Making Sense of Samuel
Today we’re going to look at The Book Of Samuel. In your Bible, it’s split between 1st and 2nd Samuel, as if it was a book with a sequel, but it’s really just one big book. The division only happened because of scroll length back before the invention of what we call books.
It tells the story of God’s people’s transition from the tribal leaders of Judges to a unified Kingdom under King David. Jesus has been strongly present in all the stories that come before Samuel, but this is where the promise of the Messianic Kingdom that will be fulfilled in Jesus Christ will start to be spoken of specifically. The promise made to David of the Kingdom of God, ruled by the greater King, whose reign will never end.
As the story begins, this is still the time of the Judges. Israel had no king and people were still doing whatever seemed right in their own eyes.
We meet a woman named Hannah. Her husband loves her like crazy but she hasn’t been able to have children. Also, her husband has two wives, probably because Hannah was barren, the other wife not only had all the kids but she was jealous of Hannah and mean to her.
Every year the family would travel to worship at the Tabernacle which was in the city of Shiloh. Worship was basically a big BBQ party. Music, drinking, eating fire-roasted meat, praising God and praying. The way worship should be. Honestly, it’s just nice seeing someone in the time of Judges actually going to church.
Hannah’s husband would give her the best portions because he loved her, but her sister-wife would mock her for not having any kids. The party was always ruined for Hannah. She would just be sad and not eat. Her husband tried to cheer her up, “you have me, isn’t that better than ten sons?” I can’t tell if he’s being sweet to her or acting needy—but it didn’t help.
She went to the entrance of the Tabernacle to be alone and cry and pray. This is what she said:
“O LORD of Heaven’s Armies, if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you. He will be yours for his entire lifetime, and as a sign that he has been dedicated to the LORD, his hair will never be cut.” 1 Samuel 1:11
That should remind us of that really strong guy we talked about last week. Hannah is promising to dedicate her son like Sampson by taking the Nazarite Vow and growing his hair long. Can you imagine these kids when they’re teens wanting to cut their hair short and mom being like, “As long as you live under my roof, you’re going to have long hair like a man-of-God not short hair like a pagan sissy!”
Well, Hannah is crying and praying, and Eli, the High Priest, he sees her and thinks she’s being overly emotional because she’s been drinking too much. Which tells you something about what went on at these worship services. He said, “lady you might want to go easy on the wine.”
But Hannah explains that she’s not drunk—tells him that she’s really discouraged and was praying for the LORD to help her. She didn’t mention the particular problem.
Eli said, “Well, in that case, may the God of Israel grant the request you have asked of Him.”
She thanked him and went back to her husband all cheered up. Sat down and started digging into that barbequed goat’s head or whatever they were eating.
The next time her husband gave her some good lovin’ the LORD remembered her prayer and she became pregnant. When the baby was born, she named him Samuel. When the boy was three or so, she took him to Shiloh and went to Eli the High Priest and said:
“Sir, do you remember me?—I’m the woman who stood here several years ago praying to the LORD. I asked the LORD to give me this boy, and he has granted my request. Now I am giving him to the LORD, and he will belong to the LORD his whole life.” And they worshiped the LORD there.” 1 Samuel 1:26–28
Then Hannah prayed, and her beautiful prayer not only lays out the theme of the whole book, it points to Jesus the Messiah and is echoed in Mary’s prayer in the Christmas story. This is what Hannah prayed:
“My heart rejoices in the LORD!
The LORD has made me strong.
Now I have an answer for my enemies;
I rejoice because you rescued me.
No one is holy like the LORD!
There is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
“Stop acting so proud and haughty!
Don’t speak with such arrogance!
For the LORD is a God who knows what you have done;
he will judge your actions.
The bow of the mighty is now broken,
and those who stumbled are now strong.
Those who were well fed are now starving,
and those who were starving are now full.
The childless woman now has seven children,
and the woman with many children wastes away.
The LORD gives both death and life;
he brings some down to the grave but raises others up.
The LORD makes some poor and others rich;
he brings some down and lifts others up.
He lifts the poor from the dust
and the needy from the ash heap.
He sets them among princes,
placing them in seats of honor.
For all the earth is the LORD’s,
and he has set the world in order.
“He will protect his faithful ones,
but the wicked will disappear in darkness.
Not by might shall a man prevail.
Those who fight against the LORD will be shattered.
He thunders against them from heaven;
the LORD will judge the ends of the earth.
He gives power to his king;
he increases the strength of his anointed one.”
1 Samuel 2:1–10
“Not by might shall a man prevail. We do not win by our own strength.” Ultimately, this points to how Jesus saved the world—not by might but by the cross. Through humility and weakness. We’re going to see this over and over in how God does things. Not through the military strength of kings, not through their wisdom and plans, but through simple obedience, humbleness, and trust in the LORD.
Hannah sings of humility instead of pride and arrogance. Trust and faith instead of selfish unbelief, and grabbing for power. Like I said, it’s a lot like Mary’s song in Luke, it’s even called Hannah’s “Magnificat.” It’s all about how God opposes the proud and lifts up the humble. Even though there is evil all around us, God is at work in human history to do His plan of salvation—it’s a promise that God will one day raise up an anointed king for His people. A Messiah. A Christ.
We probably need to hear this lesson, too: God’s people are to trust in Him. Not in kings. Not in nations and laws and weapons and wealth.
It’s easy to say but the story of the Bible shows us over and over that it’s not so easy to do.
Samuel grows up to be the last of the Judges. He’s a prophet, a priest, and a kingmaker.
The Book of Samuel is the story of three leaders: Samuel the last judge, Saul the first king of Israel, and David the second king, the greatest king. It’s the story of the 12 loosely connected tribes coming together to form a united nation under one king—with the center of both political power and religious leadership being in Jerusalem.
The book has four main sections. The life and death of Samuel. The rise to power and tragic fall of King Saul. And the glorious rise to power of King David followed by his failures and the chaos his sin brought on his family. Then there’s an epilogue that pulls it all together.
So, the Philistines are still the biggest problem in the world and there’s this battle where they attack and kill 4,000 Israelites. Someone has the brilliant idea to go to the Tabernacle and get the Ark of the Covenant—take that with them into battle like a good luck charm. Instead of praying and asking the LORD to help them, they were superstitious and trusted in the golden box instead of trusting in God Himself. What do you think happened?
They not only lose the battle—the Philistines steal the Ark. That’s a bad day. Story’s not over though. The Philistines put the Ark in one of their pagan Temples—in front of their favorite false god, one named Dagon. God not only destroys the statue of Dagon but also sends plagues on the Philistines—God defeats them all by Himself. The Philistines decide they don’t really want the Ark anymore after all, so they send it back to Israel. It’s a cool story.
We’re not supposed to treat God like He’s our trophy. He’s not a magic rabbit’s foot. He is always going to oppose the proud. His people are to remain humble and trust in Him alone. Not the things He gives us. Not even the things we do for Him.
In chapter 8, the people come to Samuel and say, “Hey, we want a king like all the other nations. Go find one for us.”
Samuel is kind of hurt by their request. He takes it as a personal rejection. And I get it. It’d be like if you all came to me and said, “Hey Frank, we want a real pastor. Why don’t you go find one for us.”
But God says they’re not actually rejecting Samuel they’re rejecting God Himself. And He says, “They want a king like the other nations, fine, I’ll give them a king—and it’ll be one JUST like the other nations.”
Enter King Saul. Tall, dark, and handsome. Completely full of himself. Proud. Arrogant. And about as bright as a box of confetti. He doesn’t listen to God and does whatever he wants. Incapable of admitting his mistakes. It’s not long before Samuel tells him God is going to replace him with a humble and faithful king.
Enter David. When we meet him in chapter 16, he’s an insignificant shepherd boy—the least likely candidate to become king. In the story of David & Goliath—you know, the shepherd boy who takes on the mighty giant with a slingshot—we’re shown that David is going to be a powerful leader, not because of anything he brings to the table, but because of his complete faith and trust in God.
When we read the story of David & Goliath, we’re tempted to put ourselves in the place of David and imagine that Goliath is a metaphor for any big problem we face. We overcome the giants in our life by putting our faith in God and using whatever He’s given us faithfully. A sling and five smooth stones.
That’s fine but we’re forgetting something very important. We’re not David in this story. We’re Saul, who’s too proud or too scared to go fight. We’re David’s brothers standing on the sidelines watching him fight for them. We’ve probably even been Goliath sometimes for other people. But we’re not David.
David is Jesus. Jesus is the faithful shepherd who steps up and risks His life to slay the monster. We’ll do much better putting our hope and trust in Him rather than our own ability to trust God with a steady hand.
It doesn’t change the point of the story. We still have to have faith and trust God, we just need to remember who God is. We’re Christians. We believe Jesus is God. This is how we read the Bible as Christians.
After Goliath, David starts working for Saul as a general in the army. David’s superpower is that he can’t lose. At anything. Love, war, a game they call “dodging the spear.” It’s not a real game but King Saul keeps getting mad and literally throwing a spear at David’s head. Saul gets jealous and starts to go crazy—becomes obsessed with trying to kill David.
David goes into hiding, puts together his own little army of mighty men, guys who will become his closest friends and stick with him until the end. David has several opportunities to kill Saul but he won’t do it. He trusts that God will take care of it in His own time.
It’s during this chaotic time of David being an outlaw and hiding in a cave that he writes a bunch of the Psalms.
1st Samuel ends with a horrific battle between Saul and the Philistines where his sons, including David’s best friend Jonathan, is killed—and Saul falls on his own sword. His jealous pride becomes his downfall and David’s humble trust in the LORD is his strength.
2nd Samuel continues the story. David becomes king, unites the kingdom, destroys the Philistines and other enemies of Israel once and for all, sets up his throne in Jerusalem which he renames Zion. He brings the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle into the city, too. He asks God if he can replace the Tabernacle, which was a tent, with a Temple. A building to be the home of God’s special presence and place of worship on earth.
God basically says, “Thanks but no thanks. I’m actually going to build a house for you, instead.”
This is 2nd Samuel chapter 7. It’s kind of a big deal. It’s the key to understanding the storyline of the whole Bible.
God tells David that from his royal line, from his descendants, a future king will build the Temple and establish an eternal Kingdom. This is the Messianic promise that’s going to be picked up and developed in the rest of the Bible through the Psalms, and the prophets. This future king is connected to God’s promise to Abraham—this future Messianic King is going to be HOW God brings his blessing and salvation to all the nations and all the peoples on earth.
Jesus, the Son of David, born in the City of David, Bethlehem, will sit on the throne of David forever. The Son of God who will humble Himself, walk in perfect obedience, and die on a cross to save His people from their sin, pride and rebellion. Including the sins of his great-great-grandfather King David.
And David was going to need some serious forgiveness of sins.
One of the reasons we can be sure that the Bible is true is the rest of the story of David. Up to this point, he’s been shown to be a man of impeccable character and model faithfulness. That’s about to get smudged up real good. If someone was going to just make up the Bible, and they wanted us to think David was a good guy, they wouldn’t include these embarrassing details.
Remember David’s mighty men? Those buddies of his from the days when Saul was trying to kill him? Well, one of them was a guy named Uriah. David had an affair with his wife, got her pregnant, and had Uriah killed to try and cover it up. It’s absolutely the worst. He takes her as his own wife, and the baby dies.
But God sends a prophet named Nathan to confront him about all of this and David immediately owns up to it all. Confesses his sin. Doesn’t justify himself. Humbles himself. Asks God to forgive him. This is what it looks like to be a man after God’s own heart.
And God does forgive him. But it doesn’t erase the earthly consequences of what he had done. I think we get confused about this aspect of what it means for God to forgive us. We are forgiven, there is no shame or condemnation before God—but sometimes we make a pretty big mess in our lives and those things continue to have rippling effects. On us and on everyone around us.
That was certainly the case for David and his family, the nation of Israel even. Everything falls apart. David’s sons repeat his sins in even more horrific ways. One of them rapes his own sister, then another brother murders him for it, then that son tries to have David killed so he can take the throne. David has to go into hiding again, his son is killed in the rebellion and it breaks his heart. It gets pretty dark.
At the end of the book, King David is a broken sad man living with all the consequences of his sins, reflecting on God’s promise and the hope for a future messianic king. He remembers God’s grace and mercy. It not only connects to the promise from chapter seven, when David asked if he could build God a Temple—but it also points all the way back to Hannah’s prayer at the beginning of the book.
In chapter 23, it memorializes his friends who had stuck with him, his mighty men, the last one mentioned is Uriah the Hittite. We’re not supposed to forget what David did to him.
Despite Saul and David’s wickedness, God remained at work all around them and through them—moving forward His plans for how He was saving His people. God opposed them when they were proud and arrogant but He exalted David when he humbled himself.
The whole thing points to that future Messianic King who would also humble Himself. First by coming to earth as a helpless baby, then by allowing the evil men of this world to crucify Him on a cross. Humiliated all the way to death. It doesn’t get more humble.
But then God raised Him back to life. From weakness to glory. Exalted Him all the way to His right hand when He ascended to heaven. Everything in the Bible points to this idea—this salvation offered to you because of the faithful obedience of Jesus. The Messianic King. The promised son of David. The Son of God.
Don’t be like Saul and try to exalt yourself, refusing to admit your mistakes, refusing to confess your sin. Don’t define yourself by your sin. Don’t trust in your own ability to know what is right or do what is right.
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. Confess your sins to Him. Ask God to forgive you. Right now, and every day of your life. Ask Jesus to forgive your sins.
Let’s say this together: Most merciful God, forgive me for all that I have done, forgive me of all my sin, because of Jesus who died and lives again for me.
May the God of our LORD Jesus Christ grant the request you have asked of Him.
James 4:10 echoes the main theme of the Book of Samuel:
"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." AMEN.