1 Samuel Devotionals

One for each chapter. Want to test what you read? Take the 1 Samuel quizzes.

1 Samuel 1: Poured Out Before the LORD
Hannah's story begins with a closed womb and a rival who will not let her forget it. Year after year at Shiloh, Peninnah taunts her until she weeps and cannot eat (1:6-7). The…
1 Samuel 2: He Raises the Lowly
Hannah's prayer celebrates a reversal she has lived, and she sings of a God who does this kind of thing again and again. He breaks the bows of the mighty and strengthens the…
1 Samuel 3: The God Who Calls by Name
The chapter opens in a dim season. The word of the LORD is rare, visions are scarce, and the old priest can no longer see (3:1-2). Yet the lamp of God has not gone out (3:3). Into…
1 Samuel 4: When God Is Not a Charm
After a defeat, Israel's elders ask the right question: why has the LORD let this happen (4:3)? But they do not seek his answer. They send for the ark of the covenant, the sacred…
1 Samuel 5: No Rival Left Standing
The Philistines carry the captured ark into the temple of their god Dagon and place it next to his image. The next morning Dagon is lying face down before the ark. They set him…
1 Samuel 6: A Holy God Comes Home
Seven months of plague convince the Philistines to send the ark home. Their priests devise a test: two nursing cows, their calves penned up behind them, hitched to a new cart. If…
1 Samuel 7: Stones That Remember Help
Twenty years pass with the ark at Kiriath-jearim, and all Israel mourns and seeks the LORD (7:2). Samuel tells them what returning really means: put away the foreign gods and…
1 Samuel 8: When We Want Another King
Samuel's sons take bribes and twist justice, and the elders have a real complaint (8:3-5). But their solution reveals more than they intend. They want a king like all the other…
1 Samuel 9: Led by Lost Donkeys
The chapter reads like an ordinary errand. Kish's donkeys wander off, and Saul and a servant search through region after region without finding them (9:3-4). Saul is ready to give…
1 Samuel 10: Every Sign Came True
Samuel pours oil on Saul's head and then tells him three signs to expect on the road: men with news of the donkeys, travelers who will give him bread, and a band of prophets…
1 Samuel 11: Mercy on the Day of Victory
Nahash the Ammonite offers Jabesh-gilead a treaty with a cruel price: every man's right eye, to disgrace all Israel (11:2). When the news reaches Gibeah, the people can only weep.…
1 Samuel 12: For the Sake of His Name
Samuel stands before Israel as an old man and asks them to name anything he has taken or anyone he has cheated. They cannot (12:3-4). Then he reviews their history. Whenever they…
1 Samuel 13: When Waiting Feels Too Long
Saul has been told to wait seven days at Gilgal for Samuel to come and offer the sacrifices (10:8). A huge Philistine army gathers, Israel's men hide in caves and cisterns, and…
1 Samuel 14: Not by Numbers
While Saul waits under a pomegranate tree, his son Jonathan slips away with his armor-bearer toward a Philistine outpost (14:1-2). His reasoning is simple: perhaps the LORD will…
1 Samuel 15: Obedience Over Offerings
This is a hard chapter. The LORD commands Saul to devote the Amalekites to destruction, every person and animal (15:3). The reason given is judgment for what Amalek did to Israel…
1 Samuel 16: Chosen from the Sheepfold
The LORD tells Samuel to stop mourning for Saul and go to Bethlehem, because he has chosen a king for himself among Jesse's sons (16:1). Samuel sees the oldest, Eliab, and is sure…
1 Samuel 17: Fighting in His Name
For forty days Goliath defies Israel, and Saul and his army are terrified (17:11, 17:16). David arrives with food for his brothers and hears the challenge. What strikes him is not…
1 Samuel 18: Envy and the Favor of God
After Goliath, everyone seems to love David. Jonathan binds himself to him in covenant and gives him his own robe, sword and bow (18:3-4). The army and the people delight in him…
1 Samuel 19: Kept on Every Side
Saul now orders openly that David be killed. Again and again, someone stands in the way. Jonathan speaks up for his friend, reminding his father of the great salvation the LORD…
1 Samuel 20: Friendship Bound Before God
David is sure he is only a step from death, and Jonathan finally discovers it is true. When he defends David at the New Moon feast, Saul curses him and hurls a spear at his own…
1 Samuel 21: Hunger, Fear and Holy Bread
David is alone, hungry and running. At Nob he tells the priest Ahimelech that he is on a secret mission for the king, which is not true (21:2). Ahimelech gives him the consecrated…
1 Samuel 22: Safe with the Hunted King
David gathers a band of about four hundred men who are troubled, in debt or discontented (22:2). Meanwhile Saul sits at Gibeah, spear in hand, accusing his own servants of…
1 Samuel 23: Strengthened in God
David keeps asking the LORD what to do. When the Philistines raid Keilah, he inquires, and when his frightened men object, he inquires again (23:2-4). God sends him, and Keilah is…
1 Samuel 24: Leaving Vengeance to God
Saul goes into a cave to relieve himself, not knowing that David and his men are hiding inside (24:3). David's men see it as God's gift. David creeps up and cuts off a corner of…
1 Samuel 25: Stopped on the Way to Revenge
Soon after sparing Saul, David nearly does what he refused to do in the cave. Nabal, a harsh man, insults David's messengers and refuses them food, even though David's men had…
1 Samuel 26: Valuing an Enemy’s Life
Once again the Ziphites betray David, and Saul comes after him with three thousand men (26:1-2). This time David goes to Saul, slipping into the camp at night with Abishai. The…
1 Samuel 27: Talking Only to Ourselves
After all of God's protection, David reaches a bleak conclusion. Speaking to himself, he decides that Saul will surely sweep him away one day, and that his best option is to…
1 Samuel 28: No Answer at Endor
When Saul sees the Philistine army, he trembles (28:5). He inquires of the LORD, but no answer comes, by dreams, by the Urim (a priestly way of seeking God's will), or by prophets…
1 Samuel 29: Kept from the Wrong Battle
David has marched himself into an impossible position. He is in the rear of the Philistine army with Achish, heading for battle against Israel (29:2). What David meant to do…
1 Samuel 30: What the LORD Has Given
David returns to find Ziklag burned and every wife and child carried off by Amalekite raiders (30:1-3). The men weep until they have no strength left, and then they talk of…
1 Samuel 31: The End of a King
The book that began with a barren woman's prayer ends on a battlefield. On Mount Gilboa, Jonathan and two of his brothers are killed, Saul is badly wounded by archers, and when…