In a 2015 article for Biblica (“A King Like the Nations: 1 Samuel 8 in Its Cultural Context,” Bib 96.2 [2015]: 179-200), Jonathan H. Walton argues that the Israelite elders’ desire for a king like the nations is to be interpreted as a desire for a king who can effectively replace the loss of the ark, which, as the elders reckon, means finding a king who can reliably manipulate Yhwh. The present paper builds off Walton’s basic insight (i.e., Saul functions analogously to the elders’ ark conception) to argue that in fact the entirety of Saul’s reign and David’s rise in canonical 1-2 Samuel can be read such that the two figures serve as dueling avatars of the ark. Saul’s career represents the harsh realization of the elders’ wish come true, while David’s rise tracks with the journeys of the undomesticated ark. A narrative reading presents the evidence in four parts: (1) during Saul’s life he reprises many of the sins of the doomed Elide regime, while David in this same time experiences a vibrancy of communion with God; (2) Saul’s death represents an eschatological reset ending his career as the elders’ ark-fantasy, and in defeat he reprises Israel’s first defeat at Aphek (1 Sam 4); (3) David’s victory over the Philistines in the Valley of Rephaim eclipses the initial Aphek tragedy and stamps David’s imprimatur as the king in alignment with God’s heart; (4) and finally with the retrieval of the ark to Jerusalem, the narrative plot brings together David’s story with that of the physical ark, and in this moment the relation between the two is elucidated. In discerning the ark-king analogy in 1-2 Samuel, attention is paid especially to the narrative portrayal of each man’s ethical orientation, his religious praxis, his doxological reflex (i.e., stance toward the leitmotif of glory), and, perhaps most intriguingly, to the moments in which he physically embodies the ark in some manner. The paper implicitly suggests that recognition of the analogy enhances one’s understanding of the Saul-David juxtaposition within the period of David’s rise in 1-2 Samuel. Additionally, the paper contributes to the study of the text by postulating further ties between the stories of the ark and the narratives of Saul and David. Concluding hermeneutical reflections will examine some of the presuppositional and methodological background influences that make such a reading viable, as well as challenges posed by alternative perspectives.