Why did Israel ask for a king?

Answer 1

Samuel's sons were corrupt, so the Israelites were not happy at the prospect of them ruling as judges. Their motive was only to be like the other nations and to have their king precede them in battle. At the time, God performed this role and they were rejecting His leadership. This was at variance with God's provision, because He had prescribed the manner in how a king should be chosen and rule, but the people had gone against this.

Answer 2

It is not surprising to this contributor that Israel demanded a king. Other nations had kings, and they wanted a king on earth whom they could see and hear. They were placing their trust in the flesh rather than the spirit, as any other people would do. Wanting a king did not make them faithless, I think, but it did make them average.

In the truest form of the matter though, God prophesied through Moses that this would happen, well ahead of the event in 1 Samuel 8. In Deuteronomy 17:14-15, it states: (14) When you have come to the land which the Lord your God gives you, and shall possess it, and shall dwell therein, and shall say, "I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me;" (15) you shall surely set that man as king over yourselves whom the Lord your God shall choose: one from among your brothers you shall set king as over you; you may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.

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Another observation:

Look at the verse closely, folks. It's right there in front of us.

When they came to Samuel and said "Set a king over us", everything was fine up to that point. But then they sank themselves, when they said " ... like all the other nations that are around us." That was the tragedy right there. People who could say "We want to be like the other nations around us" were people who had not been listening for the previous few hundred years. Virtually ALL of the instructions during the 40 years in the wilderness, concerning how they were to conduct themselves in the promised land, hammered on the same one theme:

(In my paraphrase): You are NOT like the other nations that are around you.

Their culture is so defiled that the land is about to spit them out, and THAT's

why I'm giving it to you and causing you to defeat them. Your mission in the

world is to make a difference by being different, and you are never to take up

the culture that you see around you.

And then the people who had heard this for generations ... from the clouds, from the mountain, from Moses, from Joshua, from their parents and grandparents, and from their prophets ... these geniuses come to Samuel to say we want a king "like the other nations around us". That was it, right there.

And so they got Saul, and what a fine piece of work HE turned out to be!

Answer:

The Israelites at that time were coming to the end of an era which was unique in world history. They had undertaken a grand experiment: whether a nation could govern themselves for centuries without a king or organized government.

Instead, there were the officers of tens, fifties, hundreds and thousands (Exodus ch.18), and the court of Elders, who were Torah-scholars that provided Torah-rulings and guidance. Each of the leading Judges (Gideon, Deborah etc.) was a private citizen (not a head of government) who led the nation only during a brief episode of battle.

During that era (of the Judges, about 350 years), when someone raised the possibility of having a king, the answer was: God will rule over you, not a king (Judges 8:23). The events of the Exodus and the Giving of the Torah were so fresh in the nation's memory that they didn't need a king; God was their King. (The missteps which did take place in that era, is a subject beyond the scope of the present question.)

In Samuel's old age, nearly four centuries after the Exodus, the people (including their Torah-scholars) felt that the time had come to take a regular government. The Torah itself permitted this (Deuteronomy ch.17); and they saw that Samuel's sons didn't seem to have reached his spiritual level (1 Samuel 8:2-3).

Their usage of the expression "like the other nations around us" was not a problem, since they were deliberately quoting the Torah (Deuteronomy 17:14).

What then was their mistake?

According to the Malbim commentary (on 1 Samuel), they should have waited at least until Samuel was too old to function.

According to the K'li Yakar commentary (on Deuteronomy), their precise choice of language ("for us," instead of the "over us" which the Torah had said), hinted that they wanted a king who might be affected by public pressure (which later happened with Rehoboam). See Talmud, Yoma 22b.

According to Samuel himself (1 Samuel 8:10-18), they were taking a regrettable risk because later kings might be overbearing.

One more point: in Judaism we have a general rule which is called "the descent of the generations." This means that according to our tradition, the earlier a generation lived, the higher was their spiritual level (Talmud, Shabbat 112b). No Talmud-sage would dare to negate a verse of the Prophets; and no later Rabbi would dare to belittle a Talmud-sage.

For this reason, we must not judge that generation. And concerning Saul, our tradition explicitly states that he was a righteous man (Talmud, Moed Katan 16b; and Midrash Breishit Rabah 54:4); and he unified the Israelites and defeated their enemies round about (1 Samuel 14:47).

Answer 3

Answer:

After agreeing to enter into their covenant relationship (marriage) with God, to "obey His voice" (Ex.19:5-8)... the Israelites' decision years later to opt for a human king, instead of their Husband and King who was already over them... was their outright rejection of God.

"Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, saith the Lord." (Jer.3:20)

"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which My covenant they brake, although I was an Husband unto them..." (Jer.31:31-32).

God... ever the good Husband... wished only to please His wife. Which, in this case, meant to comply with her wishes to be "joined to another" (a human king) in what was tantamount to an adulterous relationship.

And so, in granting His "wives" (Israel and Judah) their wish to be set free from Him, the Lord complied following giving them "fair warning" regarding their rash decision.

"...the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us... and the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.

"According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken Me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee.

"Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them..." (I Sam.8:6-9).

God's warning list completes I Samuel's 8th chapter... but the people heeded not the warnings. They would put their trust in a man... not God.

"...we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." (verses 19-20)

As America, today, is "no longer a Christian nation"... so, the ancient Israelites rejected the Lord and placed their trust in men.

The warnings of I Samuel 8 for the nation of Israel against setting men above God are written down for us... and remain valid warning to all nations.

"...and ye shall be his servants. And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day..." (verse 18).

"And the Lord said... Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king..." (verse 22).

Answer 4

In that particular period of history, in the ancient world, nations had kings; democracy had not been invented, and monarchy was the normal and pretty much only form of government. The Old Testament suggests that a more pious alternative would have been a theocracy, but people were not quite that pious. They wanted a normal government.

Answer 5

God didn't want Israel to have a king because he was their king, but since the people longed for one, He had his prophet Samuel anoint a man named Saul as the first king of Israel.