Biblical texts more often than not move quickly. Whole generations are glossed over with little mention beyond names, entire lives rendered irrelevant to the story. So, when any text of the Torah slows down, the implication is that these moments are of incredible importance. Chapters 19 and 20 of First Samuel concentrate on individual scenes and the details of complex conversations, lingering on social nuance and plot points like few scriptural texts ever do. It's clear in these chapters that we're not just reading a moral document, we're consuming entertainment.
The books of the Torah beyond the core five serve a variety of different purposes. Instead of just telling a cultural epic and laying down laws, collections like Psalms, Kings and Prophets are the result of a more established culture of people, a nation that required something more thrilling and modern to hold their attention. The story of David is nothing short of a primetime drama, albeit one with moral and political ends.
Consider for a moment how David's escape from Saul's sudden wrath is described with theatrics and interesting set pieces. Is it philosophically important that Michal used a shield and a tuft of goat's hair to make a decoy of David on the night Saul came to kill him in his bed? I'd say it's not. The text could just as easily explain that David escaped and Michal helped him. That it goes into such great detail suggests that the story is trying to be clever and exciting. The only reason to do that is to indulge an audience that isn't obligated to listen.
This also explains why these chapters spend so much time recounting the emotional conversations between David and Jonathan. We are supposed to sympathize with these characters, to feel for them and hope for their success. In the Five Books of Moses few of the figures are ever painted as protagonists, exactly. They simply do as they must, a noticeable level of detachment in the narrative. But in the case of David and Jonathan, we readers are being actively encouraged to connect with them, to be on the edges of our seats.
I don't believe that the clear attempts to be entertaining detract from the overall philosophical value of this text. In fact, it's rather fascinating to see a culture growing more sophisticated in its storytelling. It's quite likely that Judeans, upon their return from Babylonian captivity, put on scripted theatrical performances and musical retellings of these very same stories. And why not? Even modern Americans enjoy the drama of David's struggles. Last year, NBC even ran a series called Kings that told a modernized version of First Samuel, ending roughly at the close of Chapter 20.
There's a level of decadence in First Samuel, a poetic intensity that simply doesn't appear in older texts. That in itself is a lesson. Simple people in simple cultures happily accept simple stories. The more complex a society becomes, the less tolerance it has for plainness. If we today are to capture the attentions of ourselves and others concerning the highly valuable stories of ancient Jewish culture, we need to tap into that drama and excitement the sages of the first diaspora employed for David's story.