The people’s desire for a king
8
📚And it came about, when Samuel was old, that he made his sons judges over Israel. 8:1 Deut 1:16; 16:18-19. Samuel was now too old for all the travel and work involved in judging Israel. He was a great man and much used by God, but here he made a big mistake. No doubt he sincerely thought that his sons were fit to act as judges, but they were not. Perhaps because of his constant traveling ministry he had failed to bring them up as he should have done. Everyone in God’s ministry should be careful about their children, and they need to pray for discernment, especially in assessing the character of members of their own families.⚜
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”.
8:3-5 It was partly due to the unfaithfulness of Samuel’s sons that the people wanted a king. The people’s unfaithfulness to the Lord is not to be excused on this account. At the same time we need to realize the bad effects people such as Samuel’s sons can have upon others.⚜
8:5 Israel refused to learn from history. Their insecurity and defeats were due to their own sin and rejection of God’s authority, but they blamed Samuel’s age and the character of his sons. They thought that an established human leadership, like other nations had, would be the cure for all their problems (v 20). But to desire what “all the other nations have” was both a great mistake and a great sin (v 7; Hos 13:10-11). God’s people were to be a separate, unique, holy people, unlike any other on earth (Ex 19:5-6; Deut 7:6). The same is true of believers now (1 Pet 2:9). It is not their business to desire to be like the people around them who do not know God.⚜
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.
8:7 1 Sam 10:19. Up until then God had been King in Israel (1 Sam 12:12). They had the ideal form of government – not democracy, not aristocracy, not plutocracy, not monarchy, not the dictatorship of the proletariat, but theocracy – the rule of God. If the system failed in any way, this was not because God is not the perfect ruler, but because the people continually rejected His authority and broke His laws, and often descended into anarchy (Jud 21:25). Here Israel rejects God’s rule altogether. Let us as individuals be careful that we do not do the same thing. Compare Luke 19:14; Rom 14:9.⚜
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”.
8:9 God does not let His people abandon a good way without warning 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”.
8:18 He would let them suffer the consequences of their foolish and sinful choice. See Gal 6:7. We cannot demand our own way and then rightly expect God to keep us from the sad results of it.⚜
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 📖”.
21 📚And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the ears of the LORD. 22 📚And the LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice and make a king for them”. And Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Each of you go to his city”.
8:5-22 The request for a king and the establishment of the kingdom teach us many important lessons.
(a) The system of kings was not God’s ideal, and it actually symbolized the people’s rejection of God (v 7).
(b) God gave them what they wanted. He even chose their king for them. God does not force His will on us. He may let us have our way, but it will not bring the blessing He wants us to have. Compare Ps 78:29-31; 106:15.
(c) They had to pay a price for their willfulness. God warned them where their desire would lead, but they would not listen (vs 9-19).
(d) God did not withdraw His grace from them because of their failure. God’s blessings are given in grace, often when His people badly fail. He continues to deal with His people even when they foolishly choose their own way.
(e) Although the system of kings was not God’s first choice for the people, in His grace He worked out His purposes through individual kings such as David, Hezekiah, Josiah, and others.
(f) Perhaps the most surprising thing of all is that by God’s grace Israel’s kingdom became in some measure a picture of God’s kingdom, and its king a “type” of the Lord Jesus as King (2 Sam 7:12-16; Ps 2:7; 45:1, 6; 89:33-37; Isa 9:6-7; Matt 1:1; 2:2; Luke 1:32-33; Rev 3:21; 19:11-16). But perhaps this is not so surprising after all, considering that man’s greatest acts of wickedness brought forth God’s greatest act of love and mercy – the cross of Christ.⚜
8:22 Verse 7; Hos 13:11.⚜