Christine Hayes, professor of religious studies at Yale, traces the shift from tribal Israel led by elders and charismatic judges to a monarchy under Saul and David, in this lecture from her Introduction to the Old Testament course. She works through the Book of Judges, then the figure of Samuel as a transition between prophet-judges and kings, showing how originally local hero stories were compiled by the exilic Deuteronomistic School into a continuous history. The lecture examines Saul and David as competing representations of Israel's ambivalence about kingship, and closes on the Davidic covenant, God's promise of an enduring dynasty. Hayes reads the biblical text closely alongside historical context, distinguishing between Israelis and Israelites as social categories before the monarchy consolidates them into a nation state.