Samuel
Israel’s final major judge before the monarchy and a prophet who listens for God. He anoints both Saul and David and speaks truth that political power cannot control.
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David & the Psalms · 16 weeks
After God’s Heart
Follow David from his anointing through the wilderness, the throne, his failures, and his final years. Read his story alongside the Psalms.
New to David’s story?
Get the setting, people, and context in three minutes.
Before you begin · a three-minute orientation
Before David steps into the story
David’s story begins during a turning point for Israel. For generations, the tribes had been led at different times by judges, priests, and prophets. Surrounded by hostile nations—especially the Philistines—the people demanded a king who could unite them and lead them in battle.
Samuel was Israel’s final major judge before the monarchy as well as a prophet. When his sons proved corrupt, Israel’s elders used their failure as part of their demand for a king like the surrounding nations.
Saul became Israel’s first king. He was capable and initially humble, but fear, impatience, and the need to control outcomes increasingly shaped his leadership. After repeated disobedience, God declared that Saul’s dynasty would not endure. Saul, however, was still on the throne.
God then sent Samuel to Jesse’s home in Bethlehem. There he anointed David—the youngest son, a shepherd who had not even been invited into the room. David received a calling long before he received a crown.
The tension that drives the early story
Saul possesses the throne, but David has received the calling. Much of the story unfolds in the dangerous space between those two realities.
People to know
The people around David
Saul
Israel’s first king: impressive, capable, and increasingly ruled by fear. His insecurity eventually turns David’s success into a threat.
David
The youngest son of Jesse—a shepherd, musician, warrior, poet, fugitive, and king. His life holds remarkable faith alongside devastating failure.
Jonathan
Saul’s son and the expected heir. He recognizes God’s work in David and becomes his loyal friend, even when that loyalty costs him.
Michal
Saul’s daughter and David’s wife. She helps David escape from Saul, though their relationship later becomes marked by distance and conflict.
Nathan
A prophet who later confronts David when the king abuses his power. Nathan shows the courage required to tell truth to someone who can punish you.
Bathsheba and Uriah
Two people whose lives expose the destructive reach of David’s choices and prevent us from turning his reign into a simple success story.
Absalom
One of David’s sons. His anger, ambition, and rebellion reveal how unresolved injustice inside a family can destabilize an entire kingdom.
How to read David
“After God’s heart” does not mean flawless
The Bible does not hide David’s courage, tenderness, fear, manipulation, faith, violence, repentance, or failure. We are not invited to imitate everything he does. We are invited to watch what God forms in him—and what happens when David resists that formation.
David’s life also points beyond David. Even Israel’s greatest king cannot become the completely faithful king God’s people need.
Why the Psalms?
The story outside and the prayer within
Samuel shows us what happened around David. The Psalms help us listen to what was happening within him.
Some Psalms have headings connecting them to particular moments. Others are paired because they express a similar experience of fear, waiting, grief, confession, trust, or praise. The goal is not to force every Psalm into a precise date, but to let the story and the prayers illuminate one another.
What happened
Read the biblical story without flattening its tension.
David’s heart
Let the Psalms give language to faith, fear, grief, and praise.
Our hearts
Name where the same pull meets your own life.
The central question
What does God form in a man through calling, waiting, courage, failure, repentance, and hope?
The story ahead
16 weeks in four parts
Move from David’s hidden calling through courage, exile, kingship, failure, grief, repentance, and the legacy he leaves behind.
Part I
The Call and the Cost
Part II
The Wilderness
Part III
The Throne and the Heart
Part IV
Fracture and Hope
Optional reading index
Companion readings for all 16 weeks
Narrative bridges and Psalms for anyone who wants to go deeper.
Optional reading index
Companion readings for all 16 weeks
Narrative bridges and Psalms for anyone who wants to go deeper.
- Story bridge
- 1 Samuel 16:14-23
- Psalms
- Psalm 8, Psalm 15, Psalm 23
- Story bridge
- 1 Samuel 17:1-31, 51-58
- Psalms
- Psalm 9, Psalm 20, Psalm 25
- Story bridge
- 1 Samuel 18-20
- Psalms
- Psalm 11, Psalm 26, Psalm 133
- Story bridge
- 1 Samuel 23
- Psalms
- Psalm 34, Psalm 54, Psalm 142
- Story bridge
- 1 Samuel 25
- Psalms
- Psalm 17, Psalm 36, Psalm 141
- Story bridge
- 1 Samuel 31
- Psalms
- Psalm 63, Psalm 121, Psalm 124
- Story bridge
- Pause with the Psalms
- Psalms
- Psalm 22, Psalm 42, Psalm 88
- Story bridge
- 2 Samuel 2-5; 1 Chronicles 13-16
- Psalms
- Psalm 24, Psalm 68, Psalm 96, Psalm 132
- Story bridge
- Return to 2 Samuel 7
- Psalms
- Psalm 2, Psalm 33, Psalm 72, Psalm 110
- Story bridge
- 1 Chronicles 18; 2 Samuel 10
- Psalms
- Psalm 20, Psalm 41, Psalm 101
- Story bridge
- Read all of 2 Samuel 11
- Psalms
- Psalm 38, Psalm 53
- Story bridge
- 2 Samuel 12:16-31
- Psalms
- Psalm 32, Psalm 130
- Story bridge
- Read all of 2 Samuel 13-14
- Psalms
- Psalm 10, Psalm 28
- Story bridge
- 2 Samuel 16-17; 19
- Psalms
- Psalm 61, Psalm 62, Psalm 69
- Story bridge
- Return to 2 Samuel 22
- Psalms
- Psalm 40, Psalm 100, Psalm 116
- Story bridge
- 1 Chronicles 21; 28; 1 Kings 1-2
- Psalms
- Psalm 72, Psalm 103, Psalm 127, Psalm 146