1 Samuel
The Book of 1 Samuel gives the account of Israel’s last Judge (Samuel), its first King (Saul), and the early years of its greatest King (David).
1 Samuel Chapter 1
Elkanah was an Ephraimite. He had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Elkanah favored Hannah because he loved her, and God had kept her from having children. Penninah would make fun of Hannah for not being able to have children.
Her husband Elkanah would say to her,
“Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat?
Why are you downhearted?
Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?”
- 1 Samuel 1:8
Once, at Tent of Meeting, Hannah made a vow to God…
“Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me,
and not forget your servant but give her a son,
then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life,
and no razor will ever be used on his head.”
- 1 Samuel 1:11
Eli the priest saw her mouth moving as she prayed but didn’t hear any words, so he rebuked her for being drunk. Hannah told him she was praying silently, so he blessed her, and she left.
Soon, God gave Hannah a son. Once he was no longer breastfeeding, Hannah took the boy back to the Tent of Meeting to live there and serve the Lord under Eli the priest.
1 Samuel 2
Then Hannah prayed, praising God for helping those in need.
Now, Eli had two sons serving under him as priests. The were wicked. They would take the best meat for themselves from the people’s sacrifices and not follow the Lord’s commands for sacrifices. They also slept with the women who were serving at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
Samuel, however, was learning to be a priest. Each year, Elkanah and Hannah would bring Samuel a new robe, and Eli blessed them. God was gracious to Hannah and gave her more children.
Eli heard about what his sons were doing and rebuked them. He warned them…
“If one person sins against another,
God may mediate for the offender;
but if anyone sins against the Lord, who will intercede for them?”
His sons, however, did not listen to their father’s rebuke,
for it was the Lord’s will to put them to death.
- 1 Samuel 2:25
And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature
and in favor with the Lord and with people.
- 1 Samuel 2:26
A man of God came to Eli and rebuked him not stopping his sons. He prophesied that no one in Eli’s family, or even his descendants, would reach old age. His two sons would die on the same day, and God would raise up a faithful priest.
1 Samuel 3
In those days the word of the Lord was rare; there were not many visions.
- 1 Samuel 3:1
Eli and Samuel were sleeping in the Tent of Meeting. God called Samuel three times, and each time, Samuel ran to Eli, thinking Eli had called him. Finally, Eli told Samuel how to respond.
The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
- 1 Samuel 3:10
Then God told Samuel that He was about to bring about the punishment on Eli’s family He had foretold through the prophet.
The next morning, Eli charged Samuel to tell him what the Lord had said.
So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him.
Then Eli said, “He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.”
- 1 Samuel 3:18
Samuel then began to be known as a prophet as the Lord continued to give him messages.
1 Samuel 4
Israel was losing in battle against the Philistines, so they asked for the Ark of the Covenant to be brought to the battlefield so that God would help them defeat their enemies.
Eli’s two sons Hophni and Phinehas brought the Ark, but the Philistines still defeated the Israelites. They even killed Hophni and Phinehas and stole the Ark.
One of the Israelite soldiers ran to tell Eli, and when Eli heard the news, he fell backward off his chair and broke his neck.
Phinehas’ wife was pregnant, and when she heard what happened, she went into early labor. She died in childbirth but was able to name her son Ichabod (No Glory), saying the Glory of God had left Israel because the Ark had been captured.
1 Samuel 5
The Philistines put the Ark in the temple of their god Dagon.
When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day,
there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord!
They took Dagon and put him back in his place.
But the following morning when they rose,
there was Dagon, fallen on his face on the ground before the ark of the Lord!
His head and hands had been broken off and were lying on the threshold.
- 1 Samuel 5:3-5
The Lord gave the people of the town tumors, so they sent the Ark to another city. The same thing happened there and in the next city the took the Ark to, so the Philistines demanded their rulers send the Ark back to Israel.
1 Samuel 6
The Ark had been in Philistine territory for seven months. Their priests instructed them to put the Ark on a wagon pulled by two cows that had never been yoked or bred and to send five gold tumors along with it to represent each of the five Philistine rulers. If the cows took the Ark straight back to Israel, the Philistines would know God was the One who had been afflicting them with tumors. If the cows wandered, the Philistines would know it was all a coincidence.
The cows did go straight to a town in Israel, and the Levites retrieved it. But God killed 70 people from the Israelite town because they looked into the Ark.
1 Samuel 7
When the Ark returned to Israel, all the Israelites turned back to God, and Samuel led them in repenting, fasting, and getting rid of their false gods.
Then the Philistines came to attack them again, but God sent loud thunder against the Philistines, and they fled. The Israelites chased them down and killed them.
Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen.
He named it Ebenezer [Stone of Help] saying,
“Thus far the Lord has helped us.”
- 1 Samuel 7:12
The Israelites took back all the towns the Philistines had conquered, and Samuel became Israel’s Judge.
1 Samuel 8
When Samuel grew old, he made his sons leaders over Israel, but they were greedy and took bribes. Seeing this, the elders of Israel asked Samuel to appoint a king over the nation.
Samuel disliked the idea of putting a king over the nation, so he prayed about it.
And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you;
it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.”
- 1 Samuel 8:7
Then God told Samuel to warn the people that a king would take advantage of them, making the people work for him and taking the best resources for himself.
Even after the warning, the people still wanted a king, so Samuel agreed to appoint one.
1 Samuel 9
There was a young Benjamite named Saul, who was...
…as handsome a young man as could be found anywhere in Israel,
and he was a head taller than anyone else.
- 1 Samuel 9:2
The donkeys that belonged to Saul’s father had wandered away, so Saul and his servant went to look for them. When they couldn’t find them, the servant suggested asking Samuel the prophet where the donkeys were.
They met Samuel on the way to officiate a sacrifice. The day before, God had told Samuel that the next day, he would meet the man he was to anoint king. When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord confirmed he was the one. Then Samuel invited Saul to eat with him after the sacrifice. He also told him that the lost donkeys had been found.
1 Samuel 10
After the meal, Samuel sent Saul’s servant on ahead while he talked with Saul. Samuel poured oil on Saul’s head and kissed him to anoint him king over Israel. Then Samuel gave Saul three signs to prove that what he said was true. The signs were three groups of people he would meet at specific places on his way home: two men who would tell him his father’s donkeys had been found, three men carrying specific items for a sacrifice, and a company of prophets. Then Samuel told Saul to meet him in another town.
All the signs were fulfilled, and when Saul met the prophets, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he began prophesying with them.
Saul did not tell anyone about Samuel anointing him as king, but he did go to meet Samuel. Samuel had called all Israel together to give them their king. When Samuel was going to announce who the king would be, Saul was hiding among the baggage carts. When he had been brought out, all Israel proclaimed, “Long live the king!” Then everyone went home.
1 Samuel 11
An Ammonite king laid siege to a city in Israel. The townspeople sent messengers throughout Israel asking for help. Saul was just coming in from working in the field when he heard the news.
When Saul heard their words,
the Spirit of God came powerfully upon him,
and he burned with anger.
- 1 Samuel 11:6
Saul sent messengers throughout Israel threatening to kill the oxen of anyone who didn’t follow him to war. Saul then led the Israelites in battle, and they defeated the Ammonites besieging the city.
Samuel and the people then confirmed Saul as a king with a sacrifice and a feast.
1 Samuel 12
Samuel and the people then agreed that Samuel had done no wrong in leading them. He then gave a brief history of God’s dealings with Israel and called for thunder and rain, even though it wasn’t the season when it would normally thunder and rain, to show the people they had done an evil thing in asking for a king.
The people asked Samuel to pray for them because they had sinned in asking for a king, but Samuel assured the people all would be well if they and their king obeyed God and did not worship idols.
1 Samuel 13
Saul was thirty years old when he became king,
and he reigned over Israel forty-two years.
- 1 Samuel 13:1
Saul’s son Jonathan attacked a Philistine outpost, and Israel and the Philistines went to war.
Samuel was supposed to come make a sacrifice in the Israelite’s army camp, but he didn’t show up when he said he would. Not wanting to wait any longer, Saul performed the sacrifice. Just as he was finishing, Samuel arrived and rebuked him.
“You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said.
“You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you;
if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.
But now your kingdom will not endure;
the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people,
because you have not kept the Lord’s command.”
- 1 Samuel 13:13-14
During that time, the Philistines ruling over Israel had made it illegal for any Israelite to be a blacksmith, so that the Israelites couldn’t make weapons and fight against them. So, as the Israelites went to war against the Philistines, only Saul and Jonathan had swords.
1 Samuel 14
One day, Jonathan and his armor-bearer went to another Philistine outpost, without Saul’s knowledge. They had to climb a cliff to get to the Philistines. Jonathan said…
“We will cross over toward them and let them see us.
If they say to us, ‘Wait there until we come to you,’
we will stay where we are and not go up to them.
But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ we will climb up,
because that will be our sign that the Lord has given them into our hands.”
- 1 Samuel 14:8-10
When the Philistine soldiers saw them, they told Jonathan to come up so that they could teach him a lesson. Together, Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed 20 Philistines. Then God sent the Philistine soldiers into a panic so that they tried to flee and were attacking each other in the confusion. When Saul’s lookout saw it, Saul ordered the army to attack.
Those Hebrews who had previously been with the Philistines
and had gone up with them to their camp
went over to the Israelites who were with Saul and Jonathan.
- 1 Samuel 14:21
Saul forbade anyone from eating until the battle was over. Jonathan, however, had not heard the order, and he ate some honey. When one of the soldiers told him about Saul’s order,
Jonathan said, “My father has made trouble for the country.
See how my eyes brightened when I tasted a little of this honey.
How much better it would have been if the men had eaten today
some of the plunder they took from their enemies.
Would not the slaughter of the Philistines have been even greater?”
- 1 Samuel 14:30
After the battle, the soldiers were so hungry, they sinned by eating raw meat, with the blood still in it. Saul then built an altar and told the men to cook their meat on it.
Saul wanted to attack the Philistines again that night. The priest suggested asking God if it was a good idea to go to battle again, but God did not answer. Saul knew it was because someone had sinned, and through the casting of lots on the priest’s Thummim, God revealed it was Jonathan.
Jonathan then admitted he had eaten some honey. Saul was going to put Jonathan to death,
But the men said to Saul, “Should Jonathan die—
he who has brought about this great deliverance in Israel?
Never! As surely as the Lord lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground,
for he did this today with God’s help.”
So the men rescued Jonathan, and he was not put to death.
- Samuel 14:45
Saul did not attack the Philistines that night, but God continued to give him victory over the nations surrounding Israel.
The commander of Saul’s army was Abner, Saul’s cousin.
1 Samuel 15
Samuel gave Saul a message from God, telling him to completely destroy the Amalekites and everything that belonged to them because they attacked the Israelites when they came out of Egypt.
Saul defeated the Amalekites but did not totally destroy them. He spared the king and took the livestock. Then God told Samuel,
“I regret that I have made Saul king, because he has turned away from me
and has not carried out my instructions.”
- 1 Samuel 15:10
When Samuel confronted Saul, Saul said he brought the livestock of the Amalekites back to the Israelite camp to sacrifice them.
But Samuel replied:
“Does the Lord
delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is like the sin of divination,
and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
he has rejected you as king.”
- 1 Samuel 15:22-23
Saul asked Samuel to forgive him, but Samuel maintained that God had rejected Saul as king. Samuel said,
“He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind;
for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.”
- Samuel 15:29
Then Saul killed the Amalekite king, and Samuel went home. Samuel did not visit Saul again.
1 Samuel 16
The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul,
since I have rejected him as king over Israel?
Fill your horn with oil and be on your way.”
- 1 Samuel 16:1
God sent Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesse’s sons king. When Samuel arrived, he invited Jesse to a sacrifice with him. When Samuel saw Jesse’s oldest son, he thought he was the one the Lord wanted as king.
But the Lord said to Samuel,
“Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him.
The Lord does not look at the things people look at.
People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
- 1 Samuel 16:7
Jesse had seven of his sons pass in front of Samuel, but the Lord did not indicate any of them. Then Samuel asked if Jesse had any other sons, and Jesse called for his youngest son David, whom he had left guarding the sheep. When David came in, God told Samuel to anoint him,
and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David.
- 1 Samuel 16:13
Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul,
and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.
- 1 Samuel 16:14
Saul’s attendants suggested having someone play music for Saul to soothe him, and they brought in David to play the lyre.
Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul,
David would take up his lyre and play.
Then relief would come to Saul;
he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
- 1 Samuel 16:23
1 Samuel 17
The Philistines came to attack Israel again, and they had a man named Goliath with them who was almost 10 feet tall. Goliath challenged the Israelites to send out a man to fight him in single combat and claim the victory over his entire army.
Saul and all the Israelites were too afraid to face him, so for 40 days, the Philistines and Israelites were at a standoff, neither side attacking the other.
Then Jesse sent David to take some food to his older brothers in the Israelite camp. When he heard Goliath’s challenge, he volunteered to fight him.
Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him;
you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”
But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep.
When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock,
I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth.
When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.
Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear;
this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them,
because he has defied the armies of the living God.
The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear
will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
- 1 Samuel 17:33-37
Saul then tried to give David some armor, but David wasn’t used to wearing it, so he took it off. He then took five smooth stones from the stream and approached Goliath.
Goliath mocked him for his youth and boasted that he would kill him.
David said to the Philistine,
“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin,
but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty,
the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands,
and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head.
This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army
to the birds and the wild animals,
and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.
All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear
that the Lord saves;
for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”
- 1 Samuel 17:45-47
David then ran toward Goliath and slung a stone at him. The stone sank into Goliath’s forehead, and he died. David then took Goliath’s own sword and cut off his head.
The Philistines then fled, and the Israelites chased them down and killed them.
1 Samuel 18
Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.
- 1 Samuel 18:1
David remained in Saul’s service and continued to have success as an army commander, but Saul became jealous because the people began singing:
“Saul has slain his thousands,
and David his tens of thousands.”
- 1 Samuel 18:7
Saul thought the people would give the kingdom to David because David was becoming more popular than Saul.
Once when an evil spirit was tormenting Saul, and David was playing the lyre, Saul threw a spear at David twice, but David dodged it. Then Saul decided to leave David alone and hope the Philistines killed him in battle.
Saul offered his oldest daughter to David, but he refused saying he didn’t have high enough status to become part of the king’s family. Saul’s daughter Michal fell in love with David, so Saul offered her to him for the price of killing 100 Philistines and bringing back their foreskins as proof. David took his men and killed 200 Philistines, and he married Michal.
1 Samuel 19
The Lord continued to have success against the Philistines, so Saul told Jonathan and his officers to kill David, but Jonathan warned David to hide while Jonathan convinced Saul to leave David alone.
After David had another success in battle, an evil spirit again came on Saul and he tried to spear David while David was playing the lyre for him. David dodged it and went home. Saul sent men to spy on his house and kill him in the morning, so Michal told him to sneak out. She lowered him out of a window and put an idol in his bed to make it look like he was sleeping.
When Saul’s men discovered the trick and reported it to Saul, Michal lied and said David had threatened to kill her if she didn’t help him escape.
David went to stay with Samuel. Saul sent his men to kill David, but when they came to Samuel and a company of prophets prophesying, the Spirit of God came on them and they began prophesying too. This happened to three groups of men Saul sent to kill David while he was with Samuel. Then Saul went himself, and he began prophesying even before he saw Samuel.
1 Samuel 20
David secretly went back to Jonathan and asked why Saul was trying to kill him. Jonathan did not know Saul was still trying to kill David. Saul had kept his actions a secret from Jonathan because Saul had realized Jonathan was David’s friend.
David and Jonathan made a plan to see if Saul was still trying to kill David. David was supposed to be in attendance at the New Moon feast that night. If Saul was angry that David wasn’t there, that would tell Jonathan that Saul had wanted to kill David at the feast. In fact, Saul became so angry that he accused Jonathan of siding with David and hurled his spear at Jonathan.
The next morning, Jonathan met with David and told him to flee.
1 Samuel 21
David went to Ahimelek the priest and lied to him saying he needed supplies because the king had sent him on a secret mission. He convinced Ahimelek to give him some Bread of the Presence for he and his men, and Goliath’s sword that David had given to the priests to be kept as a memorial to the Lord.
Doeg the Edomite, Saul’s chief shepherd, saw David meeting with Ahimelek.
From there, David went to the Philistine king Achish of Gath. When Achish heard who David was, David was afraid and pretended to be insane so that Achish wouldn’t kill him.
1 Samuel 22
David left Gath and entrusted his father and brothers’ families to the king of Moab. Then, at the advice of the prophet Gad, David went back to Judah.
Doeg the Edomite told Saul about Ahimelek the priest helping David. Saul summoned Ahimelek and accused him of conspiring with David against him. Saul told his guards to kill Ahimelek and his family, but they were unwilling to harm the priests of the Lord. Saul told Doeg to kill the priests, and he killed 85 priests, along with everyone in the town where they lived.
One of Ahimelek’s sons, Abiathar, escaped and joined David.
1 Samuel 23
David and his men continued to fight the Philistines, and Saul continued to chase him. Jonathan continued to be David’s friend, even though Jonathan knew David would be king instead of himself.
Once, David and his men were on one side of a mountain, and Saul and his men were on the other, circling around to find David. Then, a messenger came and told Saul the Philistines were attacking, so he stopped pursuing David and went to fight the Philistines.
1 Samuel 24
Saul again went out to find David. He went into a cave to relieve himself, not knowing that David and his men were further back in the cave. While Saul was relieving himself, David crept up and cut off a corner of Saul’s garment. He would not kill Saul or allow his men to because Saul had been anointed at the Lord’s command to be king.
When Saul exited the cave, David followed him and showed him the corner of his garment, proving that he could have killed Saul but, in fact, intended him no harm. David said:
“As the old saying goes, ‘From evildoers come evil deeds,’ so my hand will not touch you.”
- 1 Samuel 24:13
Then Saul repented, crying. He said he knew the Lord would make David king and asked only that David not kill Saul’s family when he came into power. David swore not to harm Saul’s family.
1 Samuel 25
Samuel died, and all Israel mourned for him.
David sent messengers to a rich man named Nabal asking for food and reminding Nabal that David and his men had protected Nabal’s livestock and shepherds out in the field. But Nabal refused, saying David was a rebel. When David heard his response, he was about to go kill Nabal, but Nabal’s wife, Abigail, secretly took a load of food and met David on his way to the house. She praised and encourage David not to harm Nabal, saying:
“Even though someone is pursuing you to take your life,
the life of my lord will be bound securely in the bundle of the living by the Lord your God,
but the lives of your enemies he will hurl away as from the pocket of a sling.
When the Lord has fulfilled for my lord every good thing
he promised concerning him and has appointed him ruler over Israel,
my lord will not have on his conscience the staggering burden
of needless bloodshed or of having avenged himself.
And when the Lord your God has brought my lord success, remember your servant.”
- 1 Samuel 25:29-31
David thanked God for sending Abigail to him, and he accepted the food she brought.
That night, Nabal got very drunk. In the morning, Abigail told him what she had done, and Nabal had a heart attack and died.
When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said,
“Praise be to the Lord, who has upheld my cause against Nabal for treating me with contempt.
He has kept his servant from doing wrong
and has brought Nabal’s wrongdoing down on his own head.”
- 1 Samuel 25:39
Then David asked Abigail to be his wife, and she accepted. David had also married another woman, besides Saul’s daughter Michal, but while David was away, Saul had given Michal to another man.
1 Samuel 26
Saul again came out with his army to catch David. During the night, David and his friend Abishai snuck into Saul’s camp and stole his water jug and spear. Then they left the camp without anyone noticing. The Lord had put Saul and all his men into a deep sleep.
When they were a safe distance away, David called out and showed the items he had taken from the camp, again proving that he could have killed Saul but had spared him. Then Saul again admitted he was in the wrong.
1 Samuel 27
David again went to the Philistine, King Achish of Gath, and asked to enter his service, thinking that if he wasn’t in Israel anymore, Saul would stop chasing him.
Achish gave David and his men a city named Ziklag. They would go out and raid neighboring countries but tell Ziklag they had raided Israelite territory. David did not leave anyone alive to report to king Achish what they were actually doing.
1 Samuel 28
The Philistines went to fight Israel, and Saul was afraid. He asked God if he would win against the Philistines, but the Lord did not answer him through the Urim or through the prophets. So, even though he had outlawed mediums and spiritists, he went to a medium and asked her to call up Samuel so that he could talk to him.
Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?”
- 1 Samuel 28:15
Samuel told Saul that he would die in the battle and that David would be king because Saul had disobeyed God earlier in not completely destroying the Amalekites and everything that belonged to them.
1 Samuel 29
King Achish trusted David, but the other Philistine commanders did not, so Achish told David to turn back and not come with him to fight against Israel.
1 Samuel 30
When David and his men returned to their city of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had raided it and carried off their wives and daughters. David asked the Lord through Abiathar the priest if he should pursue the Amalekites, and the Lord said he would succeed in overtaking them and rescuing their women.
Out of David’s 600 men, 400 pursued the Amalekites and defeated them. The other 200 had been too exhausted to join in the pursuit, so David left them to guard their supplies. When David and the 400 returned, some of them didn’t want to share the plunder they had taken with the 200 who stayed behind, but David made it a rule that the share of the soldier guarding the supplies would be the same as the solider who fought. David also sent gifts from the plunder to towns in Israel where he and his men had stayed.
1 Samuel 31
Meanwhile, Saul was fighting the Philistines. Jonathan and Saul’s two other sons had been killed. Saul was critically wounded and asked his armor-bearer to kill him so that the Philistines would capture him and abuse him. The armor-bearer was too afraid to kill Saul, so Saul fell on his own sword. Then the armor-bearer did the same.
The Philistines cut off Saul’s head and hung his body on the wall of an Israelite city. They took his armor to display in the temples of their gods.
Then the men of Jabesh Gilead, another Israelite town, came and took the bodies of Saul and his sons and burned them, giving the bones a proper burial.
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