restoration of Israel & Removal of Philistines
• Part 3: Ch.8-11: The Establishing of a King (Saul)
  • 8: Israel Asks for a King
  • 9: Samuel meets Saul
  • 10: Saul is Chosen as King
  • 11: Saul Rescues Jabesh & is confirmed as King
• Part 4: Ch.12-15: The Fall of a King (Saul)
  • 12: Samuel’s Farewell Speech
  • 13: Saul provoked to disobedience
  • 14: Battles, Disagreements & Triumphs
  • 15: The Lord Rejects Saul as King
• Part 5: Ch.16-20: David’s Life Under Threat serving Saul
  • 16: David Anointed but Joins Saul
  • 17: David and Goliath
  • 18: Saul’s Growing Fear of David
  • 19: More Attempts on David’s Life by Saul
  • 20: David & Jonathan – David leaves
• Part 6: Ch.21-31: David on the Run
  • 21: David goes on the run to Nob & Gath
  • 22: David escapes & Saul kills the priests
  • 23: David moves on and is pursued by Saul
  • 24: David Spares Saul’s Life
  • 25: David, Nabal and Abigail
  • 26: David Again Spares Saul’s Life
  • 27: David Among the Philistines
  • 28: Saul & the Witch of Endor
  • 29: David excused from fighting his own people
  • 30: David Destroys the Amalekites
  • 31: Israel’s defeat & Saul’s death

Possible Time-scale

The following is a suggested timescale covering some of these events:

1105BC.	Birth of Samuel (1Sa 1:20)
1080	Birth of Saul
1050	Saul anointed to be king (1Sa 10:1)
1040	Birth of David
1025	David anointed to be Saul’s successor (1Sa 16:1-13)
1010	Death of Saul and beginning of David’s reign over Judah in Hebron   (1Sa 31:4-6; 2Sa 2:1,4,11)
1003	Beginning of David’s reign over all Israel and capture of Jerusalem (2Sa 5)
997-992	David’s wars (2Sa 8:1-14)
991	Birth of Solomon (2Sa 12:24)
980	David’s census (2Sa 24:1-9)
970	End of David’s reign (2Sa 5:4-5; 1Ki 2:10-11)

A Book of Lessons

We have already with the brief synopsis and the ‘key verses’ sought to portray something of this book, but because it is so action-packed we want to include some more of the highlights, the things we can learn from the people in this book – and there are so many!

A. Hannah

• Here we have (Ch.1) this wife unable, apparently, to conceive. Year by year she struggles with the jibes of the other wife. An unpleasant situation.
• Eventually, on a trip to Shiloh where the Tabernacle was established, she cried out to God and committed any future child to God. He hears and honors her and she conceives and Samuel is born, a special man!

B. Eli

• The aging priest overseeing the spiritual welfare of Israel – but not doing a good job.
• He misunderstands Hannah (1:14)
• He doesn’t control his sons (2:12-16) and even though he chastises them (2:22-25) he fails to stop their wrong behaviour and is himself chastised by the Lord (2:29)
• 3:1-3 is ironic with its picture language matching Eli’s spiritual state: “In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions. One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.” Reflect on these words.
• His failure and death is tragic.

C. Samuel

• An unusual birth which results in him as a child serving with Eli.
• Three times he hears a voice calling him but doesn’t realize it is God until Eli catches on and tells him. It is the start of his prophetic ministry.
• See him leading Israel as a judge and sadly when he grew old his sons were not following in his footsteps which provides opportunity for the people to ask for a king to follow him (8:4-9)

D. Saul

• Saul was described as “an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites–a head taller than any of the others,” (9:2) which made him the idea candidate for the choice of first king by the people.
• Intriguingly it is the Lord who chooses him for the people, presumably knowing his disposition and propensity for failure. Nevertheless, free will leaves it Saul’s responsibility and guilt is still genuine for failure. He makes wrong choices!
• Saul gets it wrong (as we have partly noted above) by using sacrifice as a means to stabilize the situation (Ch.13), his failure to kill the Amalekites (Ch.15) and by seeking out the witch of Endor (Ch.28) to seek guidance instead of seeking the Lord.
• We might also include here his hostility against David. He was also foolish in binding the army in an oath (14:24-35) not to eat until nightfall and putting Jonathan in a difficult place and then threatening to kill him.
• The fact that the Lord was able to use an evil spirit to provoke him (16:14, 18:10) means he was vulnerable to the enemy through disobedience (the only time then enemy is able to come in such a manner).

E. Jonathan

• Shows himself to be an adventurer for the Lord, going out against a Philistine outpost. (13:3- Also 14:1-14)
• Became best friend of David (18:1-4)

F. David

• A good-looking young man (16:12) who looked after his father’s sheep (16:11), the youngest of eight sons of Jesse
• Was also a harpist (16:18)
• Became one of Saul’s armor bearers for a while (16:21)
• Took provisions to his brothers at the battle front (17:17)
• Was courageous in killing Goliath (17:26-)
• Had killed lions and bears while looking after the sheep (17:34-37) and had a strong relationship with the Lord (17:45).
• Had success and was promoted in the army (18:5, also 18:13-16) but provoked fear in Saul which eventually ended up in David having to flee the royal court (20:1)
• Bizarrely, this anointed man of God while on the run has to find protection from the enemy
  • To the king of Gath (Philistines 21:10)
  • To Moab for care of his family (22:3)
  • To the king of Gath (Philistines 27:1-)
• Twice he refused to harm Saul (23:4-7, 26:9)

G. The Lord

We should note here the number of times the Lord spoke into a variety of situations in this book:

• 2:27-36 To Eli through a “man of God” calling him to account for his sons.
• 3:11-14 About Eli through the child SamuelCh.5 & 6 To the Philistines through His actions against the idol Dagon and then through tumors and guiding the Ark home.
• 8:7- To Samuel about the people’s rejection of Him
• 9:17- To Samuel about Saul
• 10:9- By blessing Saul and enabling him to prophesy.
• 11:16 By sending His Spirit on Saul to deal with Nahash the Ammonite
• 15:1-3 He commanded the destruction of the Amalekites
• 16:1- He directed Samuel to anoint a new king
• 23:1- Brought guidance to David while he was on the run

Concluding Comments

• As we have just noted, this is an action packed book with a number of people standing out.
• It is historically significant taking us from the period of the Judges into the period of the Kings.
• It shows us the first king, Saul, and his failures, and the Lord’s replacement, David.
• It also shows us the ‘rough and tumble’ of those days when fighting enemies who threatened you was very common. We see the development of David as a vanquisher of lions and bears who goes on to defeat giants and become a famous army leader, and then the leader of a rebel army on the run.
• Perhaps one of the most remarkable things about David, described as “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam 13:14, Acts 13:22), is his attitude towards Saul. Although Saul keeps trying to kill David, David will not take the opportunities given him to kill Saul, who he still sees as ‘the Lord’s anointed’.
• An amazing book with many lessons.