Commentary Compass

1–2 Samuel is among the easiest Old Testament books to preach attractively and among the easiest to preach badly. Hannah can become a sermon about persistent prayer, Samuel about listening to God, David and Goliath about overcoming giants, Jonathan about friendship, Abigail about wisdom, Saul about jealousy, and David about leadership. Each story supplies vivid characters and memorable scenes, so the preacher can produce engaging sermons while scarcely touching what Samuel is actually doing.

The deeper challenge is that Samuel is not principally a collection of exemplary lives. It is a theological narrative about YHWH, Israel, prophecy, kingship, divine presence, political power, promise, providence, human responsibility, family, violence, sin, judgment, and grace. The story moves from the disordered closing world of Judges through Samuel and the emergence of monarchy, through Saul’s rise and collapse, through David’s anointing and extraordinary ascent, into the promise of an enduring dynasty, and then immediately into a devastating exploration of what happens when the chosen king abuses power and his household begins to reproduce his violence.

The preacher therefore has to resist two opposite temptations. One is to turn Samuel into character-based moralism in which each narrative teaches a transferable life lesson. The other is to become so absorbed in the difficult textual history, source theories, chronology, historical reconstruction, and literary problems that the congregation never hears what this extraordinary narrative says about God and God’s purposes. Good preaching requires moving patiently from what the story actually says and how it says it, through its place in the theology of Samuel and the wider canon, and only then toward Christian proclamation.

Begin with Hannah, Because Samuel Begins with Hannah

A sermon series on Samuel should not treat 1 Samuel 1–2 merely as a charming prelude before the important political material begins. Hannah’s story establishes theological categories that will govern everything that follows. She is socially vulnerable, unable to control her circumstances, misunderstood even by the priest at Shiloh, and entirely outside Israel’s formal structures of power. Yet it is through her prayer, her child, and eventually her song that the narrative begins the movement toward prophets and kings.

Hannah’s song in 1 Samuel 2 is especially important because it expands far beyond the circumstances of one answered prayer. The mighty are broken, the weak receive strength, the satisfied become hungry, the hungry are fed, the barren woman bears children, the poor are raised, and the arrogant discover that human strength cannot finally prevail. The song culminates astonishingly with YHWH giving strength to his king and exalting the horn of his anointed before Israel has a king.

The preacher should therefore treat Hannah’s song as something like the theological overture to Samuel. Saul will look kingly and fall; David will appear insignificant and rise. Eli’s established priestly household will collapse while the child Samuel grows. Goliath will possess the visible instruments of power while David possesses what the giant cannot see. Later David himself will move from weakness to overwhelming royal power, and the book will ask whether the man once dependent upon YHWH can use that power faithfully.

This also protects the preacher from turning Hannah into a simple formula for answered prayer. Her prayer matters enormously, but the narrative does not promise that every anguished prayer for a particular outcome will be answered in the same way. Hannah’s personal story becomes part of something larger than herself: through her, YHWH begins transforming Israel. The sermon therefore moves from the reality and freedom of prayer toward the God who overturns human assessments of strength and weakness.

Preach 1 and 2 Samuel as One Story

The modern division between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel is convenient, but the theological story does not stop when Saul dies. David has been anointed but has not yet become king over all Israel. The prophetic declaration has therefore preceded the political reality, and 2 Samuel narrates how the promised kingship becomes an actual kingdom.

John Goldingay’s recently attached theology rightly treats Samuel as one larger work. First Samuel certainly has a meaningful ending in Saul’s death, but read within the whole, that death belongs to a movement whose centre of gravity increasingly becomes David. Yet David’s centrality does not mean the book is simply a celebration of David. The story first explains why David becomes king and why his house receives extraordinary promise, and then subjects the king and his household to some of the most devastating moral scrutiny in Scripture.

Antony Campbell’s structural work is especially helpful at this point. He sees a broad movement from the prophetic preparation for monarchy and David, through the political process by which David’s kingship becomes reality, and then into the internal testing of monarchy during David’s reign. Samuel, ark, Saul, David, Jerusalem, dynasty, Bathsheba, Tamar, Absalom, Joab, and the closing chapters are therefore not independent narrative collections accidentally placed beside one another. They belong to an extended reflection on what happens when kingship enters the life of the people whose true king is YHWH.

A long sermon series should preserve that movement. Individual narratives deserve close attention, but the congregation should repeatedly be reminded where the story has come from and where it is going. Otherwise David and Goliath becomes a self-contained triumph story and Bathsheba becomes an isolated fall from grace, when Samuel wants readers to see the same David moving through both.

Preach Monarchy as Both Gift and Danger

One of the easiest ways to flatten 1 Samuel 8–12 is to decide too quickly whether monarchy is good or bad. Israel asks for a king “like all the nations,” Samuel is displeased, and YHWH interprets the request as a rejection of divine kingship. Yet YHWH also chooses Saul, instructs Samuel to anoint him, empowers him, grants military success, and establishes procedures through which kingship can operate faithfully.

Goldingay identifies this as one of the central theological paradoxes of Samuel: YHWH is ambivalent about the introduction of monarchy. That is a better preaching category than forcing all the evidence into a simple verdict. Kingship answers genuine needs. Judges has ended with social disintegration, Israel faces serious military threats, and centralized leadership offers the possibility of order. Yet Samuel warns from the beginning that concentrated human power also creates distinctive dangers.

The preacher should therefore resist simplistic contemporary leadership applications. Samuel is not saying that every community merely needs a stronger leader, nor that institutional authority is inherently corrupt. It is asking what happens when substantial power is entrusted to a human being who remains accountable to the word of God. Monarchy can serve divine purposes, but it never becomes autonomous.

This theological tension becomes one of the book’s great bridges to biblical theology. Israel genuinely needs righteous rule, and yet the institution of kingship repeatedly reveals how difficult righteous human rule is. The book does not solve that tension by abolishing kingship. It intensifies the expectation that the king Israel ultimately needs must be unlike the rulers who repeatedly fail.

Let Prophetic Authority Stand over Royal Authority

Samuel’s role in the emergence of monarchy is essential. He does not merely bless an institution that then becomes independent of him. Samuel designates Saul, confronts Saul, announces Saul’s rejection, and anoints David. Later Nathan stands before David after the death of Uriah, while Gad appears in David’s later reign. Prophetic authority accompanies kingship precisely so that royal power never becomes self-validating.

Campbell is helpful when he describes the prophetic role as extending beyond the appointment of kings to authority over the conscience of the king. Saul can possess military command and popular legitimacy, but Samuel can tell him that his dynasty will not continue. David can command Joab and manipulate military deployment, but Nathan can enter the royal world and expose the moral reality that the king has hidden successfully from everyone else.

This gives the preacher a richer theology than generic “accountability.” Samuel is not merely advocating that powerful people should have wise advisers. The prophetic word represents an authority the king cannot generate for himself. Political success, popularity, military victory, and institutional strength do not determine whether a king is faithful.

The canonical movement is therefore toward a kingship permanently under God’s word rather than a ruler who merely consults religious opinion when convenient. That becomes important when the sermon eventually reaches Christ: Jesus is not simply a more competent David but the king whose relation to God’s will is fundamentally unlike the repeated conflict between royal desire and divine command in Samuel.

The Ark Narratives Preach the Freedom of God’s Presence

The ark narrative in 1 Samuel 4–7 is frequently mishandled because it is read principally as a warning against superstition. That lesson is present, but the theology is larger. Israel assumes that bringing the ark into battle will make YHWH available as a weapon. The Philistines respond similarly, interpreting the ark as the arrival of Israel’s powerful deity on the battlefield. Israel loses, the ark is captured, Eli’s household collapses, and the glory appears to depart.

Yet what follows demonstrates that YHWH does not need Israel to rescue him. Dagon falls, Philistine cities suffer, and the ark returns while Israel contributes virtually nothing to the process. The supposed captive turns out to be the free actor. Divine presence cannot be manipulated by possession of a sacred object, but neither can enemy possession of that object imprison God.

This theme should be carried forward to 2 Samuel 6. When David finally brings the ark to Jerusalem, Uzzah’s death again prevents Israel from treating divine presence as manageable. David’s political capital may become the national and liturgical centre, but YHWH does not become the king’s religious possession.

The pulpit application should therefore go beyond condemning obvious superstition. Churches too can assume that correct institutions, inherited traditions, buildings, liturgies, theological labels, or visible religious success guarantee divine favour. Samuel’s ark narratives insist that God freely chooses to dwell among his people but cannot be reduced to something they control.

Preach Saul as Tragedy, Not as a Villain with a Diagnostic Label

Saul should be preached with more sympathy and more theological seriousness than he often receives. He is genuinely chosen, genuinely empowered, genuinely capable of courage and generosity, and initially able to exercise restraint toward opponents. Yet his relationship with Samuel, YHWH’s word, David, public opinion, and his own kingship deteriorates progressively until he seeks guidance at Endor and dies on Mount Gilboa.

The preacher should resist transforming Saul into a psychological case study. The narrative gives us fear, jealousy, anger, religious impulsiveness, insecurity, disobedience, and increasingly desperate attempts to retain the throne, but its theological interest lies in how the king responds to God’s word and what happens when preservation of power becomes more important than obedient kingship. Modern psychiatric labels add little and can distort the text.

Campbell’s treatment is useful precisely because it exposes how uncomfortable Saul’s rejection can be. He thinks the judgment in 1 Samuel 13 is extraordinarily harsh and allows his compositional reconstruction to explain part of that difficulty. I would not simply adopt his conclusion, because the final narrative intends Saul’s failure to matter. Yet the discomfort is worth preserving. Preaching should not make Saul so obviously bad that the tragedy disappears.

David later makes this even more complicated. If Saul is rejected simply because bad kings sin while David is chosen because good kings do not, 2 Samuel destroys the explanation. David’s treatment of Bathsheba and Uriah is morally more disturbing than many of Saul’s actions. The distinction therefore has to be sought more deeply in the narrative’s theology of divine choice, response to prophetic word, repentance, promise, and kingship.

David and Goliath Is about YHWH’s Kingship before It Is about Your Giants

Few biblical stories have suffered more from inspirational preaching than 1 Samuel 17. The story is regularly converted into a metaphor in which every Christian is David and every difficulty is Goliath. This works rhetorically but bypasses the narrative’s location within Samuel.

David is the newly anointed future king entering a conflict Saul, the current king, should represent Israel in confronting. Goliath’s challenge concerns Israel, Israel’s God, and the visible logic of military strength. David’s conviction is not that a sufficiently courageous individual can defeat enormous obstacles, but that the battle belongs to YHWH and that the Philistine has misjudged the God of Israel.

The story therefore advances the crossing trajectories of Saul and David. Saul looks like the warrior king Israel requested; David is the unlikely anointed figure through whom YHWH provides the deliverance Saul’s appearance promised. Hannah’s theology of reversal is still operating.

Christian preaching can eventually move toward the greater anointed king who accomplishes the victory God’s people cannot accomplish for themselves. That is considerably stronger than encouraging listeners to become David. The congregation is first invited to belong among the people who receive a deliverance they could not produce, and only subsequently to ask what faithful courage looks like in the light of that deliverance.

Preach David’s Rise as Providence without Pretending Politics Is Absent

One of Samuel’s most subtle theological achievements is the way David’s rise can be attributed to YHWH without requiring constant spectacular intervention. David becomes successful through military ability, popular support, Jonathan’s loyalty, Michal’s action, Abigail’s wisdom, Saul’s decisions, Philistine circumstances, the deaths of rivals, negotiations, tribal politics, Abner, Joab, and David’s own strategic judgment.

This is where Goldingay’s second major paradox becomes particularly helpful: events involve YHWH’s activity and human initiative simultaneously. The preacher should not feel required to choose between “God did it” and “David acted politically.” Samuel can affirm both. Divine providence is not another event competing with human causation inside the narrative.

Campbell makes the same intersection visible from a more critical direction. He recognizes that the traditions surrounding David’s rise repeatedly distinguish David from blameworthy bloodshed and can therefore be examined for possible apologetic or political functions. Those questions should not simply be dismissed. The narrative itself is intensely interested in David’s legitimacy and in how he acquires the throne.

The theological payoff is substantial. Providence need not mean that every person involved is righteous, every motivation pure, or every political act directly commanded by God. YHWH’s purpose can move through a history full of genuinely human intentions. That is a much more mature doctrine of providence than interpreting every favourable circumstance as a miraculous endorsement of the person who benefits.

Abigail Shows How a Secondary Character Can Interpret the Future King

Abigail in 1 Samuel 25 should not be preached merely as a model of tactful conflict management. She is one of the most theologically perceptive characters in the David story. David is on the verge of responding to Nabal’s insult with disproportionate violence, effectively seizing vengeance for himself, and Abigail stops him.

Her speech interprets David’s future in light of YHWH’s promise and reminds him that becoming king with needless bloodguilt upon his conscience would contradict the very destiny he has been given. She therefore does more than calm an angry man; she calls the anointed future king to behave in a manner appropriate to the kingship he has not yet received.

This creates an important bridge within Samuel. In the wilderness narratives David repeatedly refuses to take Saul’s life even when opportunity appears to make killing providentially convenient. Abigail reinforces that refusal to grasp the kingdom through wrongful bloodshed. Yet later, when David possesses secure royal power, the Bathsheba–Uriah story reveals how dramatically that restraint can collapse.

The preacher can therefore use Abigail not merely as a character study but as part of David’s larger moral trajectory. Some of the people with least formal power in Samuel understand God’s purposes more clearly than the men who possess armies and thrones.

Make 2 Samuel 7 the Theological Hinge without Making It the End of the Story

Nathan’s oracle in 2 Samuel 7 is rightly treated as one of the most important passages in the Old Testament. David proposes to build a house for YHWH, and YHWH reverses the initiative: David will not secure God’s future by building the divine house; God will build David a “house,” a dynasty. The promise gives Davidic kingship a significance far beyond David’s own reign and becomes foundational for later messianic expectation.

The preacher must allow the gracious asymmetry of the passage to stand. David has achieved much, but the dynasty is God’s gift. The promise is not a contractual wage earned by flawless royal performance. This becomes unmistakable because the very next major movement of Samuel reveals David at his morally worst.

That sequence is theologically essential. Second Samuel 7 does not give David moral immunity, while chapters 11–20 do not cancel chapter 7. Promise and judgment coexist. David’s house can remain the bearer of God’s promise while members of that house, including David himself, come under devastating moral scrutiny.

The canonical bridge to Christ should therefore begin with this unresolved tension. Israel needs the Davidic promise, but David’s own story demonstrates that the promise cannot reach its final form merely through another morally compromised descendant. Christian preaching should allow that expectation to grow before moving to the New Testament identification of Jesus as David’s son and king.

Preach 2 Samuel 11 as Abuse of Royal Power, Not Merely a Private Sexual Failure

The Bathsheba and Uriah narrative should not be preached principally as the story of a godly man who commits adultery and learns the danger of lust. Sexual desire is part of the episode, but the narrative’s architecture is about royal power. David sees, inquires, sends, takes, attempts to control the consequences, summons Uriah, manipulates circumstances, and finally deploys military authority to arrange a loyal man’s death.

The accumulation of royal verbs matters. David can do what others cannot because he is king. Nathan’s parable subsequently interprets the event through the image of a rich man taking the sole lamb of a poor man. The moral centre is therefore not only forbidden sexuality but the capacity of powerful desire to convert another person into something available for taking.

Goldingay’s recently attached study intensifies this reading by deliberately discussing this part of Samuel under the heading of David’s victims. That is important. A David-centred theology can become distorted if the only theological question is whether David is forgiven. Samuel is also interested in those who bear the consequences of what David has done.

The sermon should certainly proclaim grace and forgiveness, but grace must not become a device for rushing past Uriah, Bathsheba, the dead child, Tamar, Amnon, Absalom, and the subsequent household destruction. Forgiveness of the king does not mean that royal wrongdoing suddenly ceases to matter. The story’s consequences continue for chapters.

Let 2 Samuel 11–20 Form One Long Sermon-Theological Movement

Campbell’s recently attached 2 Samuel volume is particularly useful here. He argues that 2 Samuel 11–20 is better described as the Stories of David’s Middle Years than automatically labelled the Succession Narrative. Who will eventually occupy David’s throne certainly matters, but succession does not adequately explain what these chapters spend their narrative energy describing.

Campbell’s more illuminating proposal concerns modelling. David wants Bathsheba and takes her; David wants the problem removed and arranges Uriah’s death. That pattern then echoes through what follows. Amnon wants Tamar and takes her. Absalom wants Amnon removed and kills him. Absalom later reaches for the kingdom. Violent taking spreads from the king’s private action into his household and then into the public political world.

Nathan’s declaration that the sword will never depart from David’s house consequently becomes structurally important. Judgment is not merely an unrelated punishment God attaches to David’s sin. David has introduced into his household a pattern of using power to obtain what one desires, and the household repeatedly reproduces that logic.

A preacher should therefore be very cautious about dividing 2 Samuel 11–20 into disconnected character sermons. Bathsheba, Tamar, Amnon, Absalom, Joab, David’s flight, return, and Sheba all belong within an unfolding crisis. The sermon series should keep reminding listeners that David’s abuse of royal power has become a family and national catastrophe.

Give Tamar the Narrative Space the Text Gives Her

Second Samuel 13 is one of the passages most likely to be preached too quickly because the preacher wishes to reach Absalom’s revenge or the larger political story. Tamar must not become merely the narrative mechanism by which Amnon dies and Absalom becomes alienated from David.

The text allows Tamar to speak with extraordinary moral clarity. She knows what Amnon proposes, identifies it as disgraceful, appeals to him to stop, and is left devastated when power makes her resistance ineffective. David becomes angry but does not provide the justice the situation requires, and Absalom eventually supplies a violent substitute.

Theologically, this exposes another dimension of kingship. David’s failure is no longer simply that he once misused power personally. He now fails to use legitimate authority to address severe wrongdoing within his own house. The consequences of sin therefore appear not only in active abuse but in passive failures of justice.

Goldingay’s attention to Tamar, women, victims, and family helps prevent a theology of Samuel from becoming a theology only of kings and covenants. Christian proclamation should do the same. The promise to David matters immensely, but the God who gives that promise is not uninterested in those damaged within David’s house.

Absalom Exposes the Difference between Charisma, Popularity, and Righteous Rule

Absalom is unusually attractive as a political figure. He is physically impressive, knows how to cultivate public affection, identifies grievances, presents himself as accessible, and gradually “steals the hearts” of Israel. Samuel therefore gives us a sophisticated picture of political charisma without telling readers simply that charisma itself is evil.

The deeper problem is that Absalom’s apparent concern for justice becomes part of his strategy for acquiring power. The man who presents himself as the answer to failures in David’s administration eventually pursues a rebellion that reproduces another form of grasping. Samuel again refuses the easy choice between incompetent establishment and righteous challenger.

The preacher should resist turning this into a generic sermon about ambitious church leaders. The narrative belongs to the Davidic monarchy and to the specific consequences of David’s household crisis. Yet the theological principle travels legitimately: public appeal, rhetorical skill, and apparent responsiveness to grievances are not themselves evidence of faithful leadership.

David’s grief over Absalom then prevents the conflict from becoming merely political. The enemy is also his son. Samuel refuses to separate statecraft from family because David himself cannot separate them. That emotional and political entanglement is one reason these chapters remain so powerful.

Joab Shows Why Effective Service Is Not the Same as Faithful Service

Joab is one of Samuel’s most difficult characters to preach because he is extraordinarily useful to David. He wins battles, solves political problems, acts decisively when David hesitates, protects the kingdom in crises, and understands political realities that David sometimes seems unwilling to confront. Yet he also kills Abner, kills Absalom against David’s command, removes Amasa, and repeatedly uses violence as the solution to political complexity.

A simplistic character sermon cannot accommodate him. Joab is not merely wicked, because the stability of David’s kingdom often depends upon his competence. Nor is competence morally self-validating. His effectiveness continually raises the question of what kind of means may be used in service of a good political end.

This is fertile ground for theological preaching because Samuel repeatedly refuses to equate usefulness with righteousness. A person can advance the interests of the kingdom and remain morally troubling. The preacher can develop that distinction without pretending that every modern institution reproduces David’s monarchy.

Joab also deepens the Christological need created by Samuel. The problem is not merely finding a king with better intentions. The kingdom requires servants and rulers whose methods correspond to the righteousness of the kingdom itself.

Do Not End David’s Story with Absalom

Second Samuel 21–24 often feels like an appendix because the material is not arranged as a simple chronological continuation. Famine, Rizpah, battles, David’s song, his last words, lists of warriors, the census, plague, divine relenting, and the purchase of Araunah’s threshing floor appear together in a carefully constructed closing collection.

The preacher should therefore resist treating these chapters as leftover traditions after the “real story” finishes. They return the reader to major themes that have governed Samuel: kingship, violence, divine deliverance, judgment, the relationship between king and people, the suffering caused by rulers, prayer, sacrifice, and the possibility of mercy within judgment.

Second Samuel 24 is especially difficult. David’s census, YHWH’s anger, divine incitement, David’s guilt, the suffering of the people, prophetic mediation, David’s confession, YHWH’s relenting, and the altar at Araunah’s threshing floor produce a theological knot that should not be untied too quickly. Campbell is valuable precisely because he refuses to pretend that the problem is trivial, even though I would be more reluctant than he is to allow negative evaluation of the text’s God-language to become the interpretive endpoint.

The pulpit should let difficult theology remain difficult long enough for the congregation to see what is actually at stake. The narrative simultaneously takes David’s responsibility seriously, portrays divine judgment, shows the king identifying himself with the suffering of his people, and ends with sacrifice and mercy. That complexity is more faithful to Samuel than a quick formula about the danger of pride.

Move to Christ through Samuel’s Major Trajectories, Not by Allegorising Every Character

Samuel offers exceptionally rich Christian preaching, but the path to Christ should follow the book’s major theological trajectories. The first is anointed kingship. Saul is genuinely anointed and fails; David is genuinely chosen and becomes the bearer of promise but also fails grievously. Samuel therefore teaches Israel both to value God’s chosen king and to discover how inadequate every morally compromised human king remains.

The second trajectory is the Davidic promise of 2 Samuel 7. God commits himself to David’s house beyond David’s own lifetime. Later Scripture takes that promise forward, and the New Testament identifies Jesus within that Davidic expectation. The preacher does not need to invent typological correspondences in every detail because Samuel itself supplies a canonical road.

The third trajectory is prophetic word and royal obedience. Samuel and Nathan demonstrate that God’s king must live under God’s word. Jesus does not merely receive prophetic correction more successfully than Saul or David; the New Testament presents him as the obedient Son whose kingship perfectly expresses the will of the Father.

The fourth trajectory is Hannah’s theology of reversal. The God who raises the lowly, brings down human pride, and gives strength to his anointed creates a canonical pattern that resonates strongly with later biblical songs, including Mary’s Magnificat. The connection should arise from shared theology rather than treating Hannah merely as a disguised prediction of Mary.

The fifth is the problem of power and victims. Samuel repeatedly shows that even the best human monarchy can produce suffering because power remains in sinful hands. Christian proclamation reaches its deepest point not simply in announcing a stronger David but in proclaiming a king whose exercise of power is fundamentally self-giving rather than acquisitive.

A Possible Ten-Sermon Series on 1–2 Samuel

1. 1 Samuel 1–3 —

The God Who Raises the Lowly

Begin with Hannah rather than rushing toward Samuel’s call. Her anguish, prayer, vow, answered prayer, song, Eli’s fading household, and Samuel’s growing prophetic authority allow the congregation to see that Israel’s national transformation begins in a place of apparent human weakness. Hannah’s song should provide the theological grammar for the series: YHWH overturns human assessments of strength and ultimately gives strength to his anointed.

2. 1 Samuel 4–7 —

The God Who Cannot Be Carried as a Weapon

Preach the ark narrative as a sustained story rather than extracting Uzzah-like warnings before Uzzah even appears. Israel tries to use sacred presence instrumentally, the Philistines misunderstand the ark differently, Dagon falls, and YHWH vindicates himself without an Israelite army. The theological destination is divine freedom: God chooses to dwell with his people but cannot be manipulated by religious possession.

3. 1 Samuel 8–12 —

What Kind of King Can God’s People Have?

Allow the positive and negative traditions about monarchy to remain together. Israel’s request reflects problematic desire to resemble the nations, yet YHWH genuinely chooses and equips Saul. Samuel’s warning about what kings “take” should remain in the congregation’s memory because the verb becomes increasingly important as royal power develops. The sermon should establish monarchy as both potentially useful and permanently accountable to YHWH.

4. 1 Samuel 13–15 —

The King beneath the Word

Treat Saul’s rejection with enough patience that it remains tragic. Do not merely contrast a disobedient Saul with an obedient David who has not yet appeared fully. The controlling issue is kingship under prophetic word: royal urgency, military pressure, public opinion, and apparent political necessity cannot finally override obedience to YHWH. The complexity here should prepare the congregation for the fact that David’s later failures will be even harder to classify simplistically.

5. 1 Samuel 16–31 —

The Anointed King Who Refuses to Seize the Throne

Use David and Goliath, Jonathan, Michal, Abigail, the wilderness narratives, David among the Philistines, Saul at Endor, and Saul’s death as movements in one long crossing of destinies. David receives the promise but repeatedly has to wait rather than murder Saul to obtain it. Providence works through political reality rather than replacing it. The sermon series can show how faith means trusting divine promise without treating every apparent opportunity as divine permission.

6. 2 Samuel 1–7 —

God Builds the King’s House

Move from Saul’s death through civil conflict, David’s establishment, Jerusalem, the ark, and finally Nathan’s promise. David reaches the throne through a complicated mixture of providence, politics, loyalty, conflict, and military power, but 2 Samuel 7 insists that the future of the dynasty ultimately rests upon God’s initiative. The canonical trajectory toward messianic hope should begin here but not yet be completed.

7. 2 Samuel 8–12 —

When the King Begins to Take

Place David’s successful rule beside Bathsheba and Uriah. The contrast should be felt: the king celebrated for justice and equity becomes the powerful man in Nathan’s parable who takes what belongs to another. The sermon should interpret sexual sin within the larger abuse of royal power while allowing repentance and forgiveness to remain real without making the victims disappear.

8. 2 Samuel 13–14 —

The Sin of the House Becomes the Suffering of the House

Tamar, Amnon, Absalom, and David should be preached as the beginning of the extended consequences Nathan announced. Tamar’s voice deserves substantial attention because she articulates the moral horror of what occurs while those with greater institutional power fail to stop or redress it. David’s previous taking now becomes part of a household culture in which desire, passivity, vengeance, and violence reproduce themselves.

9. 2 Samuel 15–20 —

The Sword in the Kingdom

Absalom’s political rise, David’s flight, competing counsellors, Joab, Absalom’s death, David’s grief, return, and Sheba’s rebellion should be allowed to form one movement. The story explores the fragility of political legitimacy and the way household failure becomes national crisis. The congregation should see that Nathan’s judgment has moved from David’s bedroom and battlefield into the kingdom itself.

10. 2 Samuel 21–24 —

The King, the People, Judgment, and Mercy

Finish the series with Samuel’s actual ending rather than with Absalom. The final collection revisits violence, covenant obligation, deliverance, royal responsibility, judgment, prayer, sacrifice, and mercy. David’s song and last words coexist with unresolved moral complexity, while the census narrative prevents triumphalism. The canonical bridge then points beyond David toward the king who can bear God’s promise without reproducing David’s failures.

The Resources That Best Help Make the Bridge

V. Philips Long —

1 & 2 Samuel

(Tyndale Old Testament Commentary)

Long is my first resource for establishing the overall exegetical and historiographical control of a sermon. He consistently refuses the false choice between reading Samuel as straightforward modern history and reading it merely as literary construction. Narrative artistry, theological interpretation, historical reference, and remembered political experience can coexist, and Long is unusually good at showing how those categories interact without allowing one to swallow the others.

For preaching, this protects against both naïveté and scepticism. The preacher does not need to treat every private conversation as though an ancient stenographer recorded it, but neither must literary shaping become a reason to distance proclamation from the events Samuel claims to interpret. Long also handles Saul, David, monarchy, providence, and the book’s moral ambiguities with enough restraint that he rarely forces the preacher toward a predetermined theological formula.

His compactness is an additional advantage in weekly preparation. When Firth or Tsumura becomes technically dense, Long often identifies the real decision efficiently and allows the preacher to return to the biblical text. I would normally begin with him, use a larger commentary for questions he cannot treat fully, and then move toward Davis, Woodhouse, Goldingay, or another expositional resource.

David G. Firth —

1 & 2 Samuel

(Apollos Old Testament Commentary)

Firth is one of the strongest resources for the close exegetical stage of sermon preparation. His attention to the final literary form, Hebrew, characterization, repeated patterns, structure, and narrative relationships makes him especially valuable in Samuel, where the meaning of an episode often depends as much on placement as on individual vocabulary. He knows the critical scholarship but does not allow hypothetical reconstruction to become the primary text being preached.

This matters enormously in the Saul–David narratives. Repetition, contrast, speeches, narrative gaps, opportunities to kill Saul, relationships with Jonathan and Michal, Abigail’s intervention, and David’s time among the Philistines all contribute to characterization cumulatively. Firth gives enough attention to those connections that a sermon can arise from what the narrator is doing rather than from a character trait imported by the preacher.

He is similarly strong in 2 Samuel, where the relationship between promise, David’s establishment, Bathsheba, Tamar, Absalom, Joab, and the concluding chapters requires sustained literary attention. His applications are comparatively restrained, which is useful: Firth helps establish what the passage means before the preacher asks how it should be proclaimed. I would therefore use him before more explicitly homiletical interpreters.

David Toshio Tsumura —

The First Book of Samuel

and

The Second Book of Samuel

(NICOT)

Tsumura is the resource to open when the sermon depends upon what the Hebrew actually says. Samuel’s textual tradition is unusually difficult, and generations of commentators have emended difficult expressions readily. Tsumura repeatedly demonstrates that difficult Hebrew is not automatically corrupt Hebrew, using grammar, semantics, discourse analysis, comparative Semitic evidence, and careful attention to the Masoretic Text before adopting a reconstruction.

For preaching, that technical work matters more than may initially appear. A sermon can easily become dependent upon a striking interpretation of an ambiguous phrase, a narrative connection created by one translation, or an emendation inherited uncritically from a commentary. Tsumura provides a valuable check against building theological significance upon insecure textual ground.

He should not normally be the final resource before the pulpit because his technical strengths can leave the larger homiletical question relatively undeveloped. That is why the combination with Long, Firth, Davis, or Goldingay works so well. Tsumura helps establish the wording; the other interpreters help establish what the wording does within Samuel’s narrative and theology.

Dale Ralph Davis —

1 Samuel: Looking on the Heart

and

2 Samuel: Out of Every Adversity

Davis is one of the best resources for learning how narrative observation becomes theological exposition. He notices what preachers routinely miss: repeated phrases, subtle irony, strange sequencing, changes in pace, dialogue, silences, reversals, and details that appear unnecessary until their literary function becomes visible. That makes his books especially valuable after the technical work has been done.

His exposition also resists the worst forms of character moralism. David can model trust without becoming a flawless hero; Saul can become tragic rather than merely wicked; Abigail can function as a theological interpreter of David’s future; and David’s later failures can be preached with genuine moral gravity while the promise of God remains intact. Davis’s theological instincts are usually strongest when they remain closely tethered to these literary observations.

Pastors should still verify important textual and historical claims elsewhere, particularly in difficult passages. Davis is not trying to perform Tsumura’s or McCarter’s task. His contribution begins at the stage where the preacher has established the passage and needs to see how its narrative form carries theology. Few Samuel commentaries are more fertile at that stage.

John Woodhouse —

1 Samuel

and

2 Samuel

(Preaching the Word)

Woodhouse is especially useful at the biblical-theological and explicitly Christian stage. His large two-volume exposition shows how an extended sermon series can read Samuel as Christian Scripture without making every incident into an allegory. The development from Saul to David, the significance of anointing, Davidic promise, royal failure, and the need for a righteous king provide his principal canonical pathways.

His strongest contribution is demonstrating that Christological preaching should arise from the inadequacy as well as the genuine significance of David. David’s faithful moments point toward what a good king should be; his grievous failures demonstrate that even the promised dynasty requires something beyond ordinary fallen kingship. The movement to Christ therefore becomes an answer to questions Samuel itself creates.

At times I would move more slowly than Woodhouse and allow the immediate Old Testament horizon greater space before making the canonical connection. Used alongside Firth or Long, however, this is not a serious weakness. Woodhouse remains one of the best models available for pastors asking how a historically and literarily responsible sermon on Samuel can become recognisably Christian without becoming artificially christocentric.

John Goldingay —

The Theology of the Book of Samuel

Goldingay is the most important newly attached resource for the biblical-theological bridge. His book is organised broadly through the narrative rather than as a detached catalogue of doctrines, so theology develops as Samuel develops. The three paradoxes he identifies are especially valuable for preaching: YHWH is ambivalent about monarchy; divine action and human initiative operate together; and both Saul and David remain morally and religiously ambiguous even though God chooses them.

Those categories prevent several common sermonic distortions. Monarchy cannot be reduced either to sinful rebellion or to uncomplicated divine institution. Providence cannot be used to erase David’s political intelligence or the genuine agency of other characters. Election cannot be equated with divine approval of everything an elected figure does. These distinctions are invaluable in a book where the preacher is constantly tempted to turn theological affirmation into moral endorsement.

Goldingay’s attention to family, prayer, worship, women, victims, love, ambition, war, loss, and politics is equally important. His later treatment explicitly moves from YHWH establishing David to YHWH watching David, from dynasty and sanctuary to victims, wrongdoing, and the sword that does not depart. That helps the preacher resist a Davidic theology interested only in covenant promise while neglecting those damaged by Davidic power.

I would use Goldingay after the main exegesis and before the final sermon outline. He will not resolve the textual problems Tsumura resolves or supply the close literary detail Firth provides. His gift is asking what kind of theological world emerges when the narratives are allowed to remain as complicated as Samuel makes them.

Antony F. Campbell —

1 Samuel

and

2 Samuel

(Forms of the Old Testament Literature)

Campbell is the most important newly attached resource for literary structure and compositional self-awareness. His method deliberately holds the present text and its possible developmental history together. Rather than atomising Samuel into hypothetical fragments, he works with substantial literary units, examining structure, genre, setting, and meaning while still asking how earlier traditions may have been shaped into the text readers now possess.

For preaching, his most helpful contribution may simply be the insistence that one should identify what kind of narrative unit is actually being preached before extracting its theological claim. Samuel is full of stories embedded within larger stories, and individual scenes can easily be misunderstood when detached from their literary sequence. Campbell’s structural analyses repeatedly force the interpreter to return to the biblical text and ask what the unit is doing as a whole.

His treatment of 2 Samuel 11–20 is particularly valuable. Replacing the traditional “Succession Narrative” label with Stories of David’s Middle Years allows the content itself to determine the interpretive question. His observation that David’s behaviour in chapters 11–12 becomes a model reproduced in later acts of taking and killing provides a powerful way to preach the cascading consequences of royal wrongdoing without reducing the chapters to a mechanical punishment scheme.

Campbell also provides a useful critical conversation partner precisely where I would not always follow him. His judgments concerning Saul’s rejection and the theology of 2 Samuel 24 can become sharper than I think the final canonical narrative warrants. Those disagreements are productive, however, because they force the preacher to confront genuine tensions instead of hiding them beneath harmonisation. He is best used beside Long, Firth, or Tsumura rather than alone.

Robert B. Chisholm Jr. —

1 & 2 Samuel

(Teach the Text Commentary Series)

Chisholm is especially useful when the preacher needs to move from extensive study toward a clear theological proposition. His long engagement with the Former Prophets enables him to identify the narrative’s major theological claims efficiently, and the Teach the Text format pushes the interpreter to distinguish central message from interesting but secondary detail.

That discipline is valuable in Samuel because the stories are so narratively rich that a sermon can become a collection of observations without a controlling claim. Chisholm helps the preacher ask what the passage reveals about YHWH, kingship, prophetic authority, providence, human responsibility, or covenant rather than merely retelling the episode with commentary inserted.

The format naturally compresses textual and scholarly detail, so Chisholm should not replace Firth, Long, or Tsumura at the exegetical stage. His strength comes later. After the hard interpretive questions have been examined, he is one of the books most likely to help the preacher decide what needs to be said from the pulpit and what can remain in the study.

What to Avoid in the Pulpit

The first danger is hero-and-villain moralism. Hannah is not merely persistent, Samuel attentive, Saul bad, Jonathan loyal, Abigail wise, and David courageous. Those observations can all contain truth, but Samuel’s theological concern is larger than assembling virtues and vices. The preacher should continually ask what the character reveals about YHWH, kingship, power, promise, or the human response to God’s word.

The second danger is leadership reductionism. Samuel certainly says much about leadership, and Sweeney’s recent commentary rightly demonstrates how politically sophisticated the book is. Yet David is not the CEO of a disguised modern organisation, Saul is not a case study in management failure, and Joab is not merely a difficult employee. Their roles belong to Israel’s monarchy, covenant, prophetic authority, and Davidic promise.

The third danger is sanitising David. The desire to preserve the canonical importance of David can tempt Christian interpreters to soften the moral force of Bathsheba, Uriah, Tamar, Absalom, and the later narratives. Samuel itself does not protect David in that way. Divine election and covenant promise remain real while the consequences of his actions remain devastatingly real.

The fourth danger is making Saul psychologically simple. The preacher should not diagnose him from a distance or convert every disturbing feature of his story into evidence for a modern clinical category. Samuel gives enough material for a serious theology of fear, obedience, kingship, jealousy, prophetic rejection, and the desperation of losing divine guidance without importing diagnostic claims the text does not make.

The fifth danger is premature Christology. David and Goliath should not reach Jesus before David has first functioned as the anointed future king within 1 Samuel. Second Samuel 7 should not be rushed through as a direct prediction of Jesus before the promise to David has been heard within the monarchy. Abigail, Jonathan, Samuel, and the ark do not need to become secret representations of Christ in order for the sermon eventually to become Christian.

The sixth danger is using providence to baptize success. David’s rise occurs within God’s purpose, but Samuel does not thereby teach that whoever successfully acquires power has divine endorsement. Indeed, much of the book exists precisely to distinguish providential outcome from moral evaluation. The preacher must be especially careful when applying these narratives to contemporary institutional or political success.

The seventh danger is ignoring the people who bear the cost of power. Bathsheba, Uriah, Tamar, Rizpah, Michal, the families affected by war, and the people suffering under royal decisions are not peripheral to the theology simply because the Davidic covenant receives more explicit doctrinal attention. Goldingay’s emphasis on David’s victims is a valuable correction here.

The eighth danger is flattening difficult divine action. The ark stories, Saul’s rejection, the harmful spirit in Saul’s story, divine judgment, and 2 Samuel 24 contain genuine theological difficulty. A sermon does not become more faithful by pretending that each problem disappears after one explanatory sentence. Sometimes responsible preaching must show the congregation why a passage is difficult before proposing how it belongs within the larger theology of Scripture.

From Exegesis to Biblical Theology to the Pulpit

The movement can therefore be stated simply. Exegesis asks what the narrative is actually doing. It examines Hebrew and textual variants where necessary, identifies the literary unit, follows characterization and repetition, respects historical setting, and notices where speeches, silences, reversals, and narrative placement create meaning. The preacher should know why this story is here before asking how to apply it.

Biblical theology then asks how the passage participates in Samuel’s larger themes. Hannah belongs to reversal and the emergence of kingship; the ark to divine presence and freedom; Saul to monarchy under prophetic word; David’s rise to providence and anointing; 2 Samuel 7 to covenant and Davidic promise; chapters 11–20 to royal power, sin, victims, judgment, and the sword within David’s house. Those themes then connect Samuel to Judges before it, Kings after it, the Psalms, prophetic hopes for Davidic restoration, and finally the New Testament.

The pulpit can then proclaim the God who raises the lowly, refuses to be manipulated, rules through and above human institutions, speaks a word kings cannot domesticate, carries promises through morally complicated history, judges the abuse of power, hears prayer, sees victims, disciplines the king he has chosen, and refuses to abandon his purpose even when the human bearer of that purpose fails.

Christian preaching finally reaches Christ because Samuel leaves its own questions unresolved. Israel needs an anointed king, but Saul fails. David is chosen and receives the promise, but David fails. David’s house continues, but the behaviour of David’s house shows why mere hereditary continuation cannot be the final answer. The canonical story therefore generates expectation for a Davidic king whose obedience does not collapse under power, whose reign establishes justice rather than producing victims, whose relation to God’s word is perfect, and whose kingship can finally bear the weight of the promise given to David.

That is a stronger bridge from Samuel to Christ than turning every battle, friendship, stone, shepherd image, or victory into direct typology. It allows Samuel to remain Samuel all the way to the point where its own theology opens naturally into the larger biblical story.