1 Samuel 8

The ark of the covenant was now out of enemy hands and resting in the house of Abinadab in

Kiriath Jearim in the territory of Benjamin (1 Sam. 1—2; Josh. 18:28). Shiloh had been destroyed by the Philistines and was no longer the location of the sanctuary of the Lord, and many years would pass before the ark would be moved to Jerusalem by King David (1 Chron. 15). But having the ark in Jewish territory didn’t automatically solve Israel’s problems, for during those twenty years when the ark was in Abinidab’s house, a new generation had arisen and was crying out for radical changes in Israel’s government. For centuries, the people of Israel had looked to Jehovah as their King, but now they asked the Lord to give them a king just like the other nations. It was a critical time in the history of Israel, and it took the prayers and guidance of Samuel to bring them safely through this dangerous time of transition.

eyes” (Judg. 21:25; see 17:6; 18:1; 19:1). The “nation” of Israel was a loose confederation of sovereign tribes, and each tribe was expected to seek the Lord and do His will.

Asking for a king (vv. 1–9). Knowing that Israel needed a stronger central government, the elders presented their request to Samuel and backed it up with several arguments. The first two must have cut Samuel to the quick: he was now old and had no successor, and his two sons were not godly men but took bribes (1 Sam. 8:3–5). How tragic that both Eli and Samuel had sons who failed to follow the Lord. Eli was too easy on his wayward sons (2:29), and perhaps Samuel was away from home too much as he made his ministry circuit to the cities. Samuel’s sons were miles away in Beersheba where their father couldn’t monitor their work, but if the elders knew about their sins, surely their father must have known also.

When the elders asked to have a king “like all the nations” (8:5, 20), they were forgetting that Israel’s strength was to be unlike the other nations. The Israelites were God’s covenant people and He was their King. The glory of God dwelt in their midst and the law of God was their wisdom. (See Ex. 19:3–6; 33:15–16; Lev. 18: and 20:26; Num. 23:9.) But the elders were concerned about national security and protection from the enemies around them. The Philistines were still a powerful nation, and the Ammonites were also a threat (1 Sam. 12:12). Israel had no standing army and no king to lead it. The elders forgot that it was the Lord who was Israel’s King and who gave her army the ability to defeat the enemy.

Samuel was a man of spiritual insight and he knew that this demand for a king was evidence of spiritual decay among the leaders. They weren’t rejecting him; they were rejecting God, and this grieved Samuel’s heart as he prayed to the Lord for wisdom. This wasn’t the first time the people had rejected their Lord. At Sinai, their request was “Make us gods!” (Ex. 32:1), and after their humiliating failure at Kadesh Barnea, they said, “Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt” (Num. 14:4). Whenever leadership in a church decays spiritually, that church becomes more like the world and uses the world’s methods and resources to try to do God’s work. The Jewish leaders in Samuel’s day had no faith that God could defeat their enemies and protect His people, so they chose to lean on the arm of flesh.

God is never surprised by what His people do, nor is He at a loss to know what He should do. “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations” (Ps. 33:10–11 nkjv). There is every evidence in the Pentateuch that Israel would one day have a king. God promised Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob that kings would be among their descendants (Gen. 17:6, 16; 35:11), and Jacob had named Judah as the kingly tribe (49:10). Moses prepared the nation for a king when he spoke to the new generation preparing to enter the Promised Land (Deut. 17:14–20).

It wasn’t Israel’s request for a king that was their greatest sin; it was their insisting that God give them a king immediately. The Lord had a king in mind for them, David the son of Jesse, but the time wasn’t ripe for him to appear. So, the Lord gave them their request by appointing Saul to be king, and He used Saul to chasten the nation and prepare them for David, the man of His choice. The fact that Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin and not from Judah is evidence enough that he was never expected to establish a dynasty in Israel. “So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away” (Hos. 13: niv). The greatest judgment God can give us is to let us have our own way. “And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul” (Ps. 106: nkjv). However, the Lord wanted His people to go into this new venture with their eyes open, so He commanded Samuel to tell them what it would cost them to have a king.

Paying for a king (vv. 10–22). What’s true of individuals is true of nations: you take what you want from life and you pay for it. Under the kingship of Jehovah God, the nation had security and sufficiency as long as they obeyed Him, and His demands were not unreasonable. To obey God’s covenant meant to live a happy life as the Lord gave you all that you needed and more. But the key word in Samuel’s speech is take, not give. The king and his court had to be supported, so he would take their sons and daughters, their property, their harvests, and their flocks and herds. Their choice young men would serve in the army as well as in the king’s fields. Their daughters would cook and bake for the king. He would take their property and part of their harvest in order to feed the officials and servants in the royal household. While these things weren’t too evident under Saul and David, they were certainly obvious under Solomon (1 Kings 4:7–28). The day came when the people cried out for relief from the heavy yoke Solomon had put on them just to maintain the glory of his kingdom (12:1–4; see Jer. 22:13–17).

In spite of these warnings, the people insisted that God give them a king. Pleasing the Lord wasn’t the thing uppermost in their minds; what they wanted was guaranteed protection against their enemies. They wanted someone to judge them and fight their battles, someone they could see and follow. They found it too demanding to trust an invisible God and obey His wonderful commandments. In spite of all the Lord had done for Israel from the call of Abraham to the conquest of the Promised Land, they turned their back on Almighty God and chose to have a frail man to rule over them.

Probably twenty or twenty-five years elapsed between the events recorded in chapter 7 and those in chapter 8. Samuel was now an old man, about to pass from the scene, and a new generation had emerged in Israel with new leaders who had new ideas. Life goes on, circumstances change, and God’s people must have wisdom to adapt to new challenges without abandoning old convictions. Like more than one great leader, Samuel in his old age faced some painful situations and had to make some difficult decisions. He left the scene convinced that he had been rejected by the people he had served so faithfully. Samuel obeyed the Lord, but he was a man with a broken heart.

God had chosen Moses to lead the nation of Israel and Joshua to succeed him (Deut. 31:1–15), but Joshua wasn’t commanded to lay hands on any successor. He left behind elders whom he had trained to serve God, but when they died, the new generation turned away from the Lord and followed the idols of the land (Judg. 2:10–15). There was an automatic succession to the priesthood, and the Lord could call out prophets when needed, but who would lead the people and see to it that the law was obeyed? During the period of the judges, God raised up leaders here and there and gave them great victories, but nobody was in charge of the nation as a whole. “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own