From the desk fo Liesl St. James - Sam, Sammy Samuel

The book of Samuel has all this stuff at the beginning that we’ll just skip over. There’s a statue, and a cow driven cart, and a guy named Ichabod, and a poem, and a lady who dies and another lady who dies, and a plague, and a fortune teller and a handsome man searching for donkeys, and everybody has their right eyes gouged out and some cursed honey. Same old same old. No need to rehash that story. It’s been told in so many episodes of Friends, I’m sure. Up to this point, it’s all about a guy named Saul.

So Saul’s bit is done, he’s still hanging around but needs to be replaced as king. Samuel goes to Bethelehem to find a replacement. He decides David might as well do. Then, for some unknown reason, God sends a deamon to torment Saul. So Saul’s servants do what anybody does when they’re trying to get rid of hell sent demons – they go in search of a harpist. David is a pretty good harpist, so he comes to court. I guess his bad ass harp playing will scare away the demon. Or his harp playing is so awful, the demon will decide hell is a better alternative.

Then the Philistines rally against Israel while David’s at court playing his harp. Goliath says that instead of fighting a huge battle where lots of people will be killed, they should just send one guy out and those two will fight it all out. Philistines vs. Israelites. Goliath vs. David. Pay per view event of the year! David persuades King Saul to let him fight Goliath. “But David” says Saul. “You aren’t big enough. He’ll crush you like a grape then give you a swirly.” “Pshaw! I can take him!” And so he does. David takes down Goliath with a single stone from his sling shot and then decapitates him with Goliath’s own sword. And the Philistines flee.

If you want to know what David looks like, see the Michelangelo statue in Florence. Yes, Michelangelo’s David is supposed to represent David in this story. If you look at the back of David and are able to draw your eyes away from his epic ass carved in stone, you’ll see that he’s holding a sling shot across his back. True story.

So Saul has David in court now, supposed to be his successor. Problem is, David is awesome. All the ladies love David. David has perfect handwriting, can cook a mean steak, and never ever misspells things. Saul gets jealous and decides he must do the only logical thing – kill David. Saul decides to promise his daughter Merab’s hand in marriage to David. But being a slimeball, he marries her off to someone else before they can get married. I guess he was hoping David would die of a broken heart or something. But no. David’s got his eye on Merab’s sister, Michal. Saul says you can have Michal if you bring me 100 Philistine foreskins. Yes, you will note that the bible is a little obsessed with foreskins. I can’t explain it. I just…I just can’t.

David goes out and kills 200 Philistines. I guess this achieves the 100 foreskin aim, assuming about 50% of the people killed were women. Really, you think you’d aim for the guys and that way not have to worry about it. Or maybe of the 200 killed, about half had already had a little procedure to take care of the foreskin. Whatever. This is more than I’ve ever thought about foreskins in my life. We’re moving on. David gets to marry Michal as promised. Saul tells Jonathan, David’s BFF, that he’s going to kill David. Jonathan does what any good BFF would do – he warns David. Then Saul throws a spear at David and misses. Really, couldn’t you have thrown the spear before marrying off your daughter and killing 200 people, etc.? Saul then sends a guard to kill David at his house, but Michal secrets him out the back door and puts a statue in the bed under the covers (as seen in Saved by the Bell AND Saved by the Bell The College Years). David escapes. Saul sends out more guards but they all run into prophets as they search for David and decide to join those gangs instead.

David goes into hiding, pursued by Saul. Then one day, David sneaks in, steals Saul’s spear, and then runs away. When he is out of reach of Saul, he shouts back “hey, I took your spear. Let’s be friends again”. And they are. Everybody’s happy. Then a bunch of people die and David sleeps with a lot of ladies, spreading his seed far and wide, if you catch my drift.

That’s it for the book of Samuel. We shall proceed on to Kings next time I’m bored. So possibly in an hour.