reader/hearer to forget the matter of Samuel’s commission, for a little while, until it returns front and center in 1 Samuel 13.9 The impact of this narrative forgetting is to increase the reader’s sympathy with Saul, who can then be faulted for failing to observe the letter of his instructions only if the reader becomes questionably scrupulous. In other words, the effect of the narrative postponement is not only to engender more sympathy for Saul but to provoke the reader into questioning his or