" the writer feels free to invent an inner language for the characters, to give their dialogues revelatory shape, to weave together episodes and characters with a fine mesh of recurrent motifs and phrases and analogies of incident, and to define the meaning of the events through allusion, metaphor, and symbol. The writer does all this not to fabricate history but in order to understand it. In this elaborately wrought literary vehicle, David turns out to be one of the most unfathomable figures of ancient literature. "

― Robert Alter , The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel