Most books of the Bible have themes. Commentators generally do
a decent job of teasing out the more blatant ones and turning them into book
titles or pithy summaries. Thus Psalms is “the hymnbook of the remnant”, Hebrews
is concerned with “an unshakeable kingdom” and Mark’s is said to be the “gospel
of the Servant King”. To their credit,
in many cases these diligent students of God’s word also identify and share
with us less obvious recurring patterns that could easily be missed by first,
second and even third time readers.
In the books of Samuel, one of these recurring patterns is nepotism. It might
not rate the subtitle of a commentary, but it’s there all the same, threading its
way through the stories of Samuel, Saul and David, chronicling the perils of
family ties that are just a wee bit too tight, and their potentially injurious effects on the people of God.
Once you see it, you can’t stop seeing it.