This is the Bible Book Club. I'm Heather and I'm Susan and we're in the book of First Samuel.

Welcome to the club.

Last episode, we finished what is known as the Ark Narrative.

The Philistines had captured the Ark of the Covenant, and it literally plagued them for seven months.

So they decided to just send it on back.

The process was a little comical, and it included a gift of gold rats and tumors.

The Israelites received the Ark improperly, and in the process of mishandling it, 70 of them die.

The people have learned a tough lesson from their Philistine

defeat and returned to the Lord, ridding the nation of foreign gods. Then Samuel leads them in

prayer and repentance until the Philistines interrupt with another attack. This time the Lord is for

them and God defeats the Philistines with thunder so loud it throws them into

panic. Okay, so we just finished chapters one through seven of first Samuel. And they were all

about those first seven chapters Samuel story. In chapters eight through 14, we're going to

discuss Saul's story as the first king of Israel.

But before we zoom in on Saul, let's pull out and review where we've been in the history of Israel.

So the nation of Israel began as a patriarchal family.

First, Abraham was a leader, then Isaac, then Jacob.

Then remember, the family grew so large

that it was divided into 12 tribes. The 12 sons of Jacob were the tribe leaders for each tribe,

but they were still very much related to each other and worked together these 12 tribes.

Of course, it helps that for most of this

time, they were traveling around the wilderness together because the family that camps together

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