Commentary Compass

Few Old Testament books reward commentary comparison more than Samuel. The text is famously difficult, with important differences among the Masoretic Text, Septuagint, and Qumran manuscripts; the narratives are among the finest examples of biblical storytelling; and the theological questions are unusually complex. Samuel moves from Hannah, Eli, Samuel, and the ark through the contested origins of monarchy, Saul’s tragic kingship, David’s extraordinary rise, the promise of an enduring dynasty, Bathsheba and Uriah, the collapse of David’s family, Absalom’s rebellion, and the unresolved mixture of divine promise and human failure with which 2 Samuel ends.

A good Samuel commentary therefore needs more than competence in Hebrew. It must negotiate textual criticism, narrative art, historiography, political power, prophecy, kingship, divine providence, the ambiguities of Saul and David, violence, sexuality, women whose stories expose the cost of royal power, and the relationship between the final literary form and the traditions from which it developed. Some of the best books below excel technically, some theologically, some literarily, and some homiletically. My ranking continues to reflect the best balance of originality and usefulness, not simply page count or technical difficulty.

The newly examined Antony Campbell and John Goldingay volumes reinforce one of the central lessons of Samuel scholarship: the books resist uncomplicated heroes and uncomplicated theological formulas. Campbell asks simultaneously how the present literary form works and how earlier traditions have been shaped into it, while Goldingay makes theological paradox itself a central feature of Samuel: YHWH is ambivalent about monarchy, divine purpose and human initiative operate together, and both Saul and David remain morally and religiously complicated. These perspectives are valuable precisely because Samuel itself so often refuses to tell the reader what a simpler religious narrative would prefer to say.

1. V. Philips Long —

1 and 2 Samuel

(Tyndale Old Testament Commentary)

★★★★★

Long remains my first overall choice because he accomplishes an exceptional amount within a relatively manageable volume. He takes textual and historical problems seriously, reads narrative with considerable sensitivity, and consistently keeps theological meaning visible. His approach to biblical historiography is particularly important in Samuel, where readers need something better than the choice between naïve chronicle and historical scepticism. Long recognizes literary shaping without treating literary sophistication as evidence against historical reference.

His greatest advantage is balance. Tsumura goes deeper into Hebrew philology, Firth offers more detailed exegesis, Davis is more memorable in exposition, and McCarter supplies far more textual-critical apparatus, but Long comes closer than any of them to giving pastor, student, and scholar something genuinely useful in nearly every category. Saul, David, monarchy, covenant, prophecy, providence, and the text’s moral ambiguities receive thoughtful treatment without being forced into an unnecessarily elaborate theory. For someone buying only one current commentary covering both books, this remains my first recommendation.

2. David G. Firth —

1 & 2 Samuel

(Apollos Old Testament Commentary)

★★★★★

Firth is the strongest choice for readers who want sustained close exegesis while retaining firm control of the final literary form. He pays careful attention to grammar, textual questions, narrative structure, characterization, repeated vocabulary, and the integration of individual stories into Samuel as a unified work. His treatment repeatedly demonstrates why details that can appear incidental actually contribute to the development of Saul, David, Jonathan, Abigail, Michal, Joab, and the royal family.

A particular virtue is methodological restraint. Firth is aware of the long history of source and redaction theories surrounding Samuel but does not allow hypothetical reconstructions to displace the text being interpreted. This makes him a useful counterweight to Jobling, Campbell, Auld, McCarter, and other scholars who place greater weight on compositional reconstruction. He is less expansive in theological application than Davis or Woodhouse, but the exegetical foundation is strong enough that pastors can build confidently upon it. For detailed work with the text, Firth belongs permanently near the top.

3. David Toshio Tsumura —

The First Book of Samuel

and

The Second Book of Samuel

(NICOT)

★★★★★

Tsumura remains the most technically impressive evangelical commentator on Samuel. His command of Hebrew grammar, syntax, semantics, comparative Semitic linguistics, ancient Near Eastern languages, and textual criticism gives him unusual confidence when defending readings that earlier scholars emended unnecessarily. Samuel’s Masoretic Text undeniably contains difficulties, but Tsumura demonstrates repeatedly that “difficult” does not automatically mean “corrupt.” His restraint is especially valuable in a field where conjectural emendation has historically been common.

The second volume strengthens the set considerably by carrying the method through David’s reign, Nathan’s promise, the royal family narratives, rebellions, poetry, and closing collection. Tsumura can be surprisingly illuminating literarily, although that is not always his principal interest, and his work on 2 Samuel 7 is particularly substantial. The limitations remain the relative thinness of pastoral application and a tendency for the technical apparatus to obscure the cumulative theological shape. Nevertheless, anyone doing serious Hebrew exegesis of Samuel will want these volumes within reach.

4. Dale Ralph Davis —

1 Samuel: Looking on the Heart

and

2 Samuel: Out of Every Adversity

★★★★★

Davis is the best expositor on the list. His great gift is noticing what the narrative is doing and expressing its significance memorably without burdening the reader with the machinery behind every observation. Irony, repeated phrases, narrative pacing, character reaction, apparently small details, and theological tension continually become windows into the text. Saul’s deterioration, David’s refusal to seize the throne, Abigail’s intervention, the ark, Nathan’s confrontation, Absalom, and Joab all receive exposition that is both intellectually alert and immediately useful.

What makes Davis better than ordinary homiletical commentary is that his application usually grows from close reading rather than replacing it. He understands that Samuel is not fundamentally a sourcebook of leadership lessons and refuses to make David morally cleaner than the text does. Technical textual problems, Qumran evidence, and historical reconstruction are naturally handled more fully elsewhere, so Davis should not be the only commentary in an academic project. For teaching and preaching after serious exegesis, however, there may be no Samuel resource I would rather open.

5. Robert B. Chisholm Jr. —

1 & 2 Samuel

(Teach the Text Commentary Series)

★★★★★

Chisholm’s commentary is considerably shorter than several works ranked below it, but it earns its place through interpretive efficiency. He brings decades of teaching the Former Prophets to bear on narrative units, identifies their principal theological claims, and repeatedly shows how the narrator’s arrangement and characterization serve those claims. His evangelical commitments are evident without requiring him to explain away every moral difficulty surrounding Saul, David, Joab, or the monarchy.

The Teach the Text format necessarily compresses detailed philology and scholarly debate, so specialists will often want Firth, Tsumura, McCarter, or Anderson beside it. Yet Chisholm is remarkably good at answering the question that large technical commentaries sometimes leave obscure: what does this passage actually contribute to Samuel’s theological argument? His handling of divine sovereignty, human responsibility, prophetic word, royal failure, and the danger of interpreting outward success as divine approval is especially useful. The result is one of the best working resources for a pastor who already has a technical commentary nearby.

6. A. Graeme Auld —

I & II Samuel

(Old Testament Library)

★★★★½

★★★★★ as a specialist conversation partner

Auld is among the most original modern Samuel commentators. His distinctive thesis concerning the relationship among Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles rejects the ordinary assumption that Chronicles simply rewrites Samuel–Kings and instead explores the possibility of common underlying materials subsequently developed in different directions. Whatever judgment one finally reaches, this forces close attention to textual relationships that can otherwise be taken for granted.

He also reads David with disciplined literary focus and makes excellent use of textual evidence, including the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls. The difficulty is that his larger compositional hypothesis sometimes becomes so controlling that readers who do not share it will find portions of the commentary less useful as straightforward exegesis. That explains the ★★★★½ overall rating rather than five stars. As a specialist work capable of disrupting inherited assumptions and generating fresh research questions, however, it is unquestionably a five-star conversation partner.

7. Harry A. Hoffner Jr. —

1 Samuel

and

2 Samuel

(Evangelical Exegetical Commentary)

★★★★½

Hoffner brings formidable linguistic and ancient Near Eastern learning to Samuel. His long career as one of the world’s leading Hittitologists gives him an unusually broad comparative frame, while the EEC format allows considerable space for Hebrew, historical context, textual issues, literary observations, and theological reflection. In passages involving ancient social custom, royal practice, warfare, covenant, or difficult vocabulary, his background can produce insights unavailable to commentators trained more narrowly within biblical studies.

The work is less immediately readable than Long or Davis and less consistently final-form literary in emphasis than Firth. At points the accumulation of technical information can make it harder to see the forest, and pastors may find the returns uneven relative to the amount of material. Yet the set significantly strengthens the conservative academic shelf and deserves consultation alongside Tsumura rather than being viewed merely as an alternative to him. For advanced students it offers a substantial body of learning.

8. P. Kyle McCarter Jr. —

I Samuel

and

II Samuel

(Anchor Bible)

★★★★½

McCarter remains one of the foundational technical resources on Samuel because of his command of textual criticism, Qumran evidence, the Septuagint, philology, historical reconstruction, and tradition history. The books of Samuel possess an unusually complicated textual history, and McCarter had access to evidence that transformed modern discussion. His detailed textual notes remain one of the principal reasons advanced students continue to consult these volumes more than four decades after publication.

His weakness is that he can be too willing to reconstruct an earlier text or literary history where a more conservative approach to the transmitted forms may be preferable. Tsumura is often the necessary counterweight, and later scholarship has modified numerous individual proposals. Theology is also comparatively thin, and narrative interpretation is not pursued with the sophistication found in more recent literary commentaries. For serious textual work, however, McCarter remains impossible to ignore.

9. Walter Brueggemann —

First and Second Samuel

(Interpretation)

★★★★½

Brueggemann reads Samuel with an exceptional eye for the interaction of faith and power. He refuses the “innocent” religious reading that cleans away political maneuvering, brutality, sexuality, factionalism, ambition, and the darker dimensions of monarchy. At his best, he makes familiar stories newly disturbing and therefore newly theological, especially where royal ideology, prophetic speech, Davidic power, and the victims of political decisions intersect.

The commentary is also rhetorically powerful and frequently very useful for preaching. Yet its rhetoric can run beyond the evidence, and contemporary political or ideological instincts sometimes become more controlling than the actual contours of the narrative. Readers should therefore use Brueggemann beside a commentator such as Firth, Tsumura, or Long rather than allowing his memorable formulations to settle contested exegetical questions. As a provocative theological interpreter, he remains one of the most important modern voices on Samuel.

10. Ronald F. Youngblood —

1, 2 Samuel

(Revised Expositor’s Bible Commentary)

★★★★½

Youngblood’s revised commentary remains impressively well rounded. He pays attention to textual criticism, narrative artistry, Hebrew, historical background, and theology, interacting with important literary interpreters as well as the traditional exegetical literature. The revision did not remake the commentary as thoroughly as one might have wished, but the underlying exegesis remains mature and generally dependable.

The literary dimension is especially useful for pastors. Youngblood recognizes that Samuel’s narrative technique, characterization, repeated motifs, and strategic arrangement carry theology rather than simply decorate historical information. The work is no longer as current as Long, Firth, or the completed Tsumura set, and specialists will need more recent discussions of the textual witnesses. Nevertheless, it remains one of those commentaries that can answer a wide variety of questions competently without imposing an eccentric theory on the text.

11. Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos —

The Road to Kingship: 1–2 Samuel

★★★★½

Van Wijk-Bos brings a narrative-critical and strongly feminist perspective that makes her particularly attentive to women, bodies, family relationships, political power, and those who bear the costs of Israel’s emergence into monarchy. Hannah, Michal, Abigail, Bathsheba, Tamar, the medium of Endor, and others therefore receive interpretive attention that older king-centred commentaries often fail to provide. Her prose is clear and her narrative instincts are generally strong.

The most valuable aspect of the commentary is its insistence that political history is experienced by households and vulnerable individuals, not simply by royal institutions. The danger is that ideological suspicion can sometimes govern the interpretation in advance, especially when a more open-ended literary reading would preserve competing possibilities. Conservative readers will also differ from some historical and theological judgments. Used alongside rather than instead of a more text-critical commentary, however, the volume adds an important perspective to the library.

12. Craig E. Morrison —

2 Samuel

(Berit Olam)

★★★★½

Morrison’s commentary is one of the strongest literary studies of 2 Samuel in conventional commentary form. Structure, characterization, plot development, repeated phrases, leitmotifs, dialogue, and the cumulative collapse of David’s household receive close attention. The material from Bathsheba and Uriah through Tamar, Amnon, Absalom, David’s flight, return, and Sheba’s rebellion particularly rewards this kind of sustained literary reading.

The commentary’s deliberate synchronic orientation is both strength and limitation. It allows the received narrative to speak without constantly being dismantled into hypothetical sources, but it gives less attention to historical setting, compositional development, and some technical textual questions than advanced research may require. Reception history adds another useful layer without dominating the exposition. Because Morrison covers only 2 Samuel, he cannot function as the central whole-book commentary, but within his book he is one of the most perceptive interpreters available.

13. Stephen B. Chapman —

1 Samuel as Christian Scripture: A Theological Commentary

★★★★½

Chapman’s book deliberately asks what it means to read 1 Samuel not simply as ancient Israelite literature but as Christian Scripture. He gives substantial attention to monarchy, Saul, David, divine election, warfare, violence, and the canonical placement of the book, resisting both historical-critical reductionism and simplistic evangelical moralising. The resulting commentary is often more interested in theological interpretation than in resolving every local grammatical problem.

That is precisely why it works best as a second or third resource. Chapman can help the reader move from exegesis toward canonical theology without pretending that the Old Testament’s immediate voice can be skipped. His handling of difficult ethical material is thoughtful even where readers may disagree with individual judgments. Because it covers only 1 Samuel and is intentionally selective, it cannot compete with the top commentaries as an all-purpose reference, but its theological contribution is significant.

14. Marvin A. Sweeney —

1 & 2 Samuel

(New Cambridge Bible Commentary)

★★★★½

Sweeney brings a critical understanding of the Deuteronomistic tradition together with attention to the final literary form and the political-theological concerns of Samuel. Monarchy, prophecy, Saul’s rejection, David’s rise, dynastic promise, and the later crises of David’s household are placed within the larger movement from Judges toward Kings. He is particularly useful for readers who want a contemporary critical account of how Samuel participates in Israel’s reflection upon kingship.

The commentary is more compact than the major technical works, which means some textual and philological questions are treated rapidly. Conservative readers will also differ from aspects of his compositional and historical reconstruction. Yet Sweeney is generally more interested in explaining why the final text has taken its present form than simply cataloguing hypothetical stages behind it. As a critical countervoice in a balanced library, he remains worthwhile.

15. Antony F. Campbell —

1 Samuel

and

2 Samuel

(Forms of the Old Testament Literature)

★★★★½

The attached Campbell volumes confirm that his placement at #15 remains appropriate. Campbell is much more interesting than the label “form-critical commentary” might suggest. He deliberately tries to hold process and product together: the present literary text deserves close structural interpretation, but its history of development cannot simply be ignored. Each major unit is consequently examined through structure, genre, setting, and meaning, with the repeated insistence that analysis of literary origins is worthwhile only when it increases understanding of the text that actually exists.

His macro-reading is highly distinctive. Campbell sees 1–2 Samuel as fundamentally concerned with the emergence and working of monarchy, with Samuel’s prophetic role ultimately oriented toward the establishment of David, while the political narrative then explains how David actually reaches the throne. In 2 Samuel he rejects the conventional “Succession Narrative” label for 2 Samuel 11–20 and instead speaks of the Stories of David’s Middle Years, emphasizing royal wrongdoing, family violence, rebellion, and the way David’s behaviour in chapters 11–12 becomes a model for destructive patterns that follow. Even when one rejects his diachronic reconstruction, his structural analysis often makes the narrative much easier to see.

The reservations are significant enough to keep him below the top tier. Campbell’s claim that Saul’s condemnation in 1 Samuel 13 amounts to an “unfair charge” reveals how strongly his proposed compositional history can shape his reading of the received narrative. His handling of 2 Samuel 24 is even more provocative: he repeatedly calls its account of divine incitement “very strange theology” and says that it “does not speak well of God.” Those reactions identify genuine difficulties in the text, but at times Campbell seems more willing to judge the theology than to ask how the canonical narrative itself wants the tension to function. Still, this is an original, intellectually serious commentary that advanced students should know, and its integration of literary and developmental analysis makes it a valuable complement to Tsumura or Firth.

16. John Woodhouse —

1 Samuel

and

2 Samuel

(Preaching the Word)

★★★★½

Woodhouse offers the most extensive explicitly sermonic exposition in the ranking. His volumes build upon serious scholarship but deliberately keep technical discussion in the background, allowing the narrative’s theological movement to lead toward Christian proclamation. Samuel, Saul, David, kingship, anointing, suffering, failure, and promise are repeatedly connected with the larger biblical expectation of God’s true king.

The great strength is that pastors can see a sustained model of how an evangelical preacher moves from Old Testament narrative to Christ without reducing every paragraph to moral lessons. The risk is the opposite one: the christological movement can occasionally arrive faster than a specialist Old Testament commentator would prefer, and some local exegetical problems deserve more sustained treatment before the canonical bridge is crossed. Nevertheless, Woodhouse models biblical-theological preaching unusually well. Readers preparing a long sermon series will find the volumes consistently stimulating.

17. J. Robert Vannoy —

1–2 Samuel

(Cornerstone Biblical Commentary)

★★★★½

Vannoy provides a dependable and accessible evangelical commentary that balances historical context, exegesis, textual notes, literary observation, and theology better than its modest profile might suggest. His long experience with the Former Prophets and Bible translation gives the exposition a practical precision, and he avoids the extremes of both speculative reconstruction and devotional superficiality. The commentary is especially useful for pastors who want responsible answers without entering every scholarly dispute.

Its limitation is that almost every major dimension is handled more deeply elsewhere. Tsumura and McCarter surpass it textually, Firth and Morrison literarily, Davis homiletically, and Long in overall integration. Yet not every reader needs several specialised volumes. Vannoy succeeds precisely because it is so well rounded, making it one of the better choices for someone who wants one approachable evangelical guide alongside a more detailed resource.

18. John Goldingay —

The Theology of the Book of Samuel

★★★★½ overall

★★★★★ as a theological companion

Goldingay’s 2024 volume is not a conventional commentary, and that genre distinction should remain explicit. It belongs this high because it does something that line-by-line commentaries frequently cannot: it follows theological questions cumulatively across Samuel while remaining closely tied to the narrative sequence. Samuel, Saul, and David naturally dominate, but Goldingay also gives serious attention to Hannah, Michal, Bathsheba, Tamar, family, prayer, worship, politics, war, love, loss, ambition, and the ordinary human relationships through which the monarchy takes shape.

His most illuminating formulation is that Samuel is structured around three theological paradoxes. YHWH is ambivalent about the institution of monarchy; events arise through both divine activity and human initiative; and both Saul and David, despite divine choice, remain religiously and morally ambiguous. That is an excellent description of why simplistic readings of Samuel fail. Goldingay also reads 1–2 Samuel as one book and insists that the narrative leaves many judgments genuinely open, allowing unresolved tensions about divine action, human character, grace, obedience, and political power to remain part of the theology rather than treating ambiguity as a defect to be repaired.

The volume’s limitation is therefore also its genre. It will not help much with a difficult Hebrew clause, the relationship between MT and 4QSam, or a detailed source-critical argument. Goldingay can also be deliberately provocative in individual theological judgments, and readers will not follow every reconstruction of the narrative world. But as a book to read after working through the text with Firth, Long, or Tsumura, it is exceptional. I would rate it ★★★★★ without hesitation as a theological companion even while leaving its overall ranking at ★★★★½.

19. Eugene H. Peterson —

First and Second Samuel

(Westminster Bible Companion)

★★★★½

Peterson is another unusual entry because his work functions more as pastoral and devotional theological reflection than as a conventional commentary. Historical background, Hebrew detail, textual criticism, and interaction with specialist scholarship largely remain behind the scenes. Instead, Peterson asks what Samuel reveals about vocation, prayer, leadership, failure, community, violence, grace, and life before God.

That makes the book much more valuable after rather than before exegesis. Readers preparing a technical paper will find little that settles contested questions, but pastors who have spent hours in Firth, Tsumura, or McCarter may find Peterson reminding them why any of the work matters to actual people. His prose regularly recovers the spiritual force of narratives that academic discussion can make remote. I would not call it a first commentary, but I would gladly keep it beside the first commentary.

20. Bill T. Arnold —

1 & 2 Samuel

(NIV Application Commentary)

★★★★½

Arnold’s large NIVAC volume is one of the stronger examples of the series because his “Original Meaning” sections rest on substantial scholarship. Historical context, literary structure, Hebrew observations, monarchy, prophecy, Davidic theology, and narrative issues are treated seriously before the commentary moves toward bridging and contemporary significance. That makes it useful to students as well as pastors.

The application format also suits Samuel because these narratives are easy to moralize superficially. Arnold generally recognizes the distance between Israel’s monarchy and contemporary Christian institutions and tries to identify theological continuities before moving to application. Not every contemporary illustration ages equally well, and some difficult passages deserve more exegetical space than the series permits. Nevertheless, Arnold offers a useful model of disciplined movement from ancient narrative toward Christian teaching.

21. Robert D. Bergen —

1, 2 Samuel

(New American Commentary)

★★★★½

Bergen remains a sound conservative commentary with a particularly useful interest in discourse analysis. His attention to how clauses, speeches, scenes, and narrative units fit together gives the exposition more literary sensitivity than some mid-level evangelical works of its generation. Historical, theological, and linguistic issues receive enough attention that the volume can serve as a reliable general reference.

Its principal weakness is age. Textual work, narrative scholarship, and discussions of historiography have all moved considerably since the mid-1990s, and the top five now provide stronger alternatives in nearly every category. Even so, Bergen’s basic judgments have aged well and the commentary is still easy to use. Pastors who already own it need not regard it as obsolete simply because newer works have become preferable first purchases.

22. Mary J. Evans —

1 and 2 Samuel

(New International Biblical Commentary)

★★★★½

Evans is particularly interested in power, political maneuvering, and the narrative presentation of those who possess or lack authority. That perspective proves useful in Samuel, where institutions and personal ambition intersect constantly: Eli and his sons, Samuel, Saul, David, Jonathan, Michal, Abigail, Joab, Tamar, Absalom, and others repeatedly reveal the ambiguities of power.

Her commentary is concise, perhaps too concise given the scale of Samuel, and it is not a technical resource for Hebrew students. Yet her narrative awareness regularly produces perceptive observations that a more traditional historical commentary may miss. Readers may sometimes find the focus on political power more controlling than the theological shape of the book warrants, but it is rarely uninteresting. Her related Bible Speaks Today exposition carries similar interests more directly toward the church.

23. Paul S. Evans —

1–2 Samuel

(Story of God Bible Commentary)

★★★★½

Paul Evans offers one of the freshest recent pastoral readings before the latest wave of technical replacements. He knows the scholarly literature but writes for readers who need explanation, theological reflection, and responsible application rather than a survey of academic disputes. Narrative movement, royal power, divine guidance, prophetic speech, violence, and moral ambiguity are handled with clarity.

His treatment is particularly useful where Samuel’s speeches and narratives interpret political events rather than simply record them. Evans is open to substantial literary shaping by the historian, which conservative readers may want to formulate differently, but he does not use that conclusion to empty the narrative of theological authority. The Story of God format gives application a prominent role, and the best of these sections grow naturally from the story rather than merely attaching modern analogies. This is a good second-stage commentary for teaching.

24. Tony W. Cartledge —

1 & 2 Samuel

(Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary)

★★★★½

Cartledge provides a very large and accessible exposition of the complete Samuel narrative. He follows the final story sympathetically, addresses historical and theological issues without burying readers in apparatus, and incorporates illustrations, sidebars, and interpretive material that make the commentary especially usable for teachers and pastors.

The drawback is that much of the scholarship on which the exposition depends remains largely uncited, limiting its usefulness for students who need to pursue an argument further. His approach is somewhat more conservative than many critical commentators, although he does not insist upon resolving every historical question traditionally. The size of the volume allows him to linger over the narrative in ways briefer pastoral commentaries cannot. It deserves more attention than it normally receives.

25. R. P. Gordon —

1 & 2 Samuel: A Commentary

★★★★½

Gordon’s commentary remains a strong older middle-level work because it combines exegesis, linguistic attention, textual discussion, and historical awareness without constantly dismantling the narrative. He deliberately allows the Old Testament to be heard within its own literary and theological context rather than “Christianizing” every scene prematurely. That makes the commentary particularly useful for readers preparing to make later canonical connections responsibly.

The scholarship is inevitably dated, especially in light of subsequent Qumran publication and literary work, but Gordon’s exegetical instincts remain good. He is neither as technically exhaustive as McCarter nor as theologically expansive as Brueggemann or Davis, and that may partly explain why he can be overlooked. Yet precisely because he avoids the characteristic excesses of several schools, the volume continues to function as a reliable interpretive control.

26. A. A. Anderson —

2 Samuel

(Word Biblical Commentary)

★★★★½

Anderson remains a strong technical commentary on 2 Samuel and a natural companion to Klein on 1 Samuel. Textual criticism, Hebrew, compositional questions, historical background, and narrative interpretation all receive serious attention. His critical stance is comparatively restrained, especially relative to commentators inclined toward extensive reconstruction.

The WBC format can make sustained reading cumbersome, and the volume’s numerous typographical problems have long been noted. Theology is present but not developed at the level a pastor might wish, while the absence of 1 Samuel obviously limits its role in a whole-book library. Even so, difficult passages in David’s reign regularly repay consultation. Students working closely with the Hebrew should still know Anderson.

27. S. R. Driver —

Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel

★★★★½ — Specialist

Driver is not really a commentary, but excluding him from a serious Samuel ranking would distort the history of the field. Samuel’s difficult textual tradition made his painstaking philological and text-critical work foundational, and later commentators still cite him constantly. His observations on Hebrew syntax, proposed emendations, geography, and textual problems helped define the questions subsequent discoveries were required to answer.

Obviously, the work predates the Dead Sea Scrolls and almost the entire modern discussion of textual plurality, so no reading should stop with Driver. Many conjectures can now be tested against evidence unavailable to him, and Tsumura often provides a necessary corrective to older habits of emendation. Yet advanced students gain something irreplaceable from seeing how the problems were formulated with such precision. As a specialist tool, Driver remains remarkable.

28. Roger L. Omanson and John E. Ellington —

A Handbook on 1–2 Samuel

, 2 vols.

★★★★½ — Translation specialist

The UBS Handbook approaches Samuel from the practical questions faced by translators, and that focus produces a surprisingly valuable exegetical resource. Pronoun reference, lexical ambiguity, idiom, cultural assumptions, participant identification, logical relations, and the differences among possible renderings are considered with extraordinary patience. Samuel’s textual and narrative complexity makes these questions particularly consequential.

What the Handbook does not provide is a sustained theology of monarchy, Davidic covenant, prophecy, or narrative artistry. It should therefore never replace a normal commentary. Yet it often catches interpretive details that large theological works simply pass over because translators cannot pass over them. Anyone teaching from multiple English versions or working through difficult wording will benefit greatly from consulting it.

29. Richard D. Phillips —

1 Samuel

and

2 Samuel

(Reformed Expository Commentary)

★★★★½

Phillips provides more than a thousand pages of sustained Reformed exposition. His sermons are built upon genuine exegetical work and consistently move toward biblical theology, Christ, faith, kingship, sin, providence, and pastoral application. Readers wanting to see how an entire Samuel series can be preached within a redemptive-historical framework will find the set useful.

The limitation is engagement with scholarship. More sustained interaction with the best recent technical and literary work would have made the exposition deeper, particularly where the Hebrew text or historiography is difficult. There are also moments when the christological direction is clearer than the route from the immediate Old Testament context to that conclusion. Nevertheless, pastors will find substantial material here, especially when Phillips is used after rather than instead of Firth, Tsumura, or Long.

30. Joyce G. Baldwin —

1 and 2 Samuel

(Tyndale Old Testament Commentary)

★★★★

Baldwin served evangelical readers extremely well when serious conservative Samuel commentaries were much harder to find. Her exposition is compact, lucid, careful, and theologically alert, with scholarship informing the conclusions without overwhelming ordinary readers. For many years it was among the easiest first recommendations for pastors.

The arrival of Long’s revised Tyndale volume makes the older commentary much less necessary as a purchase. Textual criticism, literary interpretation, historiography, and secondary literature have all developed substantially. Yet Baldwin remains pleasant and profitable to read, and some readers will prefer her economy to newer works that contain far more detail. Four stars reflects supersession, not poor quality.

31. Ralph W. Klein —

1 Samuel

(Word Biblical Commentary)

★★★★

Klein is an accomplished text critic, and that is the principal reason his commentary remains useful. The textual difficulties of 1 Samuel receive sustained attention, as do philology, source and redaction questions, and the relationship among major witnesses. The later edition adds retrospective discussion that allows Klein to reassess portions of his earlier work in light of subsequent scholarship.

The volume is much weaker as theological exposition. Pastors looking for Samuel’s message will find far more in Davis, Long, Firth, or Vannoy, and Tsumura now provides a fuller conservative technical alternative. Nevertheless, the history of modern Samuel textual criticism cannot be understood well without works such as Klein and McCarter. His position reflects specialist usefulness rather than irrelevance.

32. John L. Mackay — “1–2 Samuel” in

1 Samuel–2 Chronicles

(ESV Expository Commentary)

★★★★

Mackay provides a solid evangelical exposition embedded within a larger Former Prophets volume. His comments are clear, conservative, pastorally directed, and sufficiently substantial to help preachers work through both books without becoming overwhelmed by technical scholarship. The larger commentary project also encourages canonical and theological connections.

What the work lacks is a highly distinctive contribution. It does not compete with Tsumura on philology, Firth on detailed literary exegesis, Davis on exposition, or Long on overall balance. Its chief virtue is dependable synthesis, which should not be underrated but does explain the placement. For pastors who already own the ESVEC volume, there is real value here; I would simply not build a Samuel library around it.

33. David Jobling —

1 Samuel

(Berit Olam)

★★★★

Jobling is one of the most provocative commentators on this list. Structuralism, ideological criticism, Marxist analysis, gender, political power, and suspicion of the Davidic narrative all enter his reading, often forcing the reader to articulate why a traditional interpretation is or is not adequate. His treatment of Hannah’s song and attention to women, propaganda, royal violence, and marginalized characters can be genuinely illuminating.

The problem is that suspicion too often becomes a controlling grid. At points Jobling presses political reconstructions beyond what the narrative supports, reads David’s relationship with the Philistines in ways the text itself resists, or allows ideological conclusions to flatten genuine distinctions between Saul and David. His treatment of the medium at Endor and his broader theological reconstruction can also become more speculative than persuasive. I value him as an intellectual foil: one often understands one’s own interpretation better after arguing with Jobling. That makes four stars appropriate, but not a higher placement.

34. David H. Jensen —

1 & 2 Samuel

(Belief)

★★★★

Jensen’s commentary contains genuine theological insight, especially when reflecting on prayer, place, monarchy, the ambiguities of political power, and the way Scripture addresses communities rather than merely reconstructing ancient history. The Belief series gives him room to engage theological and ethical questions more explicitly than conventional critical commentaries usually permit.

The difficulty is that his scepticism about the historicity of much Samuel sometimes sits uneasily beside the theological authority subsequently derived from those same narratives. Some individual interpretations also appear overstated, including the tendency to describe the David–Bathsheba episode categorically as rape rather than preserving the textual and scholarly debate over how precisely to characterize Bathsheba’s agency and David’s abuse of royal power. The volume is worthwhile as a theological conversation partner, but less reliable as a controlling exegetical guide. It works best after the reader has already established the passage with stronger commentaries.

35. Susanne Scholz —

1 Samuel

★★★★

Scholz provides an intentionally conceptual feminist reading that foregrounds gendered violence, masculinities, political power, ethnonational identity, land, and the presence or erasure of women. Those questions are highly relevant to 1 Samuel, which contains Hannah, Michal, Abigail, the medium of Endor, military violence, bodily humiliation, male rivalry, emerging monarchy, and intensely gendered political structures. Readers who have inherited exclusively male and royal interpretive frameworks will notice matters they may previously have passed over.

The limitation is that the conceptual grid can become overdetermining. Patriarchy, masculinity, nationalism, and ideological suspicion sometimes function less as questions brought to the text than as conclusions through which each narrative is processed. This can flatten characters whose literary roles are more complicated: Hannah is not merely reproductive utility, Abigail is not simply a submissive fantasy, and Samuel’s critique of monarchy already provides strong internal resources for judging male political power. Scholz is therefore worth reading as a provocative ideological countervoice rather than as a balanced first commentary.

What the Newly Examined Volumes Change

The attached Campbell volumes make his #15 position more secure rather than higher. His approach is genuinely original: the final literary text must be respected, structural analysis must generate meaning, and diachronic reconstruction should illuminate rather than dissolve the present form. His insistence that 1–2 Samuel must be interpreted together, with prophetic, political, and liturgical movements converging upon David and monarchy, offers a strong macro-reading. His re-description of 2 Samuel 11–20 as David’s “middle years” is also helpful because it frees those chapters from being forced primarily into a succession-to-the-throne scheme.

Yet the same volumes illustrate why Campbell should remain below the top tier. His diachronic model sometimes determines the evaluation of the final text too strongly, most obviously when Saul’s rejection becomes an “unfair charge.” His reaction to the census narrative in 2 Samuel 24 identifies a serious theological problem but can sound more like adjudication of the text’s God-language than interpretation of its canonical tension. These are productive provocations, but they make Campbell an advanced companion rather than the commentary I would trust first when the passage is disputed.

Goldingay changes the ranking in another way because he reminds us that a theology of Samuel need not be a commentary to be indispensable for commentary work. His three paradoxes—ambivalence about monarchy, divine activity alongside human initiative, and morally ambiguous divinely chosen kings—provide an excellent conceptual summary of why Samuel resists reduction to heroic biography. He also gives women, family, political violence, prayer, worship, failure, and ordinary human motives a larger place than many traditional theological treatments.

For that reason I would now be especially clear about Goldingay’s dual rating: ★★★★½ as an overall Samuel resource, ★★★★★ as a theological companion. If the question is what a Hebrew phrase means, he is not the book to open. If the question is what kind of theology emerges when Hannah, Samuel, Saul, David, Michal, Bathsheba, Tamar, Joab, divine providence, family breakdown, and monarchy are allowed to remain as complicated as the narratives make them, he is among the first books I would read.

Final Assessment

The top five remain firm. Long offers the best overall balance; Firth the strongest close whole-book exegesis; Tsumura the finest technical evangelical work on the Hebrew text; Davis the richest sustained exposition; and Chisholm the most efficient bridge from careful narrative reading into teaching. Different readers could reasonably rearrange those five depending upon whether research, original-language work, or preaching is the priority, but they represent the most useful core library.

The second tier supplies the necessary countervoices. Auld, Hoffner, McCarter, Brueggemann, Youngblood, van Wijk-Bos, Morrison, Chapman, Sweeney, and Campbell expose different textual, historical, literary, theological, feminist, and compositional dimensions. None supplies everything, but a Samuel library becomes significantly more interesting once several of these perspectives stand beside the top five.

For pastors, Woodhouse, Vannoy, Peterson, Arnold, Paul Evans, Phillips, and Davis offer especially fruitful pathways toward proclamation. For advanced textual work, Tsumura, McCarter, Driver, Klein, Anderson, Omanson and Ellington remain essential in different ways. For theological reflection, Goldingay now deserves a particularly prominent place, while Chapman, Brueggemann, Peterson, Jensen, and Scholz widen the questions asked of the text even where I would not allow their particular theological or ideological frameworks to govern the exegesis.

The best Samuel library therefore should not attempt to eliminate tension. Samuel itself holds together divine choice and morally ambiguous rulers, prophecy and political maneuvering, providence and human agency, Davidic promise and devastating royal wrongdoing, extraordinary literary artistry and a complicated textual history. The finest commentaries help us inhabit those tensions rather than solving them too quickly.