What's SAMUEL about?

Background

The two books of Samuel were compiled soon after the Jews were released from their enslavement in Babylon about five hundred years before Jesus. The books were written to describe the reigns of the first two Jewish kings, Saul and David, and to illustrate how the leadership of kings must always be subject to the justice-seeking and inclusive nature of God.

Kings are necessary in a settled society, but must obey the God of justice

Samuel anointed Saul, and later David and so was the person through whom God acted to make kings. The first book begins by describinhg how God came to choose Samuel for this role. Samuel's mother had been barren, but even this personal disaster could not prevent God from carrying out God's purpose—Hannah miraculously bears a child whom she names Samuel, meaning “God has heard (my plea for a child).” This gracious act by God of rescuing barren women, the most despised persons in the ancient world, became a theme for Genesis, the first book of the Bible, in which barren women are repeatedly rescued from their shame. Those who compiled these books understood that's what God had done on a national scale when the entire Jewish people became barren through slavery in Babylon, yet God intervened to ensure they had children who eventually returned to Jerusalem.

After God reverses the injustice of Hannah’s barrenness by bringing Samuel to birth, the story describes how Samuel restored justice to the people after a priest had allowed his family to abuse the people. God then guides Samuel to anoint Saul as the people's first king. But when Saul abandons God's character of justice, Samuel is directed by God to anoint David despite the fact that David, the youngest, is the least respected of his twelve brothers. God continues to raise up David, who becomes king despite the opposition of Saul. Choosing the least impressive person to be the new king illustrates how God decides to rescue the least impressive people—the Jews—from slavery.

The second book of Samuel describes David's reign from the time of Saul's death, and how God's justice was violated by repeated acts of injustice by David. The writers are clear that David's exploitation of the people was only a start of subsequent royal abuses which generations later led to the disaster of the enslavement in Babylon. These two books trace God’s commitment to justice back to even before the first two kings all the way back to Samuel’s very conception.

How do the books of Samuel help us?

The compilers of these two books are expressing, through the stories about the first kings, their insight that human justice or injustice is the central driver of human history. Believing in this character of God as requiring justice and inclusion for all, especially for the poorest, means that this insight remains central to our understanding of what is going on in history in our time.