What the book is
1 Samuel is the story of a turning point. It opens with Hannah, childless and praying at the shrine at Shiloh, whose son Samuel becomes the last of the judges and a prophet. Samuel hears the LORD call him in the night:
The LORD came and took His stand there, and called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” Samuel replied, “Speak, for Your servant is listening.”
When the people ask for a king to be like the other nations, God tells Samuel that it is God himself they have rejected (8:7), yet he gives them a king. Saul is tall and promising, but he disobeys, and God rejects him. Samuel anoints instead the youngest son of Jesse, a shepherd boy named David, because “the LORD does not see in the way a person sees” (16:7). David kills Goliath, becomes Saul’s servant, his son-in-law, and finally the man Saul hunts through the wilderness. The book ends with Saul’s death in battle on Mount Gilboa.
Who wrote it, and when
1 and 2 Samuel were one book in the Hebrew Bible. They name no author; a Jewish tradition says that Samuel wrote the first part and the prophets Nathan and Gad the rest (compare 1 Chronicles 29:29), though Samuel’s death is told in 25:1. Many scholars see Samuel as part of a longer history running from Deuteronomy through Kings, drawn from older sources such as stories of the ark and of David’s rise, and completed in the seventh and sixth centuries BC.
How the book is laid out
- Samuel (1–7): Hannah’s prayer and song, the boy Samuel and the sons of Eli, the ark captured by the Philistines and returned, and Samuel judging Israel.
- Saul (8–15): the people ask for a king, Saul anointed and made king, his victories, and his rejection for disobedience.
- David and Saul (16–31): David anointed, Goliath, David and Jonathan, Saul’s jealousy, David an outlaw who twice spares Saul’s life, Abigail, the medium at Endor, and the death of Saul and his sons.
How Open Word Bible translates 1 Samuel
The text. The Hebrew text of Samuel has more difficulties than most books, and the Greek translation and the scroll of Samuel found at Qumran are often fuller. The draft translates the Hebrew text, and where the other witnesses differ in a way that matters, a footnote gives their reading.
Saul’s age (13:1). The Hebrew says that Saul was “... years old” when he became king: the number has been lost. The draft shows the gap rather than filling it, and the footnote gives what later witnesses supply; the “two years” of his reign is kept as the Hebrew gives it, though part of that number may also be lost.
Goliath’s height (17:4). The Hebrew text makes Goliath six cubits and a span tall, about 9 feet 9 inches; the Greek translation and the Qumran scroll say four cubits and a span, about 6 feet 9 inches. The draft follows the Hebrew and footnotes the other reading. A reader setting shows the height in the original cubits instead of modern measures.
The medium at Endor (28). Saul, who had banned mediums, asks one to bring up the dead Samuel. “When the woman saw Samuel, she screamed” (28:12). The decision notes that the narrator presents the figure as Samuel himself; the footnote gives the other readings, a spirit that only appeared to be Samuel or a deception by the woman.
An evil spirit from the LORD (16:14). After the Spirit of the LORD leaves Saul, “an evil spirit from the LORD” torments him. The decision explains the phrase as a spirit that brings harm and distress, marks it uncertain, and footnotes the other renderings.
The divine name. God’s personal name appears often in Samuel, and the title “the LORD of Armies” first appears in the Bible here (1:3), where Hannah’s family goes up to worship; Hannah prays to God by it (1:11). The text writes the name “the LORD” in small capitals, and a reader setting shows “Yahweh” instead. See Names and titles of God.