INTRODUCTION TO 1ST AND 2ND SAMUEL
Author and Title
The Hebrew title “Samuel” refers to Samuel as the key figure in 1–2 Samuel. First Samuel records the history of Israel in the land of Canaan as they move from the rule of judges to being a unified nation under kings. Samuel emerges as the last judge, and he anoints the first two kings, Saul and David. Samuel was known as the kingmaker in the history of ancient Israel. The LXX translators regarded the books of Samuel and Kings as forming one continuous history, which they divided into four books, which they called "Books of the Kingdom."
The human author or authors of 1–2 Samuel are not known. First Chronicles 29:29–30 implies that Samuel (or perhaps his disciples) left written records, but because his death is mentioned in 1 Samuel 25, he could not have written most of Samuel.
The purpose of the book of 1 Samuel is to highlight two major events: first, the establishment of the monarchy in Israel (chs. 8–12); and second, the preparation of David to sit on the royal throne after Saul (chs. 16–31).
Saul was rejected by the Lord in favor of David (chs. 15–16) even though, humanly speaking, he stayed on the throne until his death at Mount Gilboa (ch. 31). Later, in 2 Samuel 7, God promises David and his house an eternal dynasty. In these two central events the role of the prophet Samuel was very important because he had anointed first Saul, then David, as king over the covenant people.
The book of 1 Samuel establishes the principle that the king in Israel is to be subject to the word of God as conveyed through his prophets. In other words, obedience to the word of God is the necessary condition for a king to be acceptable to the God of Israel. This is what Jesus the Messiah-King did in his life of obedience to God the Father, even up to “death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8).
First and Second Samuel deal with a transitional period in the history of ancient Israel—the transition first from the priest Eli to the judge Samuel, then from the judge Samuel to the king Saul, and then from Saul to David, who founded the dynasty that would last as long as the kingdom of Judah. Samuel thus functions as the link between the period of the judges and the kings. The story of the rise of David in the second half of 1 Samuel prepares for the full-scale kingship of David in 2 Samuel