Prophets
שְׁמוּאֵל
Samuel
A people ask for a king, get one, and then get a better and worse one.
One book in Hebrew, split into 1 and 2 Samuel in most English Bibles.
Read it
Open chapter 1What is in it
Samuel warns them what a king will cost and they want one anyway. Saul is chosen, unravels, and is replaced by David, who is drawn with more interiority than almost anyone else in the Hebrew Bible.
The second half is not a hagiography. David's adultery, the killing arranged to cover it, and the collapse of his own household take up as much room as his rise.
If you read one chapter
1 Samuel 8
The demand for a king, and an itemised warning about what one does.
Passages worth knowing
- 1 Samuel 8The cost of a king, listed in advance.
- 1 Samuel 16:7Man looketh on the outward appearance.
- 1 Samuel 17David and Goliath.
- 2 Samuel 11 to 12Bathsheba, Uriah, and Nathan's parable.
- 2 Samuel 18:33David's grief for Absalom.
Questions to sit with
- 01
The book warns against kingship and then tells the story of the best king. How does it hold both?
- 02
Nathan traps David with a story. Why does a parable work where an accusation would not?