The people’s desire for a king
8
📚✭And it came about, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel. 2 📚Now the name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second, Abiah. They were judges in Beersheba. 3 📚✭And his sons did not walk in his ways✭, but turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted judgment✭. 4 📚Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, 5 📚✭✭and said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make a king for us to judge us like all the nations”.
6 📚But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, “Give us a king to judge us”. And Samuel prayed to the LORD. 7 📚✭And the LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, so that I should not reign over them. 8 📚They are doing to you in accordance with all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt to this day, in which they have forsaken me and served other gods. 9 📚✭Now therefore listen to their voice, but yet protest solemnly to them and show them the kind of king who will reign over them”.
10 And Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who had asked a king from him. 11 📚And he said, “This will be the kind of king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some will run in front of his chariots. 12 📚And he will appoint for himself leaders over thousands and leaders over fifties, and will set them to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 And he will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 📚And he will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves, and give them to his servants. 15 📚And he will take the tenth of your seed grain and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants.
16 And he will take your male and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your sheep. And you will become his servants. 18 📚✭And you shall cry out in that day because of your king whom you choose for yourselves, and the LORD will not hear you in that day”.
19 📚Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and said, “No, but we will have a king over us, 20 📚so that we also may be like all the nations, and so that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles✭”.