I truly love the Old Testament.  While many dismiss it as nothing more than a bunch of fables about an uneducated group of nomads who chose to be monotheistic rather than polytheistic,   I consider it so much more than that.
I see it as a historical account of man from his creation up to a period some fifteen hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

Since I love the study of all things that relate to antiquity, I find the Old Testament another source of information about the people of that time. From the Bible, I learn so much about what gods they worshiped and how the polytheistic nations interacted with the Jews, leading them away from monotheism time and again into polytheism.

That is really one of two underlying themes throughout the Old Testament--God's determination that the Jews, the race he had chosen as the ancestors of Christ--should give up once and for all any worship of idols. The other theme is, of course, the foreshadowing of the coming of Christ./p>
Most historians set the time of the Patriarchs--Abraham, Issac, and Jacob--at about 4,000 years ago (17th century BCE). Though Moses, believed to have written the first five Books of the Bible, gives an account of the creation,  the Bible really only begins giving us a sense of time as it relates to events from Abraham forward.
So, it's a fairly acccurate statement to say  that the events recorded from Abraham on in the Old Testament probably cover in the neighborhood of fifteen or sixteen hundred years.  In contrast, the New Testament only records the events of the first hundred years after Christ's birth.
Some seven hundred years after the days of Abraham, the Israelites began to demand a king to rule them, as their enemies all had kings.  God was not pleased, since he was their King; but he relented, sending Samuel the judge to anoint Saul as the first king.  When Saul proved unworthy, Samuel was instructed to anoint David as the king.
David is one of my favorite characters in the Old Testament--not because  of his virtue; in fact, Ezra  refers to him as a "man after God's own heart" but rather because of his failings.
Here's a man who loved the Lord all his life,  probably longer and more devoutly than any other mortal; nonetheless, during his lifetime, he committed both adultery and murder.  When Bathsheeba came to him telling him she was pregnant, he ordered her husband Uziah sent to the front lines in battle, with instructions that he be killed.
When David realized the extent to which he had sinned, he fell to the ground, begging God's forgiveness.  Though God forgave him, he sent word through Samuel that David would nonetheless be punished--that his child he had conceived with Bathsheeba would die and that his firstborn son, Absalom, would sleep with David's wives in public and try to kill him. 
That, of course, all happened.  The Book of Psalms, which many call the most beautiful book in the Bible, is filled with laments from David as he begs God to bring him home from exile where he is in hiding from Absalom and to strike down his enemies who surround him on every side.
I think the reason I love this weaker David so much is because I see a lot of my life reflected in the imperfect David.  I too feel that I have been surrounded by enemies at various times who should have loved me but chose to revile me instead.
But David taught me it is all right to be angry with God, even to argue with him to plead my case. So, I often rail at God, just as David did, asking him if I haven't also suffered enough.
Just as David won his argument, I believe I too have won mine. /p>