The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel

by Robert Alter

Acclaimed for its masterful new translation and insightful commentary, The David Story is a fresh, vivid rendition of one of the great works in Western literature. Robert Alter's brilliant translation gives us David, the beautiful, musical hero who slays Goliath and, through his struggles with Saul, advances to the kingship of Israel. But this David is also fully an ambitious, calculating man who navigates his life's course with a flawed moral vision. The consequences for him, his family, and his nation are tragic and bloody. Historical personage and full-blooded imagining, David is the creation of a literary artist comparable to the Shakespeare of the history plays.

Genres: Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism, History, Nonfiction, Old Testament, Classics

448 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Robert Bernard Alter is an American professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967, and has published many acclaimed works on the Bible, literary modernism, and contemporary Hebrew literature.

Reviews

[Stephen Durrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one I've read writes on the Bible as literature more intelligently and compellingly than Robert Alter. His talents are on full display in this brilliantly annotated translation of the Book of Samuel. Alter draws upon the rich tradition of Jewish and Christian Biblical exegesis and adds his own comments, many of the latter focusing upon the literary qualities of the text. Here, as in his earlier work on Genesis, Alter challenges the source critics who want to pull the Book of Samuel apart, identifying its various sources and thereby turning it into something of a pastiche. He argues that on a literary level, with only a few striking exceptions, the Book of Samuel shows such thematic and stylistic unity that it must be the composition of a single individual at a single moment in time, although the author of course may have had some older sources before him. With the Book of Samuel Alter has a superb text upon which to demonstrate his skill as a reader. The tragedies of Saul and David remain as compelling as when they were written nearly three thousand years ago. I have always read Saul as the greater tragedy of the two and believe that one of the saddest scenes in literature is his visit to the witch of Endor on the eve of his death to ask her help in conjuring up the soul of Samuel, his scourge and, in my opinion, a very, very unsympathetic character. Alter, I think, would disagree and claim David to be the more tragic figure. David is a victim of his own greed rather than an victim, like Saul, of a fickle God and His mean-spirited prophet. Saul, for me at least, reads almost like a Greek tragedy, David a Shakespearian one. But whichever of the first two kings of Israel is felt to be the more tragic, one thing is certain: the Book of Samuel, read with Alter's notes as a companion, gives the reader much to ponder and leaves him feeling the deepest admiration for the literary skill behind this powerful section of the Hebrew Bible.

[Pater Edmund · Rating 4 out of 5]

C.S. Lewis says somewhere that the problem with historical-critical exegete is that they are bad critics; they don't know how to read literature. Robert Alter certainly knows how to read literature, as this gorgeous translation and literary commentary show. Alter avoids some of the pitfalls of the historical-method precisely because his primary interest is literary rather than theological, and this (paradoxically) makes his analysis much more useful for theological reflection.

[Anand · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always loved Robert Alter's scholarly work on the Hebrew Bible and his translations. His commentary is very attuned to the nuances of the Hebrew text and to the depths and riches of the stories he translates. I think the centerpiece of his translations of biblical Hebrew prose is in The David Story, which is a story that clearly moves him for its raw political realism and its searing portrait of humans in time and history.

I noted down the interplay of good and bad rulership, of what makes an effective leader, of the costs of dedication to higher causes and callings, of how success and destruction can coexist on a fundamentally equivalent plane, how people can be shaped by politics and institutions over time, how personal relationships can get ruined in politics, how people can be prey to all-too-human emotions and feelings.

I love Robert Alter's nuanced takes on Saul and David, contrasting how Saul and David seem to be very different yet also flawed in their own ways. Saul is fated to a bad end, is paranoid, tyrannical, moody, self-pitying, diffident, and jealous. Yet there's a tragic nobility to how he dies and a pity to how he fears. It is telling that the witch at En-dor is the one woman he can turn to for any sense of consolation; however much her profession is outlawed by God, she can give Saul the strength to at least face the battle (yet alas, this will not be much, as the story tells us that Saul "quaked in fear of the archers").

Then there is David, who's a much deeper, more complex character. Robert Alter takes the opacity of David's characterization to show us how the text provides a more critical and unflinching look at a man who is flawed, adulterous, murderous; yet also a man who is brave, intelligent, daring, and able to lead men. I also like how the David narrative is one that shows how a man changes through time and history, and Robert Alter, ever the literary critic, has great insight into how this change occurs.

Other themes I noted were how fathers and sons related to one another; the priest Eli has two worthless sons of Belial named Hophni and Phineas; Samuel the prophet has two unjust suns; David's sons are morally problematic in their own way (Amnon, Absalom, Adonijah, and later Solomon). It is interesting that Saul has a good son named Jonathan, and then Jonathan has a good son in the disabled Mephibosheth.

I also note how much the question of an unshaken kingdom is important to the story, such that the word "unshaken" is stated several times. Saul warns Jonathan that his hold will not be unshaken, and the last words of the David Story are "and the kingdom was unshaken in Solomon's hand." Considering how tense the political situation in ancient Israel is during this time, I think the question of being unshaken is very important. Saul's dynasty is certainly shaken out of existence; only David's house remains stalwart and unmoved. Eli's priestly dynasty is cast off, while God raises up new priests and elevates Samuel. I am now thinking back to that song in 1 Samuel 2, where Hannah sings of how God raises up the low and casts down the high/proud. And then I remember that the Lord sees not as man sees, "for man sees with eyes and the Lord sees with the heart."

The stories of David and Goliath, David and Saul, David and Bathsheba, David and Absalom, David and Abigail are all classic tales of biblical power that still resonate today.

I cannot help but think there's a proto-Godfather energy to the last words of David and the rise of Solomon. Blood is central to how that drama unfolds. As Nathan says, the sword will never swerve from the house of David.

As long as there are political institutions, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, will the sword ever really go away?

[Erik Rostad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is both a translation and a commentary of I & II Samuel (also into the first two chapters of I Kings). It was incredible. Robert Alter describes the reasons for choosing certain translated words and shows how the narrative ties together in countless areas. This book brought The David Story to life. I read it for a Catherine Project seminar where we discussed I & II Samuel. This opened my eyes to new ways to consider Samuel, Saul, and David. With its emphasis on David, I'm left wondering why the Biblical book is called Samuel instead of David. Interestingly, Robert Alter titles it in the manner that seems most in line with its contents - The David Story.

[Othy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A magnificent translation with wonderful footnotes on culture and linguistics, though this volume stands out in how well it led me to love this part of the Bible. What a magnificent story. Alter is clearly in love with the story as well, which comes out in his footnotes on literary and character qualities.

[Beth Jarvis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been slowly reading through this commentary this entire school year (while Daniel has finished two other Robert Alter commentaries). Alter clearly has a gift with translation and clarifying the major themes and plot twists of the Biblical narrative. I absolutely love this commentary and what I've learned from the sitting with the David story all year. So so good and at the same time better and scarier than any episode of Game of Thrones.

[Roger Burk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps durign the reign of Solomon, someone invented history by writing the story of David, assembling material from many sources, including some folklore and poetry as well as historical tales and records. Several centuries later, an editor inserted some material reflecting a new attitude towards the Jewish religion. This astounding story is revealed in Alter's translation and commentary, giving a sense of the different parts where they can be distinguished, but not losing the overall unity. It gave me a new appreciation of the history of David's remarkable career. For instance, I had never noticed that David turned over seven grandsons of Saul to be impaled (KJV says hung), ostensibly to expiate a sin of Saul's, but also removing possible claimants to the throne, and allowed the bodies to be exposed "before the LORD" from Spring to Fall, until only bones were left (2 Sam 21). Truly this was a time of brutal political violence and superstition, along with heroism and piety.

One caution: the notes in the commentary mix historical and contextual notes of general interest with detailed textual remarks of interest only to specialists.

[CrystalIsReading on StoryGraph · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was required for my class on I & II Samuel. the class was interesting, and so was the book. It's definitely not a devotional, though, so don't buy it on that assumption. Some of Alter's theories about the story of David were unappealing to me, not to mention offensive occasionally. as a scholar, sometimes people become divorced from their belief in what they study. But there were still many insights in this that were of use. Just read carefully, and take only what is good.

[Chanté · Rating 4 out of 5]

My summary of this book in seven words is: Anointment by God isn't a good thing. Human beings being as fallible as they are, it is inevitable that they will be a disappointment and ultimately punished for their bad behavior. Alter is a great translator and his footnotes are helpful for the most part in helping understand the text.

[Josiah DeGraaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fantastic literary commentary on the Books of Samuel. Over the past several years, I've grown to really appreciate literary-focused looks at the Scripture which pull out the beautiful gems hidden in the book that purely-doctrinal looks will often fail to pull out. Scripture isn't just true--it also features powerful writing & storytelling, and Alter did a fantastic job pulling out the various gems that are contained in the books of Samuel. I learned a bunch about the way that Hebrew literature works (such as the importance of someone's first recorded words as a means of characterizing them), saw many things in the books of Samuel that I hadn't noticed before, and really enjoyed the process of reading through this book.

I should note that for theological conservatives like myself, there are differences between how Alter approaches the text and how I would. Alter gives more weight to higher criticism than I do, and I don't think he really believes in the inerrancy of Scripture (although it is hard to judge from this work alone since it's unclear how much of what he says he says because he's writing to a secular audience). Folks in a similar boat as myself will want to keep this in mind.

I also don't know that I agreed with Alter on all of his interpretations. He tends to be rather cynical about pretty much everyone in the book, and while certain individuals deserve that cynicism about their actions, I didn't buy his arguments that Samuel was trying to sabotage Saul early on in Saul's reign or that Abigail was timing her reveal to Nabal at a point where she hoped it would lead him to have a stroke. At points he seems to be reading too much into the text.

Taken as a whole, then, this is an excellent literary commentary that does a great job of helping readers enjoy and appreciate the artistry of the books of Samuel, even if not all insights are well-supported by the text. I would love to see theological commentaries that worked more with these literary insights to create powerful applications and insights for modern Christians since there's a big need for the blending of theological and literary insights for narratives such as these. Definitely recommended for readers who want to see what makes the Books of Samuel such an enjoyable narrative.

Rating: 4-4.5 Stars (Excellent).

[Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The purpose of this book is to provide a literary translation that restores the one cohesive narrative from the birth of Samuel to the death of David, exposing the “comprehensive literary structure”, and the “fine and complex interconnections among various phases of [the] story”. The accompanying commentary is made subject to this purpose, with the aim to “serve the story [and] to highlight its literary force”.

The book is written in reaction to the ideas of a Deuternomistic editor and two so-called independent Ark and Succession narratives in the books. Alter rejects both these scholarly positions with his realistic, literary analysis that reveals the human, often abusive, worldly realities of the story. The author’s approach leads him to reject any ”simple promotion of prophetic ideology” and he settles for an imperfect humanity with “man as a political animal in all his contradictions and venality”. Alter takes the position that the original author wanted to write a true historical account, and his own exposition attempts to highlight the shrewdness of politics and human nature in the story of David. As the title indicates, the books of Samuel, as well as the first section of the book of Kings, are the story of David, although initially deeply interlocked with that of Samuel and Saul.

The structure of the book is easy to follow. The book translates the two books of Samuel as well as the first section of 1 Kings up to chapter 2, verse 45 with an accompanying commentary. The chapter and verse delineation follows that of modern-day English translations.

Measured against the goals the author has set for himself the book has achieved its purposes very well. As far as I can evaluate with my limited background in Hebrew, his translation is done with high regard to the original texts and with a great command of the Hebrew language. The commentary focuses on the real, human element of the main characters in the narrative, showing all their sinful failures and political shrewdness. Samuel is portrayed as being “rather unattractive”. Likewise, David is characterized as “the first Machiavellian prince in Western Literature”. As intended, the realistic human traits are exposed in their full colours.

While reading this book one will experience the feeling to be in hands of a knowledgeable scholar. It instills confidence that Alter is consistent in his approach of using the Masoretic Text as long as it makes sense. The high degree of “rigorously precise vocabulary” makes the translation a valuable companion to biblical study. A few examples would have to suffice here: Alter clarifies the strange word “champion” attributed to Goliath as literally meaning “the man between”. Using multiple sources he further concluded that Absalom literally “dangled” in mid-air with his head caught in the terebinth. He also picks up on wordplays in Hebrew such as David’s inquiry whether all is “shalom” with “Avshalom?” In summary, the strength of the book is its literal translation and insights stemming from a thorough command of the Hebrew language.

A commitment to “literary” analysis does not necessarily have to come with a commentary biased towards human realism though. The story of David is part of the living Word of God. The predetermined boundaries of human realism in the commentary do portray man as a political animal and reject the prophetic and the divine. With regard to the former, the commentary carries in it a significant bias towards Saul as a “tragic hero” and a suspicion towards David as a manipulative schemer. David’s anointment is seen as “clandestine”, he is portrayed as “wary and calculating”, against Jonathan being “well meaning and naïve”, he is seen as “politically self-interested” and committing a “cruel act” in the hamstrung of horses. In the latter case Alter misses David’s obedience to God’s command not to rely on chariots and horses. Alter does not mention David as being the LORD’s anointed, His chosen one.

The rejection of the prophetic and the divine is also clear in the commentary. For example, when Samuel rebukes Saul (1 Sam 13), Alter comments that “Samuel flatly assumes that his own commands and the commandments of the LORD are entirely equivalent” and that one “suspects that Samuel has set up Saul for this “failure”, and that he would have been content only with a puppet king”. When Jonathan attacks a Philistine garrison his faith is not commented on as a sign of divination, but of military pragmatism. When it is said that God is working against the Philistines by sending terror, Alter reduces the divine by commenting that the translation of elohim “serves as an intensifier”. When Samuel is said to mourn over Saul, without any substantial argument Alter raises suspicions on his motives by asking the question whether he rather mourns “over the fact that he made the mistake of first choosing Saul”. The anti-prophetic/divine refrain continues even when God’s own words, through Samuel, are at stake. Alter comments that the theme of God requiring obedience (1 Sam 15:22) is common among later prophets where it means “refraining from acts of exploitation rather than carrying out a program of extermination”. Alter does not consider God’s character of being faithful and seeking justice in instructing Saul to totally destroy the Amelikites (1 Sam 15:3, cf. Exod 17:14); he rather introduces a “margin of ambiguity” that the real source of these words is not from God, but from Samuel himself. What is further disappointing is the meager commentary on the Davidic covenant (2 Sam 7:1-16). That David’s house and kingdom “shall be steadfast forever” (2 Sam 7:16 Alter), seen by some biblical scholars as the apex of the Old Testament, is something the author choose not to comment on. In fact, at the end of his commentary Alter portrays God himself as having “the look of acting arbitrarily, exacting terrible human costs in order to be placated”. Commenting on David’s census, Alter writes that the real villain is not David, but God: “David confesses deep contrition, yet he has, after all, been manipulated by God.”

In conclusion, in a strict “literary” sense Alter has produced a masterpiece; a double tragedy where one manipulative schemer is manipulated by a larger, more powerful one. In the sense of the faithful God who has made a covenant with a repenting sinner and who has fulfilled his promises by establishing a Davidic king forever, of that God as revealed in all of Scripture, Alter does not speak.

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

took me a long time to get through this, in part because the critical apparatus is so dense and good. alter's notes are both accessible and inside-baseball -- by the end you feel like you somewhat follow his critical conversation-with-self ("SMH at what kyle mccarter jr extrapolated from the masoretic text at line 14, clearly this is a case where qumran scrolls > your fave"). speaking of problematic faves, david, who michaelangelo turned into a symbol of male beauty, feels a lot more like a toxic tony soprano anti-hero (and maybe stole credit for killing goliath). the word i hear a lot in association with the david story is "novelistic" and that resonates for me. there is a psychological richness here that transcends 10+ centuries and a frayed text. highly highly recommended esp for people like me whose biblical literary is way too heavy on the NT. i kind of have a soft spot for saul. he never asked to be king and then his life gets very complicated, and his big sin is asking wizards for help.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up
As a translation, a coherent whole, and a commentary for the general reader, this is really good. As someone who’s fairly steeped in feminist criticism and theology, and who is not entirely reasonable about the women of the Davidic narrative (am I a one-woman Michal defence squad? Possibly) though, I have some real issues with Alter’s commentary, and it definitely bespeaks a very male-centred perspective in terms of trying to empathise with or contemplate the portrayal of the female characters. This particularly shows through with Bathsheba. To be fair, the Hebrew Bible is not my area of expertise, but I definitely found the interpretations there really quite frustrating.

[Kerrie Hatcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three things: 1) this is my first book by Robert Alter. I enjoyed his translations and commentary. I've read 1 and 2 Samuel many times, but never had a book with the insights this one has. I feel educated. 2) someone else mentioned this, I think, this is not a devotional. This is scripture translated from the Hebrew. 3) One element I admire about the author is that he did a lot of research and used many sources. He puts the Hebrew words in the commentary and tells how scholars, rabbis, and others translate that portion of scripture.
I read this for the Hillsdale College class.

[Mary Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alter's translations are simply sublime. I notice things reading him I've simply never noticed in my 21 years of reading the Bible. He shows off what exceptional literature the Bible is.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this even more than Alter's translation of Genesis!

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used this book a resource on a Life of David Bible class at church. It provided a lot of great context and connection with other books. The notes on language and vocab in particular were very helpful. I can't wait to read Alter on the Wisdom Literature.

[Ethan Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic translation that brings so much life to David’s story.

Someone turn this into an HBO show.

[Joshua Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really well informed translation, with the footnotes providing excellent information on philology, narrative context, and helpful textual background.

[Rivkah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Robert Alter's work and this is a part of my yearly bible study, so I'm biased. However, here is what was most captivating for me in picking up this book to read for the story (from the intro):

"The narrative nevertheless has many signs of what we would call fictional shaping--interior monologues, dialogues between the historical personages in circumstances where there could have been no witnesses to what was said, pointed allusions in the turns of dialogue as well as in the narrative details to Genesis, Joshua, Judges. What we have in this great story, as I have proposed elsewhere, is not merely a report of history but an imagining of history that is analogous to what Shakespeare did with historical figures and events in his history plays. [...] The writer does all this not to fabricate history but to understand it."

The turns of narrative and the style in which this story is written makes a difference in the message. Style and content, people.

There's a lot of stuff in the Hebrew, too, that I wouldn't have caught. I like other commentaries, but they often focus too much on context and not on literary style. I appreciate the love of story that Robert Alter brings to this commentary. Read it. You'll understand the story in a way you never have before.

[Franc · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The story of David is probably the greatest single narrative representation in antiquity of human life evolving by slow stages through time, shaped and altered by the pressures of political life, public institutions, family, the impulses of body and spirit, the eventual sad decay of the flesh. It also provides the most unflinching insight into the cruel processes of history and into human behavior warped by the pursuit of power. And nowhere is the Bible's astringent narrative economy, its ability to define characters and etch revelatory dialogue in a few telling strokes, more brilliantly deployed."

From Alter's introduction "To the Reader," in which he lays out a succession narrative from Saul to David to Solomon to Shakespeare and to Faulkner.

[Franc · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The story of David is probably the greatest single narrative representation in antiquity of human life evolving by slow stages through time, shaped and altered by the pressures of political life, public institutions, family, the impulses of body and spirit, the eventual sad decay of the flesh. It also provides the most unflinching insight into the cruel processes of history and into human behavior warped by the pursuit of power. And nowhere is the Bible's astringent narrative economy, its ability to define characters and etch revelatory dialogue in a few telling strokes, more brilliantly deployed."

From Alter's introduction "To the Reader," in which he lays out a succession narrative from Saul to David to Solomon to Shakespeare and to Faulkner.

[Benjamin Lipscomb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just read Alter's The David Story (a translation of 1 and 2 Samuel, with the first two chapters of 1 Kings) for the nth time, and must say something about it.

Given the profusion of English translations of the Hebrew scriptures, why would anyone purchase a separate translation of just two books? But you really should.

As a translator, Alter's distinctive concern is with the poetic qualities of biblical Hebrew. As a commentator, Alter's distinctive concern is with the unity of the text. These are related. Though richly informed by the kind of criticism that treats the text as an amalgam of disparate sources, Alter presses as far as possible the assumption that the editors/redactors of the text acted purposively, artfully, and that the resulting text is not a pastiche but a well-integrated whole. It's like the working assumption of scientists that the world is causally integrated and explicable, even elegant, and it's similarly fruitful.

Alter regards the David story as the greatest work of literature in the Hebrew Bible, and he's convinced me.

Like other narrative works from the Hebrew canon, the David story is terse, full of emotionally significant silences. Trying to comfort his beloved, barren wife, Hannah, Elkanah says to her, "am I not better to you than ten sons?" Isn't my love enough? It's tender and touching and stupid, and Hannah doesn't respond, because what can she say to such earnest, aching cluelessness? Similarly, later in the chapter, the author doesn't have Hannah gush her reluctance to relinquish the child God has given her. She merely asks Elkanah to let her and Samuel stay home from the yearly sacrifice. Not yet, not yet! One more year! And in the following chapter, we get this: "And a little cloak would his mother make him and bring up to him year after year...."

This reticence of biblical narrative, as Alter calls it, is paradoxically powerful as a tool of characterization. Like a great draughtsman who can suggest a face or figure with a single line, the authors of the Hebrew Bible often make a character's first scene, or first recorded words, an image of their whole temperament and arc. And the David story is rich in complex characters. Consider Michal. The first thing we are told about her is that she loves David (the only woman in the Hebrew Bible said to love a man). But David, consummate politician with one eye always on the main chance (his first words: "What will be done for the man who strikes down yonder Philistine?"), is a painful man to love. Michal defies her father to help David escape, then is given away to another man after David flees. Brutally reappropriated by David when he returns, she bursts out in jealous sarcasm after watching her husband, the golden boy of Israel, gyrate in the streets before the ark. Of course she does. David has been gone for years, long enough for Michal to make a new life with Paltiel. It wasn't what she wanted, but it had its own beauty. When she is taken from Paltiel by the strongman Abner, we are told, Paltiel follows her down the road, weeping. Meanwhile, David has been adventuring in the wilderness, gathering a harem as he goes. The last thing the narrator tells us about Michal is that she "had no child until her dying day." The text is deliberately ambiguous. Should we see this as a divine judgment? Or, more likely, as a result of David refusing to share her bed?

Each time I have read Alter's translation, I have felt more deeply for Michal's father, Saul. He too is jealous--violently jealous--of David. But before that: he is the man who never wanted to be king, but was raised out of obscurity by Samuel. At his coronation, he hides in a coat closet. Saul's first words are directed to a servant helping him look for his dad's lost donkeys: "Come, let us turn back." Touchingly wanting to be told what to do, where to go, first to last: what do you think, shouldn't we just leave? But Saul's destiny is not his to direct. The man who anoints him hoped to establish a family dynasty of his own and never misses an opportunity to undermine or berate the man who displaced him and his sons. Samuel even berates him from the grave, on the eve of Saul's death. A colleague in biblical studies tells me that the name Saul is many times more popular among Jews than the name David. They feel the tragedy of the story of their first king.

And David himself, though a Machiavellian schemer, is vulnerably human too. He loses the nameless infant he and Bathsheba conceived, remarking bleakly, "I am going to him and he will not come back to me"; he sees his older children turn on one another and then on him; he is the picture of his ancestor Jacob as his family falls apart (Alter notes that Tamar's story is full of echoes of Joseph's; the word used for her royal garment, which she tears in grief after Amnon rapes her, is the same word used for the coat Jacob gives Joseph); David's steely enforcer Joab has to shake him out of his grief for Absalom, who had been hunting his father down to kill him. In his final scenes, David lies impotently next to the beautiful Abishag, brought to keep him from shivering miserably under his covers. What kind of people preserve this portrait of their national hero?

A people, I suppose, who are under no illusions about the crooked timber of humanity, who don't worship and placate the scheming gods of the Iliad (think of Apollo taunting Achilles while Achilles grinds his teeth) but serve the Holy One of Israel. You don't need to believe in that God, though, to find this story perhaps the most honest, searching study of human frailty preserved from the ancient world.

Bringing this back to Alter: most of the observations I make above, I got from him. If you want to see more in the text, to see its greatness, he is an excellent, excellent guide.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s worth five stars because, for me, this translation elucidated the political and personal dynamics and complexities that were shrouded in archaic language and formulations in more traditional translations. The commentary is also borderline intoxicating in its depth and breadth of information and occasional disciplined speculation.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent

[Ken Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Alter is a Hebrew scholar who has made a name by translating the Hebrew scrolls of the Old Testament, adding commentary to explain the Hebrew terms and possible interpretations. I first read his work in his exceptional commentary on Genesis, a beautiful and elegant work that brings that ancient book to life and displays the artistry of the writer(s) of that book.

Alter is not a Christian and does not view the Old Testament in the way that many Christian scholars do, but he does love the ancient text and has a high regard for its language and internal consistency. He will suggest, in places, that the text has been edited (or "redacted") but opposes the modern scholarly obsession of dividing the texts into threads of a multitude of authors and editors.

Alter has now translated the entire Old Testament, with copious notes and commentary. His translation of I Samuel and II Samuel is available as a work called The David Story. (For completeness, it also includes the first two chapters of I Kings, covering David's death and the start of Solomon's reign.) I have used this commentary in my blog on the Old Testament and the work is exceptional. I work through each chapter of the book by first reading Alter's translation and then going back to read his comments on the translation.

In this commentary, Alter describes discrepancies in the ancient text (the traditional Masoretic Text of about 1000 AD, the scrolls of Samuel from the Dead Sea scrolls, c. 50 BC and the Septuagint Greek text, c. 250 BC.) He points out Hebrew wordplay in the text; he emphasizes the emotions and meanings carried by Hebrew words and terms. The scroll of Samuel (broken into 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel in modern Bibles) has an inclusio of songs, Hannah's song at the front in 1 Samuel 2: 1-10 and David's song at the end in 2 Samuel 22. These praise songs set off the remainder of the book, devoted to telling the story of Israel's great shepherd-king. Both songs announce that YHWH is the "horn of salvation", the one who has given these two individuals victory over their enemies.

In some places, the Hebrew words carry urgency of emotion that may be missed in modern translations. In 1 Samuel 3: 14, Alter has greedy priests thrusting their forks "into the cauldron or the pot of the vat or the kettle", arguing that this flurry of terms, in the Hebrew text, adds to the image of greed and gluttony. In 1 Samuel 20: 30, when Saul accuses Jonathan of "the shame of your mother's nakedness", Alter argues that this is an abusive or violent sexual statement about Jonathan's mother. In other places, Alter insists that the term "son of..." is rude; when Saul calls David "son of Jesse", he is refusing to say David's name and only naming his father. When Saul calls the priest Ahimelech "son of Ahitub" in 1 Samuel 22: 7, it is a rudeness that shows Saul's intent to kill the man. This use of the rude "patronymic" occurs in numerous places.

In 1 Samuel 9: 12-16, Alter suggests that the long rambling answers of the women around Saul might be a response to Saul's passivity in seeking out Samuel. He explains the proverb "Is Saul among the prophets?" (1 Samuel 10: 1-27 and 1 Samuel 18:10) as first being a statement of amazement at the signs given by Samuel but then later a mockery of Saul's attempts to stop David.

As Alter elaborates on the Hebrew language in 1 Samuel, we gain insight into Saul's character and his slow dissent into insanity, culminating in his visit of the woman of Endor.

In numerous places, Alter suggests an explanation or interpretation of the ancient Hebrew names and points out wordplay, in which the ancient author has deliberately used homonyms, words that sound the same or very similar. For example, in 1 Samuel 13: 7, the text says "the Hebrews had crossed the Jordan..." The uncommon description of the people as "Hebrews" is explained by the wordplay "ivrim avru", Hebrew words translated "Hebrews had crossed". In 1 Samuel 16: 23, Saul's finding relief from the evil spirit, involves the same base word; "ruah" as spirit and "rawah" as relief. There are numerous places where this wordplay is hidden by English translations and only pulled out by Alter's notes.

Alter's translation of David's story is a beautiful study of the great shepherd-king of Israel and an artful argument for the power and majesty of the Old Testament writings.

[Milo · Rating 4 out of 5]

It occurs to me that Robert Alter was forced, as he was forced to write all but one of his Biblical translations, to include the Deuteronomist through gnashing teeth. Each of the Deuteronomist’s incisions are met with gruesome notice in the commentary; here the great drama must slump, and the David author is undermined. I once asked Robert Alter if he had considered an edition in which all later influence were stripped out; I noted a subtle yearning in his tone as he said a ‘special edition’ might be dreamt up. Because the books of Samuel, extending (as would the special edition) to the first chapters of Kings, represent the greatest drama in the Biblical narrative. A wholistic story of a man, from boy to wretched hulk; and both his fore- and afterlife in Samuel, Saul, Solomon. David is a curious, protean figure; he is not, as the blithely religious may have it, a heroic prong from which the many kings of the Jewish levant will leak. Rather he is a cunning and often politically adept climber; and moreover, he is the fulfilment of Samuel’s prophecy. Not of he who ought to inherit Israel, but rather that which will be lost in the adoption of a king. This is not a narrative of grandeur, which ends with Solomon’s temple and infinite wealth, rather it is a narrative of decline; a man with all who comes to nought, impotent to those forces he wrenched into being, his own sons in murderous tangle, his Absalom slain despite his word. We might query the meaning of it, outside the historical metre; what are we to take from the story of David, who strives and who attains everything he ever thought of? The David author litters many neat observations amid the Biblical furore; Alter notes Micah’s second wife, but this is one of several: I like most David’s request that Joab ‘deal gently’ with Absalom, a line shared with the KJV; it is suddenly tender in the fire of kinstrife and incest and murder. We sense that David is a man characterized in this latter sequence by loss; of his newborn, of his late-born; that he does not command life and death as he might wish. The wages of sin are many. But David does not, therefore, turn entirely to the face of God. On his deathbed he invites Solomon to continue in his marauding ways; to execute a series of traitors or rivals; it is a montage expressed with the same economy and potency as the ending of The Godfather. Cut away the Deuteronomist meddling: this is the story of a man so immersed in blood that it becomes his epitaph; in his misery he damns his son, and his son will certainly fall. But – uniquely in a Biblical narrative – we have such clarity of time. We can cast back to the David of the hills, to the slinging youth, brought up by Saul, brought in with Jonathan. He is not, or was not, a single man – he is composed of many. Even a textual context: David the bard and David the Goliath-slayer were not originally the same, yet these tendencies come to represent the dual-quality of the developed character. We wonder what it is that drowned the man. We think to Samuel, and to Saul who jives with the maniacs.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a 2005 piece in the New York Review of Books, the late British literary critic Sir John Frank Kermode (1919-2010) rhapsodized over the story of David: “With its beautiful and sensual hero, its ruthless Machiavellian politics and vividly rendered characters, it must be the greatest quasi-historical narrative that has survived from the ancient world. It is, astonishingly three thousand years old.” After Kermode had discussed David’s reaction to the death of his son by Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 12, he concluded, “David is simply unforgettable in moments like this. If they occurred in a novel, we should admire its depth and its surprise.”

Robert Alter maintains similar wonder over the psychological power of the David Story. Though Alter does believe in a Deuteronomist inserting later religious propaganda into an earlier masterwork, he otherwise pays blessed little attention to the sort of German text criticism that presumes to chop up the story into various source elements. As both a Hebrew scholar and a literary critic, Alter’s commentary on his own translation is unusually imaginative and shrewd. Not surprisingly, there’s occasional overreach, especially in the search for parallels in other biblical passages. And Alter’s endorsement of a “high degree of literalism” sometimes produces ungainly readings—though these are still generally sounder than any number of modern translations that have strayed after trendy, tone-deaf colloquialism.

While Alter believes the David Story is inspired as piece of literature, he certainly doesn’t believe it to be inspired in any religious sense. The consequence is that he emphasizes the disharmony in any seeming contradiction, with the result that while he regularly praises the narrative gifts of the unknown author, Alter doesn’t believe him to have been creative enough to fix textual problems that should have been as obvious to him as they are to us.

The question that Alter never addresses is how, and for whom, this penetrating narrative could have been written. Nothing I can think of has as much emotional depth in Greek or Roman literature, fiction or nonfiction. Who would have read or copied the David Story in, say, the 9th century BCE? As historian Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) wrote in The Origins of History (1981), “The ‘Court-History’ of David shows an amazing impartiality and independence and could hardly have been produced by the king himself, or for him, or on his behalf. It describes the peculiar human role of the man amongst his relatives, advisers and leading subjects, making no attempt to hide his weaknesses…. Nothing could be further removed than this from the history typified by the commemorative tablet.” (98)

[Liam Malone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone decided to send the hottest days of the summer to us this weekend. It's been horrible outside from mid-morning until sunset. It's been blazing hot.

So, I stayed inside viewing 8 lectures and taking the quizzes on the Old Testament Books of Samuel 1 & 2 yesterday, Sunday and today, Labor Day.

I am not sure how I managed to find this course. But I did and am delighted. The course was free. I bought the book, which is a great translation of these Old Testament stories. The course is recorded to watch at leisure. The instructor has an excellent presentation style. This book was the textbook for the course. It is a good translation, very readable.

Learning about the Bible is new to me. I never read it all the way through except for reading a Children's Bible that my paternal grandmother gave to me for my First Holy Communion in 1967.
I felt pure satisfaction when I finished the class this evening.

I also participated in a 3-class course on Medieval Theology in July.
Then participated in 2 book group meetings on religious topics in August.

[Philip Mazza · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find that reading the bible in order with Alter's commentary is a markedly post-modern experience. While this is ancient literature, to read a story (I hadn't read the bible before grabbing Alter's edition) while at the same time reading a line by line commentary is a very metaliterary thing. Specially considering that many key points in the bible such as the creation of the human or (to name a few present in this book) David's coronation and his defeat of goliath are given different conflicting accounts. Alter's commentary is marvelous, it awoke such a curiosity in me for the poetry and polisemy of the text that I found myself checking the original hebrew quite frequently.