Week 14 1 Samuel 16
I started reading the story of David this year and after a couple of days I noticed that I kept going on-and-on with his story.
David’s story is good. But it’s long. And when I started wondering who had the longest life-story in the bible I figured that David might be a good candidate.
I added up all the chapters from 1 Samuel 16 to 31 (16) plus all of 2 Samuel (24) plus 1 Kings 1-2 (2). The arithmetic said David’s biography was 42 chapters long. (I didn’t want to quibble about a couple of non-David side-stories in the 42, And I didn’t tack-on the couple of dozen chapters of duplicated stories in 1 Chronicles.) 42 chapters is my rough number.
The only other challenger in the OT (that I could think of) was Moses. I could argue that Exodus 2 to Deuteronomy 34 are about Moses – 136 chapters. But that would be an inaccurate tally since the majority of those chapters aren’t Moses’ biography. I didn’t have time to do a chapter-by-chapter review of Moses so I don’t know if there are 42 biographical chapters. But I think Moses would be in-the-conversation.
There are other great stories in the OT: Noah Samson Ruth Elijah Elisha Jeremiah Jonah. But as far as the narrative-space devoted to a person? David is near the very top.
[Of course if I include the NT Jesus takes-the-cake – racking up 90 chapters.]
Anyway David is very very important in the OT scheme of things. And – as long as it is – the story still moves along fairly quickly.