The Bible Summarized by a Smartass, Part Twelve: 1 Samuel 17-31

Now we really get to the culmination of Jewish mythology: King David. I guess King David is a sort of Jewish Achilles, while Solomon (his son) is sort of like Odysseus. Or something. Either way, we now rejoin the First Book of Samuel, already in progress. When last we left the Israelites, God had refused to help King Saul and was driving him crazy to hasten his death...

Chapter Seventeen
Saul and his army are encamped at Socoh, just across from a Philistine army. Both armies are in stalemate, so Goliath, an enormous and feared Philistine warrior, begins taunting the Israelites, daring them to settle the matter in single combat against him. This goes on for forty days, at which point David, who has just returned from his dad’s in Bethlehem, gets disgusted and agrees to fight. He’s too young and small to fit in any armor, but he’s a badass so he walks into battle with a sling, sends a rock flying into Goliath’s forehead, and then cuts off Goliath’s head with his own sword. The Philistines flee and David becomes a hero.

Chapter Eighteen
Jonathan apparently falls in love with David, and gives him all of his armor and weapons. Saul makes David the head of the army, but David is so capable and so loved that Saul eventually gets jealous like God when he sees a gold statue of a cow. God wants Saul to die so he can make David king, so he twists Saul’s insanity valve and Saul tries to murder David. He makes up for it by promising Dave his daughter Merab, but then reneges on that. Saul, hoping to put David in a place where the Philistines will kill him, tells Dave he can have his second daughter, Michal, provided he collects one hundred Philistine foreskins. Apparently God and Saul also share a bizarre foreskin fetish. Dave gets the foreskins and his wife. That can’t be sanitary. And what are you going to do with a hundred foreskins, anyway? Make a suit?

Chapter Nineteen
Saul begins to talk openly about killing Dave, but Jonathan “took great delight in David” (draw your own conclusions), so he makes a peace between the two. Things go back to normal, but God makes Saul crazy again and he tries to kill Dave again. Michal helps Dave escape; he goes to Samuel for help.

Chapter Twenty
Dave and Jonathan work out a plan that basically only determines whether or not Saul is still pissed. Guess what? He is. Jonathan is sad, and tells Dave that Saul wants him dead and he should flee. They have a whole moment of weeping and kissing. This is a less clichéd love story than Ruth, at any rate.

Chapter Twenty-One
Dave flees to a place called (no kidding) Nob and meets with Ahimelech, a priest. I’d just like to point out, in case you weren’t thinking that way, that the story of David so far contains a hundred foreskins, boys kissing, and a place called Nob. The priest gives Dave the sword of Goliath, then Dave flees again to Gath. They hate Dave there, so he pretends to be retarded so they won’t kill him. Unlike in Texas, the Gathites just ignore Dave instead of executing him or electing him to high public office.

Chapter Twenty-Two
Ahimelech and the priests of Nob tell Saul that he is wrong to try to kill David. To prove he’s not an asshole, Saul has Ahimelech and 84 other priests killed, and then every living thing in Nob.

Chapter Twenty-Three
Dave saves Keilah from the Philistines with a small army. God tells Dave that the people of Keilah are going to give him up to Saul, so he and his army begin to wander around. Jonathan promises to be Dave’s second-in-command when Dave becomes king of Israel.

Chapters Twenty-Four through Thirty-One
Are you bored yet? I am. Man, I didn’t think a story with mutilation, war, a crazy king, a great hero, boys kissing and mass priest slaughter could be as boring and talky as it is in the Bible. Fuck. Alright, let’s supe up this shit: Dave and Saul make up. Samuel dies. David marries two girls, Abigail and Ahinoam, but it’s apparently cool with God because Michal was given to someone else. Saul tries to kill Dave again, then they make peace again. God’s crazy ray apparently wears off, and Dave’s too good a guy to just kill the king. Still, Dave knows the sitch, and decides to flee instead of endure Saul trying to murder him over and over and over again (at least to break up the narrative, for crying out loud). Dave becomes a raider. Saul and the Philistines go to war again, and a medium conjures up Samuel’s soul to tell Saul that he’s going to lose. The Philistine army slaughters the Israelites, including Jonathan, who is killed. Saul commits suicide. Israel mourns. The End.

Except that it isn't. Now David has to be king. Tune in next week for The Book of Samuel II: Israelite Boogaloo.