First Glance

From the moment he became ancient Israel’s first king, Saul seemed destined for tragedy. Rather than founding a royal line—like David would do—Saul faced setback after setback, which culminated in his humiliating death. Even while recording Saul’s slow disintegration, 1 Samuel recounts the meteoric rise of the young David as Israelite hero and eventual monarch. Jan P. Fokkelman examines the intertwined lives of these two fascinating personalities. In “Saul & David—Crossed Fates,” Fokkelman lays bare the saga’s narrative structure, which reveals how what happens to Saul is carefully balanced by what happens to David. Saul’s failure to annihilate the detested Amalekites and his subsequent defeat by the Philistines sharply contrast with David’s victories against both these enemies. The biblical account, Fokkelman shows, skillfully weaves the story of Saul and David into a powerful lesson.

Fokkelman was born in 1940 in Jakarta (then called Batavia), Indonesia. After he and his parents survived the Japanese internment camps, they settled in his parents’ homeland, Holland. At the State University of Leiden, Fokkelman lectures in the Department of Hebrew, Aramaic and Ugaritic. He is currently working on a four volume project, Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel. The first two volumes, King David and The Crossing Fates, have already appeared.