I Samuel שְׁמוּאֵל א

First Samuel spans the hinge between the age of judges and the age of kings. It opens with Hannah's prayer and the birth of Samuel — last of the judges, prophet, and kingmaker — and moves through the loss and return of the ark, Israel's fateful demand for a king 'like all the nations,' and the anointing of Saul. Saul's early promise gives way to disobedience and rejection, and the book's long second half follows the widening gulf between the failing king and the shepherd anointed in his place: David's victory over Goliath, the covenant love of Jonathan, and the years of flight in which the hunted David twice spares the life of the LORD's anointed. It closes in the tragedy of Gilboa, where Saul and his sons fall, clearing the way for the house of David.