Wounded Kings and Weeping Mothers: Reading 1 Samuel Through the Lens of Collective Trauma
1 Samuel begins in tears. A barren woman weeps bitterly before God, and her lament sets the tone for a book that is thick with loss, dislocation, power struggle, and fractured leadership. Beneath the surface of political drama and prophetic intrigue lies a raw emotional current that scholars have increasingly recognised as indicative of a deeper cultural wound. This isn't just the story of Israel getting a king—it’s the story of a people trying to piece together an identity after total collapse.
Was 1 Samuel Written in the Context of Collective Trauma?
To answer this, we need to zoom out. The events described in 1 Sam. take place in the aftermath of the Judges period—a time defined by repeated cycles of violence, oppression, and anarchy. Jud. 21:25 closes with the chilling phrase, ‘In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.’
The text leaves us with the image of a fragmented, ungoverned, and morally disoriented people. Israel had experienced what we might now call collective trauma—not just isolated suffering but an entire society enduring repeated destabilisation. From the loss of the Ark (1 Sam. 4), the fall of Shiloh (Ps. 78 and Jer. 7), to the death of Eli's priestly line and the military defeat by the Philistines, Israel’s religious, political, and military systems were failing. The pillars of their cultural identity—land, covenant, temple, leadership—were being shaken.
Many scholars (Daniel Smith-Christopher, Kathleen O’Connor, and David Janzen) argue that biblical texts often emerge from or reflect communal trauma, especially post-exilic literature. While 1 Sam. isn’t exilic literature, it may well have been edited or compiled during exilic or post-exilic periods, infusing earlier oral and written traditions with later theological reflection. In this view, the narratives of Saul and David do more than record history—they become mirrors of trauma processing.
What Are the Signs of Trauma in the Text?
Disrupted Leadership: The book presents a sequence of failed or compromised leaders—Eli, Saul, and Samuel’s sons. Trauma often produces anxiety around leadership and control. Saul becomes a tragic emblem of someone unable to cope with the weight of expectations. His paranoia, impulsiveness, and instability read eerily like symptoms of moral injury. His inner life is in disarray, and the nation reflects that brokenness.
Liminal Figures: Hannah, Samuel, and David each emerge from the margins. Hannah’s lament becomes prophetic; Samuel’s birth is framed as divine intervention in a time of spiritual silence; David is an unlikely king from an obscure family. Trauma often shifts power structures and opens space for unlikely voices. In this way, the text suggests that hope comes not from the centre but from the margins—from those who know what it is to suffer.
Haunted Spaces: The Ark’s journey through Philistine territory and its eventual return reads like a metaphor for God's glory wandering in exile. Shiloh is decimated, and no new central sanctuary arises in 1 Samuel. Trauma disrupts sacred geography; holy places become “haunted” spaces.
Emotional Intensity: There is a noticeable uptick in emotional expression—Hannah’s weeping, Saul’s madness, David’s fear and grief. The narrative is emotionally raw, often more psychological than doctrinal. It opens space for lament, longing, and confusion.
What Does This Do to Our Understanding of the Text?
Seeing 1 Sam. through the lens of collective trauma changes the way we engage with it. Rather than simply a prelude to kingship or a story about divine sovereignty, it becomes a meditation on the costs of leadership in the shadow of collapse. It gives permission for us to read these stories as testimonies of survival, displacement, and really painful transition, rather than some set of idealised templates.
Theologically, it invites us to see God not as absent in trauma but present within it—working in unexpected ways through lament, barrenness, and even anointing oil poured over frightened boys in backwater villages. It also prevents us from reading the failures of leaders like Saul in purely moralistic terms. Instead, we might ask: what does it mean to lead while wounded? And what are the limits of redemption in a traumatised system?
Why This Matters Today
We live in a time marked by our own forms of collective trauma—pandemics, political upheaval, ecological collapse, and an enormous sense of generational disillusionment. Many communities are navigating leadership vacuums, spiritual dullness, and deep anxiety about the future. The church, too, finds itself in a liminal space: grieving past certainties and unsure what comes next.
Reading 1 Sam. through this lens helps us see that God works through trauma, not just in spite of it. It invites faith communities to make space for lament, grief, and uncertainty, rather than focusing solely on victory. Leadership, in this context, is not a solution to trauma but something profoundly shaped by it. This perspective also reframes our understanding of spiritual growth, shifting it from triumph to a deep, often painful trust forged in the wilderness.
For pastors, youth workers, and spiritual leaders, this reading of 1 Sam. can shift the way we disciple others. It reminds us to listen for the Hannahs who pray in anguish, to notice the Sauls whose fear drives them to self-destruction, and to nurture the Davids still hiding in caves, uncertain of their call.
1 Sam. is not just the story of how Israel got a king. It’s the story of how a broken people stumbled toward identity after trauma. It is a sacred text that neither denies the pain of the past nor allows it to define the future. In reading it with wounded eyes, we begin to see our own stories in sharper focus—and perhaps, find that the God who anointed kings in caves still walks among the bruised and bewildered today.