_SPECIAL TEXT: "And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams."--I. Samuel xv: 22._ _NOTES._ 1. _The Historic Period Covered by the Books of Samuel:_ "The story embraces a period of over one hundred years, and extends from the end of the time of the Judges to the close of the reign of David, 1015 B. C., the connecting link being found in the civil judgeship of Eli and Samuel. The object of the narrative is to exhibit the kingdom as it realized itself in view of a divine ideal; and the prominence given to the lives of Samuel and David would seem to be due to a design to portray the one as the type of the prophetic, and the other as the type of the kingly character--the king's counselor, in this case, selecting the king, and not, as was the rule afterwards, the king his counselor." (Cambridge Teacher's Bible Helps, p. 19.) 2. _Books of Samuel, I and II. Protestant View:_ "The two were, by the ancient Jews, conjoined, so as to make one book, and in that form could be called the Book of Samuel with more propriety than now, the second being wholly occupied with the relation of transactions that did not take place till after the death of that eminent judge. Accordingly, in the Septuagint and the Vulgate, it is called the First and Second Book of Kings. The early portion of the First Book, down to the end of the twenty-fourth chapter, was probably written by Samuel; while the rest of it, and the whole of the Second, are commonly ascribed to Nathan and Gad, founding the opinion on I Chronicles xxix: 29.. Commentators, however, are divided about this, some supposing that the statements in I Samuel ii: 26; iii: 1, indicate the hand of the judge himself, or a contemporary; while some think, from I Samuel vi: 18; xii: 5; xxvii: 6, that the composition must be referred to a later age. It is probable, however, that these supposed marks of an after period were interpolations of Ezra. This uncertainty, however, as to the authorship does not affect the inspired authority of the book, which is indisputable, being quoted in the New Testament (Acts xiii: 22; Hebrews i: 5) as well as in many of the Psalms." (Commentary, Explanatory and Critical, p. 8.) 3. _Catholic View of the Books of Samuel:_ "This [I Samuel] and the following book [II Samuel] are called by the Hebrews the books of Samuel, because they contain the history of Samuel, and of the two kings, Saul and David, whom he anointed. They are more commonly named by the Fathers the first and second book of kings. As to the writer of them, the common opinion is that Samuel composed the first book as far as the twenty-fifth chapter; and that the prophets Nathan and Gad finished the first, and wrote the second book. See I Chronicles xxix: 29." (Introduction to the First Book of Samuel, Douay Bible, p. 308.)