History Literature / BooksOfSamuel

* ArtifactTitle: Samuel only played a significant role in the beginning of the first book, then died in the middle and is not mentioned in the second. Those books focus more on King David.

The second book tells of the kingship of David, Israel's greatest king and (in the Christian tradition) ancestor of Jesus.

* BrotherSisterIncest: Actually, ''half-brother'' and ''half-sister'', but Amnon's rape of Tamar qualifies. The attraction between them was only one way, as Amnon was more interested in Tamar than she was in him. Tamar tries to reason with Amnon by telling him to speak to King David about giving her to him as a wife, hoping that what he intended to do to her wouldn't happen, but Amnon was too much in the heat of passion to even care.

* BuryYourDisabled: Inverted by Mephibosheth, who is the [[LastOfHisKind only member of the House of Saul]] to survive David’s reign and continue the family line. Likely a case of DisabilityImmunity, as Mephibosheth’s lameness prevented him from fighting in the civil war and thus avoiding David’s wrath.

* MurderTheHypotenuse: The result of David's UriahGambit was his marriage to Bathsheba, whom he had inadvertently knocked up.

** King Saul is chastised by Samuel because he had spared only one Amalekite, King Agag (whom Saul viewed as a strategically valuable hostage), as well as the sheep and cattle. God had commanded Saul to kill them all. For this, God officially rejected Saul as king of Israel, to be replaced with David.

* AmuletOfConcentratedAwesome: The ark of God is treated as this in these books. In 1st Samuel, when the Israelites were first defeated by the Philistines, they realize that if they could carry the ark of God into battle, God would have to fight for them and wipe out their enemies. As it turns out, though, God not only lets the Israelites be defeated by the Philistines again, He also allows the ark to be taken into Philistine territory, where it causes trouble among their people until they decide to have it be brought back to the Israelites by putting it on a cart driven by oxen alongside a trespass offering and have the oxen take it away.

* UnequalRites: King Saul consults a Witch at Endor on the night before a crucial battle, to G-d's great displeasure. She summons up the soul of a deceased Prophet of Israel who passes on the displeasure of G-d that His anointed King of Israel so lacks faith that he is doing something accursed in the divine eye - consulting a Witch and using magic to contact the dead. It isn't so much recalling the soul of the deceased prophet Samuel back from Heaven to answer Saul's questions about the next day's battle with the Philistines - it is implied Samuel has been sent with God's permission to pass on the divine message. The sin is that Saul has used a Witch as his intermediary. [[note]]King Saul was previously tasked by God with driving all witches and practitioners of magic out of Israel; he has also clearly failed in, and gone back on, his promise to God to purge the land of Israel of witches[[/note]]

* MysticalPregnancy: Hannah, because she was so upset about not being able to bear children to her husband Elkanah and being teased by her sister wife Penninah because of that, prayed to the Lord for a son. The Lord granted her conception, and thus Hannah gave birth to her first son named Samuel, whom she gave to the Lord as part of her vow.

* {{Necromancy}}: The Witch of Endor is ([[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane apparently]]) able to bring up the spirit of Samuel from the dead. Samuel is annoyed at being disturbed, and prophesies correctly that Saul will lose in battle the next day, and that Saul and his sons will join Samuel in the place of the dead.

* OurGiantsAreBigger: The Rephaim, including Goliath. David and friends make a name for themselves by killing a few of these in battle.

* PrefersRawMeat: In 1st Samuel chapter 2, the priests serving the Temple would have their servant demand those who were offering sacrifices to God to give the priests raw meat, although the real reason is that the priests prefer to eat roasted meat instead of boiled meat.
* PsychoSidekick: Joab respects David (at least, up until the end of his life) and seems to have some kind of respect for God (or at least, a fairly deep understanding of the scriptures for a military man), but he clearly doesn't believe that either have any authority over him. He will do what he thinks is necessary, including killing people he thinks deserves it. He's so good at his job that David can't do anything about it. He gets Solomon to promise to do it after David dies, and Solomon does.

** Eli is chastised by a prophet of God for not taking strong measures against his sons Hophni and Phinehas for abusing their positions as priests before God -- the most that Eli did was warn them, and that was it -- and for that, not only did Eli lose both his sons in one day, but also his family line was cursed.

* ThePurge: Saul's mission was to completely wipe out the Amalekites. Unfortunately he failed, keeping Agag alive as a prisoner and a trophy that was later hacked to death by Samuel. It is assumed that there was at least one other survivor, as King Ahasuerus' adviser Haman from the Literature/{{book of Esther}} was said to be the descendant of Agag (and quite possibly [[LastOfHisKind the last Amalekite still living at the time]]).
* PutOnABus: After Michal criticizes David’s dancing, the text says she had no children. (Although, probably because of a copyist error or something, it says later on that she bore five children to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite.) That is the Biblical version of this trope.

** The same goes for Absalom and David’s concubines. He publicly has sex with them as a way of demonstrate he has replaced David as king. Left unsaid is whether these women wanted to have sex with him.

* RhetoricalRequestBlunder: As recorded in 2nd Samuel chapter 23 (and also in 1st Chronicles chapter 11), David was in the stronghold in the cave of Adullam while the Philistine garrison was in Bethlehem, and remarks apparently to himself that he misses drinking water from his hometown well. In this case the desire is genuine but he doesn't expect it to actually happen. But one of his best warriors overheard, gathered a few other mighty men together, and broke through enemy lines to bring back Bethlehem well water, and the King was appalled that anyone would actually risk his life for that.

* RoyalBrat: The sons of Eli, Samuel, and most of David’s all fall into this category. The people of Israel actually hoped to avoid this trope [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor by asking for a king]]. They saw the poor quality of Eli and Samuel’s sons are, and hoped having a king would fix the problem. And in fact, Israel’s first crown prince, Jonathan, completely averted this trope. If anything, Jonathan and Saul inverted this trope, with Jonathan being TheWisePrince and Saul being a more immature king. With David’s sons, though, it is played completely straight.

* SenselessSacrifice: In 2nd Samuel chapter 18, when David was in hiding and had mustered up an army of his faithful followers to fight against Absalom's army of followers, David said that he would go out and fight with his army. His army, however, refuses to let him do so, telling David to the effect that his life means much more to the people of Israel than the lives of his followers, and that losing him would mean a much greater loss than that of his followers, and so David acquiesces and stays behind in protective custody.
* ShamefulStrip: In 2nd Samuel chapter 10, King Hanun of Ammon decided to embarrass King David's team of delegates by sending them back to their master with their garments cut off showing their buttocks, as well as half their beards forcibly shaven.

* SinisterMinister: Eli's sons Hophni and Phinehas, who not only took from the sacrifices the portions that were meant for God, but also slept with the women that assembled at the door of the Tent of Meeting. This was considered wicked in Eli's eyes, but God also held Eli responsible for not taking strong measures against his sons for their abuse of power.

** Inverted with Eli and his sons. Eli himself seems to have been a faithful priest and judge, and he tried to warn his sons about God’s wrath. But they ignored him, and God extends his wrath to Eli’s entire line, because Eli did not fully discipline his sons.
* SlainInTheirSleep: Ishbosheth was slain by two men while he was resting in his house, with his head cut off and brought to David, hoping to expect an reward, which turned out to be death for both of them.

* SleepingWithTheBosssWife: Abner son of Ner is accused by King Saul's son Ishbosheth of sleeping with his father's concubine, which makes Abner so upset over the accusation that he decides that he would no longer support Ishbosheth and instead hand over the rest of the nation of Israel to David to reign as king over.

* SpookySeance: King Saul, after God ignores his inquiries as to how to defeat the Philistines, turns in desperation to a medium (or "witch") in Endor and asks her to raise Samuel's spirit. (The irony was that Saul had previously cracked down on all necromancy within the Kingdom of Israel.) The medium, though [[PaperThinDisguise recognizing Saul despite his disguise]] and suspecting entrapment, complies, and Samuel's spirit appears as an elderly man in a robe, none too pleased to be woken from his eternal rest. He curtly tells Saul that the next day he and his sons will die in battle, and sure enough, guess what happens.

** Before that, King Saul offered (presumably) his eldest daughter Merab in marriage to the one who would defeat Goliath the giant in man-to-man combat, in addition to giving his family exemption from taxes and great wealth. David succeeded in the challenge, but refused to marry Merab, and she was given over to someone else.
* StopWorshippingMe: In 1st Samuel chapter 15, when King Saul doesn't fully obey the Lord's command to fully wipe out the Amalekites and all they have, instead sparing King Agag and the best animals they have for sacrifice, Samuel tells Saul that the Lord would rather have obedience instead of sacrifice. This doesn't stop Saul from worshiping the Lord when he realizes that the kingdom of Israel would be torn away from his grasp and instead be given to another by the decree of God, but things really go downhill for Saul from there.

** Saul sees Jonathan as this, since Jonathan cares more about his friendship with David than the throne; but being the suck-sessor to a terrible king is hardly a bad thing.

* ThouShaltNotKill: David was perfectly comfortable killing many people, but not Saul, since Saul was [[DivineRightOfKings the Lord’s anointed]]. David passed up several opportunities to kill Saul, and later executed the man who claimed to have given Saul a MercyKill.

** Elkanah loved Hannah more than his other wife Penninah, despite being able to bear children for him. In return, Penninah routinely mocked Hannah, who had no children, until she got upset and wouldn't eat.

** 2 Samuel opens with an Amalekite bringing the account of Saul's death to David; the man claims he performed a MercyKill on Saul. However, the end of 1 Samuel reveals that the Amalekite is lying; Saul was actually DrivenToSuicide. Presumably the Amalekite hoped to get credit for Saul's death; this [[GoneHorriblyRight went horribly right for him]] when David decided killing "the Lord's anointed" [[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves warranted the death penalty]].

* UnusualEuphemism: Many English translations have Saul swear at Jonathan along the lines of, "You son of a ''[[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch perverse and rebellious woman]]''!" There is indeed a [[SonOfAWhore closer English equivalent]] to the Hebrew original, but apparently most translators prefer to use an [[TactfulTranslation equally accurate but not so precise translation]] ("perverse and rebellious" is a very literal translation of the exact words) for Literature/TheBible. (''The Living Bible'' is a notable exception.)

** Samuel chews out Saul for burning an offering without waiting for him to arrive to Gilgal and later for sparing King Agag and the cattle and sheep when God commanded him to kill all Amalekites.

* WhoWillBellTheCat: In 1st Samuel chapter 17, the Israelites are faced with the situation of who's going to take on Goliath's challenge of facing him man-to-man in combat, with King Saul promising a reward to the man who would succeed in defeating the giant. Enter a 17-year-old shepherd boy named David, armed with only a sling, a few stones, and faith in God that he can take down the giant just as he took down a bear and a lion. David's overwhelming victory against Goliath astounded even King Saul, who was wondering whose son he was of the families of Israel.