Behold, here I am: witness against me before the LORD, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you. [12:3]

So proclaims Samuel, grey and wisened leader of the Israelites as of the start of this book. The populace seems to back his personal claims of virtue, and so, for a time, I was pleased (if surprised) to see him continue to warn the people against accepting a king who would rule them under heel. Nonetheless, the people demand a king. Saul, fresh from the slaughter of the seemingly inexhaustible supply of enemies of the Israelites [11:11], is designated as the Lord’s “anointed.”

Saul’s rule is exactly what you might expect of a theocrat: constant bloody battle with the believers of other gods [14:47], interspersed with the occasional magic curse triggered by eating the wrong honey. [14:27-29] Par for the biblical course.

In Chapter 15 I realised the mistake in my earlier reading of Samuel’s warning of what to expect from a king. I had seen him present the virtue of living without a king; having stewardship without absolute authority, leadership without corruption. How naive of me to read so charitably. Samuel was only concerned with his ‘Church’ losing power to Saul’s ‘State.’ Samuel’s greatest fear is nearly realised when Saul confesses his terrible sin: he began to listen to the people!

And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice. [15:24]

Saul’s great sin was to capture alive the leader of a recently-smote enemy, when Samuel had relayed the Lord’s precise command to spare no one. [15:3] But don’t fret! Samuel didn’t allow this act of populist mercy, heeding instead the merciless voice in his head. He even delivers something of a one-liner in the process:

Then said Samuel, Bring ye hither to me Agag the king of the Amalekites. And Agag came unto him delicately. And Agag said, Surely the bitterness of death is past. And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal. [15:32-33]

Later, Saul gets a new armourbearer, David, who would go on to (spoiler alert!) slay a giant champion of the Philistines, Goliath. [Chapter 17] This plays out in the Bible more or less like the kid-friendly versions that are told today: Massive, intimidating challenger defeated in single combat by a stone slung to the head, [17:49] other soldiers flee at his demise, battle is won. The moral in those tales is supposed to teach kids that great things can be done by anyone, large or small, with God’s help, right? Probably wise of them, then, to leave out what comes next. It’s about as kid-friendly as Game of Thrones.

First, our child-hero David decapitates the Mounta- I mean… the giant with Goliath’s own sword, [17:51] and carries the head to Saul. [17:57] David becomes a champion of his people, and rampages against the Philistines for a bit, but the king becomes jealous because the songs about David have a higher body count than the songs about Saul, and that just won’t do. [18:8] Saul tries to keep his enemies close by arranging to marry David to his daughter, who will act as a “snare.” [18:21] David, a poor soldier, cannot provide a dowry fit for the daughter of the king, so Saul sends him on a disgusting fetch quest: collect one hundred Philistine foreskins. [18:25] No, he doesn’t want them to make an exotic pouch, Saul actually wants David to get killed in this endeavour. Saul’s plan is betrayed by his son Jonathan, who “delighted in” David, whom he loved “like his own soul.” [19:2, 18:3] (But totally not in a gay way because that would be an abomination.)

Anyhow, long story short, David receives Jonathan’s warning, escapes, and roams around for a while. In the meantime, Samuel dies. David is sometimes beset by Saul’s forces, and occasionally has to abstain from murdering families who refuse to grant him sufficient hospitality. [25:32] He eventually sneaks into Saul’s camp and finds the king asleep, and he doesn’t murder him either. [26:9] It’s not much -the best thing I have to say about the supposed paragon of virtue is that he doesn’t always murder people when he has the opportunity- but it almost seems like the Bible is improving!

God, however, is not. While Saul communes with the ghost of Samuel via seance with a witch at Endor, [28:7] he discovers that his rule is doomed because he has failed to execute the fierce wrath of the Lord. [28:17-18] David might be merciful, but God ain’t. Later, under siege by Philistine forces, Saul knows his time is near. Not wanting to die by the hand of someone with an intact foreskin, he falls on his own sword. [31:4] So ends the first book of Samuel.