We Want a King!

1 Samuel 8

            1 Samuel 8 is a fascinating chapter.  First off, it’s fun to speculate about the character of Samuel.  Samuel is presented as this great paragon of faithfulness.  He is committed to the Lord’s service by his faithful mother.  He listens to God’s words.  God does not ‘let any of Samuel’s words fall to the ground’ (3:19).  He subdues the Philistines and Amorites.  He judges Israel ‘all the days of his life’ (7:15).  But, he tries to establish a dynasty, setting up his sons after him.  In this he is no better than old Eli, and you could make the case that he’s worse:  Eli, at least, was a priest; his sons were supposed to follow him!  Further, Samuel gets all bent out of shape when Israel asks for a king, and it’s hard to tell exactly why.  The Lord reminds him, “It’s me they’ve rejected, not you,” and one gets the impression that Samuel’s pique is more about the rejection of his sons than about the request for a king.  When he recounts all the abuses a king will bring—high taxes, forced labor, military conscription—he seems a little too eager, as if he’s trying to say, “You’ll see.  My boys aren’t so bad!”  All of that may be unfair to Samuel, but it’s fun to speculate about. . . .

            What’s more important is that 1 Samuel 8 records Israel’s demand for a king.  The Lord nails it.  “It’s me they’ve rejected.”  After all, the way that Israel was constituted at Sinai, the Lord was to have been their king.  And one of the huge underlying points of the Sinaitic laws was that Israel was to be God’s specially chosen people, living out of step with the world, but living as a shining example of what it means to be in the right relationship with the Lord.  So, the “like the other nations” bit is a rejection of their own unique place in God’s purposes.  We have seen the pressure throughout Joshua and Judges to be like the other nations; here Israel completely caves in and embraces it.

            If you’ve ever heard me talk about the problems of Israel, if you’ve ever heard me preach about Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God over against the way that Israel perceived what that phrase meant, you’ll know that this request for a king sets Israel on a path that will influence and distract that for the next thousand years until Jesus finally demonstrates in His suffering and death what it really means to be Israel!