SAMUEL 1, BOOK OF

This book contains the historical record of the change in Israel's form of government from judges to that of the kings. The nation, in an act of rejecting God, desired a king to be like their pagan neighbors (1 Sam. 8:4ff). The book spans more than a century, from the birth of Samuel to the death of Israel's first king, Saul. This document is also important in that it gives considerable material relative to the rise of Israel's greatest king, David (1 Sam. 16ff). In the Hebrew Bible, 1 and 2 Samuel constitute a single book.