After Saul and Jonathan died in battle, David became the king of Israel. The people loved David. He made Jerusalem the capital and the main place of worship for Israel. He made two attempts to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. On the ...

Saul continued to be jealous of David. He hunted him and tried to kill him. David had raised his own armies and could have fought Saul, but he did not. He respected Saul as king. David trusted the Lord to know when it was time for him to become...

David moved to Saul’s house. Saul often asked him to play the harp for him when he was upset. Saul became jealous when the people began to prefer David over him. In his jealousy, he threw a spear at David and tried to kill him. Saul’s son, Jona...

David’s older brothers went to fight battles with King Saul while David stayed home and cared for his father’s sheep. When David was sent to take food to his brothers, he was appalled to find that the whole army was afraid of the Philistines. E...

God told Samuel that he had chosen a new king for Israel, and the new king was to be one of Jesse’s seven sons. When Samuel saw the sons, he assumed the Lord would choose Jesse’s oldest son. Instead, to everyone’s surprise, the Lord chose the y...

The Lord gave King Saul specific instructions on how to handle a battle with the enemy, the Amalekites. King Saul disobeyed the Lord in front of all of the people, and then he refused to admit his own sin. When Samuel confronted him, Saul made ...

Although God warned Israel of the many problems associated with having a king, the people still demanded one. They wanted to be like the nations. Though reluctant, a handsome young man named Saul was anointed as Israel’s first King. The people ...

While young Samuel was sleeping, the Lord called his name. Not recognising the voice, Samuel ran to the elderly Eli, mistakenly thinking it was him. When the voice continued to call Samuel, Eli told him to listen carefully. The voice must be th...

Hannah did not forget the promise that she had made to the Lord. After her son, Samuel, was weaned, she took him to the Tabernacle and presented him to Eli, the High Priest. Samuel’s parents returned home, but Samuel remained with Eli to be a h...

Elkanah had two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. Peninnah taunted Hannah because Hannah had no children. Hannah prayed and wept near the entrance when she accompanied Elkanah to the Tabernacle. In her prayer, she promised the Lord that if He gave he...

Boaz was the owner of the field where Ruth gathered grain. He was also a relative of Naomi’s late husband. When Boaz took notice of Ruth and treated her with kindness, Naomi knew that he would be a good husband to Ruth. She instructed Ruth to f...

Naomi’s husband and two sons died while they were all living in the foreign country of Moab. She told her two daughters-in-law to go back to their own parents. Naomi wanted to return to her relatives in her original homeland of Judah. One daugh...

Many Philistines gathered in a temple to celebrate and worship their God. They brought Samson out of prison, put him in front of everyone, and made fun of him. He asked a servant to lead him to a place between two pillars. By this time, Samson’...

Although the Lord chose Samson, Samson did not always choose God! He fell in love with a Philistine woman named Delilah, who did not believe in God. The Philistine rulers paid Delilah to find the secret of Samson’s strength. Delilah begged Sams...

The Israelites drifted away from the Lord again, and the Philistines began to harass and hurt them. The Lord blessed a childless couple with the birth of a son named Samson. The Lord told Samson’s parents that Samson was to live by a vow (promi...

Gideon gathered 32,000 Israelites to fight the huge Midianite army of 135,000 men. The Lord commanded Gideon to reduce his army to only 300 men. Gideon and his small army surrounded the Midianite camp at night and, at a signal, smashed jars, bl...

As Israel again drifted away from God, the Midianites began to attack and destroy crops and loot the people. While Gideon was threshing wheat in a secret location, an angel of the Lord came to him and told him to lead the Israelites in a fight ...

Deborah, the judge, held court while sitting beneath a palm tree. She was wise and helped the people solve their problems. She told Barak, commander of the army of Israel, that the Lord wanted him to fight an enemy named Sisera. Barak refused t...

The Lord had such confidence in Job’s faith that He allowed Satan to test him. Satan took away Job’s wealth, children, and health. Job’s wife and friends were not much help because they tried to convince him that he probably deserved the things...

When the Lord told the Israelites to divide the land, Caleb had a special request from Joshua. Caleb was an old man, but remembered forty-five years earlier when he was one of the twelve spies who had spied out of Canaan. Because Caleb had fait...

People in the town of Gibeon were afraid Joshua’s nearby army would overpower them. They pretended to be from a faraway place and tricked Joshua and his army into promising to keep them safe. When the Israelites later heard that the Gibeonites ...

Because Joshua believed the Lord would help the Israelites win another battle, he led the people in attacking the city of Ai. Israel lost miserably. The Lord told Joshua that one of the Israelites had taken things for himself during the battle ...

Joshua led the people in a battle to overtake the walled city of Jericho. Instead of soldiers, priests and musicians led the people in marching around the walls of the city. After seven days of this, the people shouted and blew trumpets. Immedi...

After forty years of wandering in the desert, it was time to cross over the Jordan River and take the land that God had promised. Joshua instructed the priests to carry the Ark of the Covenant and begin walking into the Jordan. Even though the ...

Joshua sent two spies over the Jordan River and into the city of Jericho. Rahab, a woman in the city, let the spies stay at her house. When the city officials searched for them, she hid them on her rooftop under stalks of flax. She told the spi...