Samuel was a prophet and judge who led Israel as it began to have kings. He delivered God’s words, judged the people’s affairs, and anointed both Saul and David. His story begins with his mother Hannah’s prayer. Her husband Elkanah had another wife, Peninnah, who had children and repeatedly provoked Hannah because she had none.
When the family traveled to Shiloh each year to offer sacrifices, Hannah wept and could not eat. She asked God for a son, vowing to give him to God for life and never put a razor to his head. Eli the priest saw her lips move without hearing her voice and assumed she was drunk. Hannah explained that she had not been drinking but was pouring out her sorrow before God. Eli wished for her prayer to be answered.
Hannah gave birth to a son and named him Samuel. The account connects his name with her request to God. She raised him at home until he was weaned, then brought him to Eli at Shiloh. She explained that she had prayed for this child and was giving him to God for life, as she had vowed.
Samuel grew up serving God beside Eli. Each year, when Hannah and Elkanah came to offer sacrifices, she brought her son a small robe she had made. She later had three more sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, Eli’s sons Hophni and Phinehas abused the offerings and slept with women serving at the entrance to the tent of meeting. They refused to listen when their father rebuked them.
One night, while Samuel lay in the sanctuary where God’s ark was kept, he heard his name called. He ran to Eli, thinking the priest had called him. Eli said he had not and sent him back to bed. After the third call, Eli understood that God was calling the boy and taught him to answer that he was listening.
When Samuel answered, God gave him a message of judgment against Eli’s household. Eli had known about his sons’ wrongdoing without restraining them. In the morning, Samuel was afraid to report what he had heard. When Eli demanded that he hide nothing, Samuel told him everything. God remained with Samuel and let his words be fulfilled; all Israel recognized him as a prophet.
After Israel lost a battle against the Philistines, its elders brought the ark of the covenant from Shiloh, expecting it to save them. Israel lost the next battle as well. Thirty thousand foot soldiers died, Hophni and Phinehas were killed, and the ark was captured. When Eli heard about the ark, he fell backward from his seat, broke his neck, and died.
Disaster struck the Philistine towns to which the ark was taken. The Philistines sent it back, and it eventually came to Kiriath Jearim in Israel. Chapter 7 reports that twenty years passed with the ark there. Samuel urged the people to put away other gods, direct their hearts to God, and serve him alone.
The people gathered at Mizpah to fast and confess their sin. When the Philistines approached, they begged Samuel not to stop praying for them. Samuel offered a lamb as a burnt offering and cried out to God. God’s thunder threw the Philistines into confusion, and Israel pursued them. Samuel raised a stone, naming it Ebenezer to mark that God had helped them to that point.
Samuel judged Israel throughout his life. Each year he traveled through Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah to judge the people’s affairs. He returned to his home in Ramah, where he also judged and built an altar to God. His work as a judge and his role as a prophet appear together in the account.
When Samuel grew old, he made his sons Joel and Abijah judges in Beersheba. They accepted bribes and distorted justice. The elders pointed to Samuel’s age and his sons’ conduct and asked for a king like those of other nations. Samuel was displeased and prayed. God told him that the people had rejected God as their king, rather than rejecting Samuel.
Samuel warned that a king would take their sons for war and labor, their daughters for service, and their best fields, livestock, and produce. He also warned that God would not answer when they cried out because of the king they had chosen. They still wanted a king to rule them and lead them in battle. God instructed Samuel to listen to them and establish a king.
Saul of Benjamin came to Samuel while searching for his father’s lost donkeys. The previous day, God had told Samuel that a man would arrive whom he should anoint as Israel’s leader. Samuel gave Saul the place of honor at a meal. The next morning, he poured oil on Saul’s head and described the people and signs he would encounter.
Samuel later assembled the people at Mizpah. The selection proceeded by tribe and family until Saul was chosen, but he was hiding among the baggage. After people brought him out, Samuel presented him to Israel. He explained the regulations of kingship, wrote them in a book, and placed it before God. Following Saul’s victory over Ammon, Samuel and the people renewed the kingship at Gilgal.
Samuel asked whether he had taken anyone’s ox or donkey, cheated or oppressed anyone, or accepted a bribe. The people said he had not. He told them that both they and their king must follow God without rebelling against his command. To show the wrong in their demand for a king, Samuel prayed during the wheat harvest, and thunder and rain came that day.
The frightened people asked him to pray that they would not die. Samuel told them that, although they had done wrong, they should not turn away from God but serve him wholeheartedly. He would continue praying for them and teaching them the right way. He also warned that if they kept doing evil, both they and their king would perish.
Before fighting the Philistines, Saul waited at Gilgal for seven days as Samuel had instructed. Samuel had not yet arrived, and the people began scattering. Saul offered the burnt offering himself. As soon as he finished, Samuel arrived. Saul explained that the people were leaving and the enemy was gathering, so he had felt compelled to act. Samuel told him that his kingdom would not continue because he had failed to keep God’s command.
Saul later received a command to destroy Amalek’s people and livestock. He and the people spared King Agag and the best animals. Saul explained that the animals had been kept for sacrifice to God. Samuel replied that obedience was better than sacrifice and that Saul had been rejected as king because he had rejected God’s word.
Saul admitted that he had feared the people and followed their wishes, and asked Samuel to return with him. As Samuel turned to leave, Saul grabbed his robe and tore it. Samuel said that God had torn the kingdom from Saul and given it to a better neighbor. After another request, Samuel went back with Saul, who worshiped God. Samuel then killed Agag and returned to Ramah.
Chapter 15 says that Samuel did not go to visit Saul again before his death, though he mourned for him. God directed Samuel to Jesse in Bethlehem. Samuel feared that Saul would kill him if he found out. God instructed him to go to offer a sacrifice, invite Jesse and his sons, and anoint the person God identified.
Samuel saw Eliab and assumed he was the chosen one. God told him not to judge by appearance or height, because God looks at the heart. After seven sons passed before Samuel without being chosen, he asked whether another remained. The youngest, David, was brought from tending the sheep. Following God’s instruction, Samuel anointed him among his brothers, and God’s Spirit came powerfully upon David from that day.
When David fled from Saul, he came to Samuel at Ramah and reported what Saul had done. They stayed in Naioth. Saul sent messengers to seize David, but when they saw the prophets with Samuel leading them, God’s Spirit came upon the messengers and they prophesied. The second and third groups did the same. Saul himself also prophesied on his way to Naioth and before Samuel there.
When Samuel died, all Israel gathered to mourn him and buried him at his home in Ramah. After reporting the burial, chapter 25 records David’s departure for the wilderness of Paran.
Later, facing battle with the Philistines, Saul was afraid and sought an answer from God, but received none through dreams, Urim, or prophets. He sought a woman who consulted the dead, disguised himself, and visited her at Endor by night. He asked her to bring up Samuel. The woman cried out when she saw Samuel. Saul recognized him from her description of an old man wearing a robe.
Samuel asked why Saul had disturbed him. When Saul sought guidance, Samuel told him that the kingdom had been given to David because he had disobeyed the command concerning Amalek. He also said that Israel would fall to the Philistines and that Saul and his sons would be with him the next day. Saul heard these words, became terrified, and collapsed to the ground.