An Introduction to I Samuel

At the end of the book of Genesis, Jacob and seventy members of his family migrate to Egypt.  Several centuries later, a nation led by Moses leave Egypt, guided by YHWH, the One God of Creation who has chosen this nation to represent Him. YHWH feeds the nation in the desert, implements a covenant and guides them into Canaan.  In Canaan, Joshua leads the nation to a mostly successful conquest but at the death of Joshua, the nation is still in conflict with various tribes of Canaanite. The book of Judges describes the chaos that follows. That book ends with a disorganized and decadent collection of tribes fighting with both outsiders and themselves.

The scroll of Samuel, in the Hebrew TaNaKh describes the passage from chaotic tribal disputes to the reign of King Saul and then the dramatic reign of the charismatic king David. 

Historians believe David's death occurred about 970 BC. (See this Wikipedia page on the Kings of Israel and Judah.) The scroll of Samuel (1 & 2 Samuel) then covers about a century (1070-970 BC) in the history of the young nation of Israel.

Eventually the scroll of Samuel was separated into two parts, First and Second Samuel.  First Samuel covers the transition from leadership by the judge-prophet Samuel to the first kingdom, the reign of King Saul. As Saul's reign decays, the shepherd-poet David rises in power and influence. The book of I Samuel ends with the death of Saul while David waits in the wings.

Outline

The first half of the scroll of Samuel naturally fits into three parts:

1. Chapters 1-7 introduce us to the last judge, Samuel
2. Chapters 8-15 describe the rise of the first king, Saul, and his coronation by Saul.
3. Chapters 16-31, describes the ascent of David and the decline of Saul.

Problems and Questions

Rabbinical tradition gives three authors for the scroll of Samuel, attributing to Samuel everything up to the account of his death and then the remainder to the prophets Gad and Nathan. (See I Chronicles 29: 29-30 for support for this hypothesis.)  It is likely that the final scroll was completed by a later editor.

As in previous books, there are some questions on the Old Testament use of large numbers.  (I summarize what I know of that in the Sunday essay, The Problem of Large Numbers in the Old Testament.)

The details described in the scroll of Samuel occurred over three thousand years ago. They were probably originally written down in paleo-Hebrew and then, after the Babylonian captivity, copied in what we now call biblical Hebrew.  The Masoretic Text and the Septuagint copies of the scroll differ significantly in various places. A notable example is the story of David's ascent into Saul's court. He enters Saul's court as a young harpist in I Samuel 16: 14-23 and then again when he kills Goliath in I Samuel 17.

Resources and References

My practice is to read through the text from the New International Version (NIV), copied into the blog and italicized in blue.  At the head of each blue paragraph of text I place a short title; after the text I place my thoughts or comments in black.  I begin this process with my own reactions and thoughts and then supplement these comments with gleanings from a commentary or two.

The real goal of this blog is to force me to read every verse thoughtfully.  My comments are part of that process, creating a certain accountability for me in this study.  I hope that you, too, read the passages thoughtfully!   Feel free to disagree -- or to react in other ways! (I place hyperlinks in pink, created so that one can click on a link and see the linked site open in another window... and go down a rabbit hole if you wish!)

For the book of I Samuel I have found two commentaries helpful. 

• Robert Alter has an excellent and enjoyable translation and commentary called The David Story.  
• I have also used a commentary by Ronald F. Youngblood found in the third volume of the Expositor's Bible Commentary.

Both of these sources cover both I and II Samuel. In addition, in the online commentaries provided by EasyEnglishBible, is an online commentary on 1 Samuel.  (The Easy English Bible commentaries are easy to read, with deliberately simple language intended for those for whom English is a second language. The Old Testament text is included in the commentary.) 

In addition to these resources, there is a Wikipedia article on the scroll of Samuel and an online article from the Jewish Encyclopedia. The Untidy Faith podcast started a study in 1 Samuel in January 2023, working through the book with a podcast every two weeks. The first podcast on 1 Samuel is here. And as always, there is a nice Bible Project video on I Samuel. 

The book of First Samuel is the first of four books on the kings of Israel, leading up to the conquest of the nation by countries to the east. The history is rich, with details of internal conflicts and, like Joshua-Judges, an on-again off-again relation with YHWH.