Reflections on 1 Samuel 8

1 Samuel 08 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Samuel had two sons. The older one was Joel, and the younger one was Abijah. When Samuel was getting old, he let them be leaders at Beersheba.
   
2. (SEE 8:1)
   
3. But they were not like their father. They were dishonest and accepted bribes to give unfair decisions.
   
4. One day the nation's leaders came to Samuel at Ramah
   
5. and said, "You are an old man. You set a good example for your sons, but they haven't followed it. Now we want a king to be our leader, just like all the other nations. Choose one for us!"
   
6. Samuel was upset to hear the leaders say they wanted a king, so he prayed about it.
   
7. The LORD answered: Samuel, do everything they want you to do. I am really the one they have rejected as their king.
   
8. Ever since the day I rescued my people from Egypt, they have turned from me to worship idols. Now they are turning away from you.
   
9. Do everything they ask, but warn them and tell them how a king will treat them.
   
10. Samuel told the people who were asking for a king what the LORD had said:
    
11. If you have a king, this is how he will treat you. He will force your sons to join his army. Some of them will ride in his chariots, some will serve in the cavalry, and others will run ahead of his own chariot.
    
12. Some of them will be officers in charge of a thousand soldiers, and others will be in charge of fifty. Still others will have to farm the king's land and harvest his crops, or make weapons and parts for his chariots.
    
13. Your daughters will have to make perfume or do his cooking and baking.
    
14. The king will take your best fields, as well as your vineyards, and olive orchards and give them to his own officials.
    
15. He will also take a tenth of your grain and grapes and give it to his officers and officials.
    
16. The king will take your slaves and your best young men and your donkeys and make them do his work.
    
17. He will also take a tenth of your sheep and goats. You will become the king's slaves,
    
18. and you will finally cry out for the LORD to save you from the king you wanted. But the LORD won't answer your prayers.
    
19. The people would not listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want to be like other nations. We want a king to rule us and lead us in battle."
    
20. (SEE 8:19)
    
21. Samuel listened to them and then told the LORD exactly what they had said.
    
22. "Do what they want," the LORD answered. "Give them a king." Samuel told the people to go back to their homes.
    

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    Samuel served well as judge over Israel for some 30 years. He had corrected her course in returning the people to worshipping God and getting rid of their idols. But as he grew old and turned leadership over to his sons, they turned out to be corrupt like Eli's sons. For this reason the role of judge was taken from Samuel's family as it had been taken from Eli's. But it was not taken away so violently. Instead of Samuel's sons being killed, the people requested a king to rule over them instead of judges, and instead of Samuel's sons. The request troubled Samuel, for Israel was to be a theocracy with God as their king.
    
    God did have a plan to give Israel a king, a man after His own heart, but the time was not yet right for that. So the circumstances and timing of Israel's request for a king was improper. Neither did their reasons for wanting a king have the best of motives. They did not say, "your sons do not follow your example. Appoint a king who will lead us in righteousness." Instead, they said, "appoint a king to judge us the same as all the other nations have." (8:5) Their focus was more on the ways of the world than on the ways of God. Though the timing was wrong and their reasons not the best, God determined to give them what they wanted and let them suffer the consequences. He would warn them first of what those consequences would be. Like any of us who are bent on having what we want, God's warning of the consequences had no effect on them. Maybe they were forgetting that the source of the warning was not Samuel who delivered it, but God who told Samuel to warn them. They no doubt thought, like any of us do at times, that what Samuel said may be true in some cases, but it wouldn't happen in our case.
    
    So God said to Samuel, "Listen to them. Appoint a king for them." (8:22) We can commend these elders of Israel for taking their request to Samuel and having him make the appointment of a king even if we cannot commend them for jumping ahead of God in making the request. A more commendable approach might have been to go to Samuel with their concerns about the leadership of his sons and asked him to seek God's instructions for a solution. Instead, they had their own solution and wanted Samuel to validate it for them.