A different division is adopted in the present books of Judges and Samuel, in which the stories of Eli and of Samuel are not made the close of the period of the judges but the prelude to the history of the kingdom. The Greek Bible divides this history into four books of the Kingdoms, or rather of the Reigns of the Kings; the Hebrew, into two, Samuel and Kings; the modern translations employ the latter names but adopt the subdivisions of the Greek, thus making two books of Samuel and two of Kings. First Samuel shows how the conquest and occupation of central Palestine by the Philistines led to the establishment of a national kingdom under Saul, a Benjamite; narrates the rise of his rival, the Judæan David, and the feud between them, down to the disastrous battle with the Philistines at Mt. Gilboa in which Saul and his gallant sons fell. Second Samuel is the history of David's reign and the tragedy of his house, the conclusion of which, the intrigue which raised Solomon to the throne and the death of the aged king, is treated as the prelude to Solomon's reign and carried over into 1 Kings; one recension of the Greek Bible, however, joins these chapters (1 Kings 1-2) to the preceding book. The two Books of Kings recount the reign of Solomon; the division of the kingdom after his death into two, on the old line, Israel and Judah; the parallel history of the two kingdoms to the end of Israel in 721 B.C.; and the rest of the history of Judah to its fall in 586. In the account of how Saul became king there are two contradictory representations. One of these, which agrees with 1 Sam. 12 in treating the desire of the people for a king as the wanton repudiation of Jehovah their king and of Samuel their divinely appointed judge, is contained in cc. 8; x. 17-27; 12. The other, according to which God, seeing the distress the people were in because of the Philistines, of his own motion resolves to give them a king to deliver them from their oppressors, is in 1 Sam. ix. 1-x. 16; 11. In c. 9 Samuel appears as a seer with a neighbourhood reputation of being able to tell where people's stray asses have gone, not as the prophet and judge, the first man of his time. These strands can be followed in both directions beyond the chapters named: 1 Sam. xiii. 1-xiv. 66 belongs to the second, which we may call the national version of the matter; c. 15 attaches itself to the other, say theocratic, representation, though it is of a somewhat different texture. On the other side, vii. 3-17 plainly goes with c. 8; while iv. 1^b-vii. 2 are akin to the national version, showing how grievous the situation was and how urgent the need of a king. Chapters 1-3 have a twofold motive; they tell of the wonderful childhood of a great man, and they explain the disasters of Eli's house. The latter has reference to cc. 4-6; the former, a favourite theme of popular tales, is an appropriate introduction to Samuel the prophet.