I should, however, note about the Chronicles of the Kings of Judeah that Rehoboam seems to be the first king cited as having an entry. It also feels a bit like the magic tones down a bit with Rehoboam.
Potentially, it was not until this point in time that the kingdom finally had some scribes.
Reading between the lines the overall story would seem to be:
As the people of Southern Canaan began to switch from nomadic to stationary life, it started to become necessary to start defending their territory from invaders.
The tribe shaman/chieftan, Samuel, was lobbied by Saul to let him organize some guys to do this work, and agreed. Saul proceeded to go around to other tribes, organizing guys and forming a general army of dudes, which he then would also use for small offensive runs as well. Eventually, Saul is recognized as the de facto ruler of the land and settles in to making babies and letting other people go into battle.
Some years later, one of Saul’s men, David, starts to make a name for himself on the battlefield, naturally rising through the ranks and gaining the fealty of many warriors. He’s a smart one and charismatic. Over time, he wins over Samuel and successfully woos several of Saul’s daughters. This worries Saul. He wants to pass on his throne to his own son, not have the throne pass through to some punk that reminds him of himself as a lad.
There’s a struggle. Saul’s son, Eshbaal becomes king, but eventually David takes it back from him after Saul’s death.
David is a pretty decent king. But still, we’re talking about a few towns and villages, here. Again, he’s basically holding his position as head of the army, so he continues to wage battles around the area, maybe adding some land to the kingdom, maybe losing some. Overall, he does alright.
However, his son, Solomon comes in and he’s the narcissistic sort that thinks that he needs to show off how great he and his kingdom are. He squeezes his people for everything they can get, and starts a bunch of construction projects, to try and leave a legacy of temples and palaces and whatever. He wants other kingdoms to know how awesome he is, so he tries to get into contact with everyone he is aware of, giving them gifts and accepting their gifts of slaves and concubines back. He builds places of worship for the visitors from all these places.
Once Solomon dies, the tribes walk, tired of having all their wealth taken and their people forced to build a bunch of useless buildings for the monarchy to use to show off, and sensing that they can get away with it under Rehoboam.
Egypt, seeing the power vacuum, swoops in, takes all of the treasures that Solomon had collected, and walks away laughing.
Rehoboam, having no better options, goes and sits in his room and calls in his scribes and tells them to start writing about how awesome his dad was and how everything he did was wonderful, and how it’s a shame that everyone left him and his family, and all they achieved was to break up the kingdom and make it easier for Egypt and anyone else to walk all over them.
Thus begins the records of the kings.
??