1 Samuel Trivia
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100 free 1 Samuel trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
1 Samuel is where the Bible gets a king. It opens with a childless woman praying so hard that a priest thinks she is drunk, and closes with the king that priest's successor anointed falling on a battlefield. In between come a captured ark that wrecks a Philistine temple, a tall, shy farmer pulled out of hiding to be crowned, a giant, a jealous spear and the strangest friendship in scripture. These 100 questions follow the book from Hannah's vow to Mount Gilboa: Eli's doomed house, the ark's tour of Philistia, Saul's anointing and his unravelling, Jonathan's loyalty, David's years as an outlaw, the women who saved him, the medium at Endor and the king's last night. A few questions step outside the text to the hymn, the psalm headings and the Dead Sea Scrolls that grew out of it. It suits a church quiz night, a Bible study working through the historical books, or anyone who remembers the giant and the sling and wants the other thirty chapters back. Play on your phone with instant answers and explanations, or print it for a group.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What name did Eli's dying daughter-in-law give her newborn son on hearing the ark had been captured?
Ichabod
Ichabod, 'no glory' or 'where is the glory?', echoes her words 'The Glory has departed from Israel', and the name lived on: Washington Irving gave it to Ichabod Crane, schoolmaster of 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'.
Q 02Which Philistine god's statue was found face down before the ark at Ashdod, its head and hands snapped off?
Dagon
Dagon was long pictured as a fish-god, from the Hebrew dag, but the name more likely meant grain, and it was in Dagon's temple at Gaza that Samson pulled the pillars down.
Q 03What did Samuel name the stone he set up after the LORD's thunder routed the Philistines near Mizpah?
Ebenezer
Ebenezer means 'stone of help', and Samuel's words 'Thus far the LORD has helped us' are why Robert Robinson's hymn 'Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing' raises an Ebenezer in its second verse.
Q 04What gold animals, five of them like the five tumors, did the Philistines send back with the ark?
Rats
Rats, mice in older translations, rode in a chest beside the ark on a new cart pulled by two cows that had never been yoked and lowed all the way to Beth Shemesh.
Q 05What did the medium at Endor see 'coming up' when Saul asked her for Samuel?
An old man in a robe
An old man in a robe was enough for Saul to know it was Samuel, who asked 'Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?' and told him 'tomorrow you and your sons will be with me'.
Q 06How did the wounded King Saul die on Mount Gilboa?
Fell on his own sword
Fell on his own sword is the account of 1 Samuel 31, yet in 2 Samuel 1 an Amalekite tells David he finished Saul off himself, a claim that gets him executed on the spot.
Q 07Which town's men marched all night to retrieve Saul's corpse, repaying the rescue that launched his reign?
Jabesh Gilead
Jabesh Gilead owed Saul: breaking Nahash the Ammonite's siege of the town had been his first act as king, and its men burned the bodies, buried the bones under a tamarisk tree and fasted seven days.
Q 08What tally did the women credit to David in the victory song that made Saul keep 'a close eye' on him?
His tens of thousands
His tens of thousands, against Saul's mere thousands, drew the grumble 'What more can he get but the kingdom?', and even the Philistines of Gath were soon quoting the song.
Q 09What did Ahimelek the priest give a hungry David at Nob, having no ordinary loaves to hand?
The bread of the Presence
The bread of the Presence was lawful 'only for priests to eat', which is why Jesus cited David's meal when the Pharisees objected to his disciples picking grain on the Sabbath.
Q 10What did Jonathan taste from his staff, unaware Saul had cursed any soldier who ate before evening?
Honey
Honey dripping on the forest floor made his eyes brighten, and only the army's protest, 'not a hair of his head will fall to the ground', stopped Saul from executing his own son.
Q 11At which sanctuary did Hannah pray so silently for a son that the priest Eli took her for a drunk?
Shiloh
Shiloh housed the tabernacle and the ark until the Philistines captured it, and Jeremiah later pointed Jerusalem to its ruins: 'see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people'.
Q 12What did Hannah vow would never touch the head of the son she begged the LORD for?
A razor
A razor never touching the hair is the Nazirite rule of Numbers 6, the mark an angel also set on Samson before his birth, and once Samuel was weaned Hannah handed him to Eli for life.
Q 13Which sons of Eli, who seized worshippers' meat with a three-pronged fork, died the day the ark was captured?
Hophni and Phinehas
Q 21Where was the newly chosen Saul found hiding when the lot fell on him at Mizpah and no one could find him?
Among the supplies
Among the supplies, 'the stuff' in the King James, is where God himself had to point, and the man hauled out drew 'Long live the king!' plus a few scoundrels asking 'How can this fellow save us?'
Q 22What did Nahash the Ammonite demand from every man of the besieged town that offered to become his subjects?
Their right eye
Their right eye was to 'bring disgrace on all Israel', and the answer came from Saul, who hacked a pair of oxen to pieces and sent the bits round the tribes as a threat.
Q 23Where did Saul, done waiting seven days for Samuel, offer the burnt offering himself and forfeit his dynasty?
Hophni and Phinehas were 'scoundrels' who 'had no regard for the LORD', and a man of God had already told Eli that the pair would die on the same day.
Q 14What happened to the 98-year-old Eli when a runner said the ark of God had been taken?
Fell backward, broke his neck
Fell backward, broke his neck: he was 'an old man, and he was heavy', and it was the news of the ark's capture, not his sons' deaths, that toppled him after forty years leading Israel.
Q 15What did some men of Beth Shemesh do to the ark that got them struck dead?
Looked into it
Looked into it is the reason the Hebrew text gives, and the toll is disputed: a few manuscripts say seventy, most say 50,070, and the frightened town at once asked its neighbors to take the ark away.
Q 16In which town did the ark rest in Abinadab's house on the hill until David came to fetch it?
Kiriath Jearim
Kiriath Jearim got the ark because Beth Shemesh wanted rid of it: after the deaths there its people asked 'Who can stand in the presence of the LORD?' and sent word, 'Come down and take it up to your town'.
Q 17Which sons of Samuel, judges at Beersheba who took bribes, gave Israel's elders their excuse to demand a king?
Joel and Abijah
Joel and Abijah 'turned aside after dishonest gain', and the elders' demand for a king 'such as all the other nations have' drew the verdict that it was God they had rejected, not Samuel.
Q 18In Samuel's warning of what a king would take from Israel, what would the people's daughters be made into?
Perfumers, cooks and bakers
Perfumers, cooks and bakers came midway through a list that ended 'you yourselves will become his slaves', yet the people answered, 'We want a king over us'.
Q 19What set Kish's son Saul, 'as handsome a young man as could be found', apart from every other Israelite?
He was a head taller
He was a head taller than anyone else, the new king's one visible credential, and Samuel later had to be told 'the LORD does not look at the things people look at' when Jesse's tall eldest son impressed him.
Q 20What older title for a prophet does 1 Samuel 9 pause to explain, as Saul goes looking for the man of God?
Seer
Seer is the word the narrator stops to gloss as out of date, and Saul never got to ask about his father's donkeys: Samuel told him unprompted that they had been found.
Gilgal
Gilgal, where Saul had been confirmed as king, was where Samuel told him the LORD had 'sought out a man' to replace him, the verse Paul later quoted about David in Acts 13.
Q 24Which craftsman did the Philistines make sure could not be found in all Israel?
A blacksmith
A blacksmith could 'make swords or spears', the Philistines reasoned, so Israel's farmers paid them to sharpen plow points, and on the day of battle only Saul and Jonathan carried either weapon.
Q 25Which shout from the Philistine outpost had Jonathan chosen as his sign that the LORD would give him victory?
'Come up to us'
'Come up to us' was the taunt Jonathan wanted, since 'Wait there' would have kept him below, and he and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men before a panic sent by God swept the camp.
Q 26Complete Samuel's rebuke to King Saul: 'To obey is better than ___'?
Sacrifice
Sacrifice was Saul's excuse for the bleating sheep Samuel could hear: the troops had spared the best Amalekite flocks, he said, to offer to the LORD, and the rebuke ended 'he has rejected you as king'.
Q 27Where did Saul raise a monument in his own honor on the way home from the Amalekite campaign that ended his favor?
Carmel
Carmel, a town in Judah's hills rather than the northern mountain, is where Saul set up his own memorial, and the same Carmel is where Nabal would later shear three thousand sheep.
Q 28The LORD told Samuel at Jesse's house that people look at the outward appearance; what does the LORD look at?
The heart
The heart was the test that passed over seven brothers, and the eighth, fetched in from the sheep, was anointed from a horn of oil with his brothers looking on.
Q 29Besides roasted grain and ten loaves for his brothers, what did Jesse send David to give their unit's commander?
Ten cheeses
Ten cheeses got David to the Valley of Elah during the forty days of the giant's twice-daily challenge, and his eldest brother Eliab accused him of coming only to watch the battle.
Q 30Which daughter did Saul promise David if he fought 'the battles of the LORD', then hand to Adriel of Meholah instead?
Merab
Merab's offer hid a plan, 'I will not raise a hand against him. Let the Philistines do that!', and Saul ran the same play again with his younger daughter and a bride price paid in enemy dead.