In the David and Saul narratives in 1 and 2 Samuel, the use of clothing is literary in character, paralleling, focusing and enriching the narrative text, and providing a valuable measure of relative power. Throughout David's rise to power, he continually receives clothing from many different sources, while Saul discards clothing and appears naked. Although the garments may not be susceptible to symbolic interpretation in each individual episode, when seen with the Saul-David narrative as a whole, the clothes can be taken as a narratological device that highlighs David's rise to power and Saul's fall from grace.