David’s Rise and Saul’s Demise: Narrative Analogy in 1 Samuel 24-26

Abstract

The narrative segment which is the subject of this paper belongs to the so-called 'Story of David's Rise', to use Leonhard Rost's title for the second of the three major compositional units which he detected in the books of Samuel./1/In the event, the world of Old Testament scholarship was much more interested in Rost's arguments for the existence of an originally independent Narrative of Succession -2 Samuel 9 -1 Kings 2, according to the classic formulation.When, in the late 1950's, the unitary potential of David's Vorgeschichte began to be recognized-witness the monographs by Nubel (1959), Mildenberger (1962), Ward (1967) and Gr~nbaek (1971)/2/-1.L. Rost, Die Uberlieferung von der Thronnachfo1ge Davids (BWANT III, 6. Stuttgart, 1926) 1~3-5 (= Das k1eine Credo und andere Studien zum A1ten Testament (Heidelberg, 1965) 238-41).It is now of no more than antiquarian interest that Rost himself excluded 1 Sam.24-26 from his hypothetical source, even though it comprised various pericopae and fragments from 1 Sam.23 through to 2 sam. 5. 2. H.