1 Samuel · Chapter 8

V. 1. Old-And so unfit for his former travels and labours. He is not supposed to have been now above sixty years of age. But he had spent his strength and spirits in the fatigue of public business: and now if he thinks to shake himself as at other times, he finds he is mistaken: age has cut his hair. They that are in the prime of their years, ought to be busy in doing the work of life: for as they go into years, they will find themselves less disposed to it, and less capable of it. Judges-Not supreme judges, for such there was to be but one, and that of God’s chusing; and Samuel still kept that office in his own hands, 1 Samuel 7:15, but his deputies, to go about and determine matters, but with reservation of a right of appeals to himself. He had doubtless instructed them in a singular manner, and fitted them for the highest employments; and he hoped that the example he had sent them, and the authority he still had over them, would oblige them to diligence and faithfulness in their trust.

Verse 1. When Samuel was old] Supposed to be about sixty. He made his sons judges] He appointed them as his lieutenants to superintend certain affairs in Beer-sheba, which he could not conveniently attend to himself. But they were never judges in the proper sense of the word; Samuel was the last judge in Israel, and he judged it to the day of his death. See 1 Samuel 7:16.

Verse 1. Samuel was old — And so unfit for his former travels and labours. He is not supposed to have been now above sixty years of age; but he had spent his strength and spirits in the fatigue of public business; and now if he thinks to shake himself as at other times, he finds he is mistaken; age has cut his hair. They that are in the prime of their years, ought to be busy in doing the work of life; for as they go into years, they will find themselves less disposed to it, and less capable of it. He made his sons judges — Not supreme judges, for of such there was to be but one, and that of God’s choosing; and Samuel still kept that office in his own hands, (1 Samuel 7:15;) but his deputies, to go about and determine matters, with reservation, however, of a right of appeal to himself. He had doubtless instructed them in a singular manner, and fitted them for the highest employments; and he hoped that the example he had set them, and the authority he still had over them, would oblige them to diligence and faithfulness in their trust.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 2. Beer-sheba-In the southern border of the land of Canaan, which were very remote from his house at Ramah; where, and in the neighbouring places Samuel himself still executing the office of judge.

Verse 2. They were judges in Beer-sheba — In the southern borders of the land of Canaan, which were very remote from his house at Ramah; where, and in the neighbouring places, Samuel himself still executed the office of judge.

2. In Beer-sheba — Their chief seat was there, as Samuel’s was at Ramah. Probably the recovery under Samuel of many cities from the Philistines (1 Samuel 7:14) made it expedient to have some kind of magistrates appointed in the southern part of the country.

V. 3. Took bribes-Opportunity and temptation discovered that corruption in them which ‘till now was hid from their father. It has often been the grief of holy men, that their children did not tread in their steps. So far from it, that the sons of eminently good men, have been often eminently wicked.

Verse 3. His sons walked not in his ways] Their iniquity is pointed out in three words: 1. They turned aside after lucre; the original ([xb batsa) signifies to cut, clip, break off; and therefore Mr. Parkhurst thinks that it means nearly the same with our clipping of coin. It however expresses here the idea of avarice, of getting money by hook or by crook. The Targum says, “They looked after rqvd ממונ mamon dishkar, the mammon of unrighteousness;” of which they did not make unto themselves friends but enemies; see Clarke’s note on “Matthew 6:24”. 2. They took bribes; djv shochad, gifts or presents, to blind their eyes. 3. They perverted judgment-they turned judgment aside; they put it out of its regular path; they sold it to the highest bidder: thus the wicked rich man had his cause, and the poor man was oppressed and deprived of his right. This was the custom in our own country before MAGNA CHARTA was obtained; he that would speed in the king’s court must bribe all the officers, and fee both the king and queen! I have found in our ancient records the most barefaced and shameful examples of this kind; but it was totally abolished, invito rege, by that provision in the above charter which states, Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimvs ant differemus rectum aut judicium; “To no man will we sell, to no man will we deny or defer, justice and right.” It was customary in those inauspicious times, for judgment to be delayed in banco regis, in the king’s court, as long as there was any hope that more money would be paid in order to bring it to issue. And there were cases, where the king did not like the party, in which he denied justice and judgment entirely! Magna Charta brought them to book, and brought the subject to his right. Of those times it might well be said, as Homer did, Iliad xvi., ver. 387. Oi bih agorh skoliav krinwsi qemistav,

Ek de dikhn elaswsi, qewn opin ouk alegontev.

“When guilty mortals break the eternal laws,

Or judges, bribed, betray the righteous cause.”

“When the laws are perverted by force; when justice is expelled from her seat; when judges are swayed from the right, regardless of the vengeance of Heaven.” Or, in other words, these were times in which the streams of justice were poisoned in their source, and judges neither feared God nor regarded man.

Verse 3. Took bribes — Opportunity and temptation discovered that corruption in them which, till now, was hid from their father, and, it may be, from themselves. It has often been the grief of holy men, that their children did not tread in their steps. So far from it, that the sons of eminently good men have been often eminently wicked.

Verse 3. His sons walked not as their father, who always came into court with clean hands. Seeking to aggrandize their families they took bribes, and by consequence perverted judgment. The history of all nations abounds with complaints of the same sin.

3. Turned aside after lucre… took bribes… perverted judgment — Three evils which cannot be too strongly reprobated in a judge. The Hebrew word [xb, here translated lucre, means properly ill-gotten gain — that which is obtained by violence or fraud. The judge who covetously puts his hand on ill-gotten gain will be easily overcome with bribery, and he who takes bribes will necessarily pervert judgment and truth.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 5. A king-Their desires exceed their reasons, which extended no farther than to the removal of Samuel’s sons from their places, and the procuring some other just: and prudent assistance to Samuel’s age. Nor was the grant of their desire a remedy for their disease, but rather an aggravation of it. For the sons of their king were likely to be as corrupt as Samuel’s sons and, if they were, would not be so easily removed. Like other nations-That is, as most of the nations about us have. But there was not the like reason; because God had separated them from all other nations, and cautioned them against the imitation of their examples, and had taken them into his own immediate care and government; which privilege other nations had not.

Verse 5. Make us a king] Hitherto, from the time in which they were a people, the Israelites were under a theocracy, they had no other king but GOD. NOW they desire to have a king like the other nations around them, who may be their general in battle; for this is the point at which they principally aim.

Verse 5. Make us a king — Their desires exceed their reasons, which extended no farther than the removal of Samuel’s sons from their places, and the procuring some other just and prudent assistance to Samuel’s age. Nor was the grant of their desire a remedy for their disease, but rather an aggravation of it. For the sons of their king were likely to be as corrupt as Samuel’s sons; and, if they were, would not be so easily removed. Like other nations — That is, as most of the nations about us have. But there was not the like reason; because God had separated them from all other nations, and cautioned them against the imitation of their examples, and had taken them under his own immediate care and government; which privilege other nations had not.

Ver. 5. Make us a king. Moses had foreseen all this, Deuteronomy 17:14, and therefore provided that the king should govern by law. Primitive governments commenced with a patriarch, surrounded with elders, without whom he could not act. But men in power take advantage of the changes induced on the state to encrease their power; so that the happiest forms of liberty and law are eventually impelled towards aristocracy, and thence to monarchy. And monarchy, under a Sesostris in Egypt, a David in Israel, an Augustus in Rome, is certainly happy. A just prince makes just magistrates. Under a monarchy the British empire has risen to the highest splendour of wealth and power. The sin of the Hebrews, however, consisted in a distrust of the covenant, with him to whom they had sworn as their God and king, for they were his peculiar people; and the good kings of Judah still owned the Lord as their God, their pastor and king. What nation was ever so signally preserved and saved as the Hebrews, when they sought the Lord.

5. Make us a king — What higher tribute of esteem and confidence could a people show their governor than to submit entirely to his hands the reorganization of their government, and the selection and appointment of a king? They probably wished to follow the law of Moses, (Deuteronomy 17:15,) “Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose,” and they knew no other way of ascertaining the Lord’s choice than by this holy prophet. But this action seems to have been attended with a clamorous and mandatory spirit which was displeasing in the sight of God and of Samuel. Like all the nations — Perhaps their heathen neighbours had taunted them as being a nation without a king, and therefore they aspired to rival these nations in the appearance of worldly power and grandeur. “The Eastern mind is so essentially and pervadingly regal that to be without a sovereign is scarcely an intelligible state of things to an Oriental, and the Israelites must have had occasion to feel that the absence of a king gave them an appearance of inferiority in the eyes of their neighbours, incapable of understanding or appreciating the special and glorious privileges of their position. Even good men, able to appreciate the advantages of existing institutions, would eventually become weary of a peculiarity which the nations would obtusely persist in regarding as discreditable.” — Kitto.

V. 6. Displeased-Because God was hereby dishonoured by that distrust of him, and that ambition, and itch after changes, which were the manifest causes of this desire; and because of that great misery, which he foresaw the people would hereby bring upon themselves. Prayed-For the pardon of their sin, and direction and help from God in this great affair.

Verse 6. The thing displeased Samuel] Because he saw that this amounted to a formal renunciation of the Divine government. Samuel prayed unto the Lord] He begged to know his mind in this important business.

Verse 6. The thing displeased Samuel — Because God was hereby dishonoured, through that distrust of him, and that ambition, and itch after changes, which were the manifest causes of this desire; and because of that great misery which he foresaw the people would hereby bring upon themselves. Prayed — For the pardon of their sin, and direction and help from God in this great affair.

6. The thing displeased Samuel — The elders presented the matter very skilfully to Samuel, implying (verse 5) that they would be quite content if they could always have him for their ruler, or be sure that he would have a worthy successor; yet Samuel felt personally affronted, and could not but see that there was among the people a growing disaffection with the manner of their government.

V. 7. Hearken-God grants their desire in anger, and for their punishment. Rejected me-This injury and contumely, reflects chiefly upon me and my government. Should not reign-By my immediate government, which was the great honour, safety, and happiness of this people, if they had had hearts to prize it.

Verse 7. They have rejected me] They wish to put that government in the hands of a mortal, which was always in the hands of their GOD. But hearken unto their voice-grant them what they request. So we find God grants that in his displeasure which he withholds in his mercy.

Verse 7. The Lord said, Hearken unto the people, &c. — He grants their desire in anger, for their punishment. For these, it is plain, are the words of displeasure, being as much as to say, Let them have their will. Samuel took it very ill that they should be dissatisfied with his government: but God tells him that he himself had more reason to be angry. For, in truth, they had thrown off his authority who was their king, as Samuel tells them afterward, 1 Samuel 12:12; and who had governed them by judges, whom he raised up and extraordinarily inspired when he saw occasion; as he had before conducted them by Moses and Joshua, who never ordained any thing of moment without a special command from God. They have not rejected thee — Merely or chiefly. They have rejected me — This injury and contumely reflects chiefly upon me and my government. Should not reign — By my immediate government, which was the great honour, safety, and happiness of this people, if they had had hearts to prize it.

7. They have not rejected thee, but… me — These words imply that in his intercourse with Jehovah, Samuel had complained that the people had rejected him, and were dissatisfied with his administration; but it was rather against the Theocracy itself that their disaffection lay. They failed to understand or acknowledge that their misfortunes came not from lack of power and care on the part of Jehovah, but because of their own sins. Had they humbly and devoutly inquired the will of God in the matter, and asked for a governor after his own heart, and not after the model of the heathen powers, a most propitious change might have been effected in their form of government. To punish them for their ingratitude and disaffection he gave them a king in his anger, and took him away in his wrath. Hosea 13:11.

V. 8. So do they-Thou farest no worse than myself. This he speaks for Samuel’s comfort and vindication.

Verses 8, 9. So do they also unto thee — Thou farest no worse than myself. This he speaks for Samuel’s comfort and vindication. Yet protest solemnly unto them — That, if it be possible, thou mayest yet prevent their sin and misery. Show them the manner of the king — That is, of the kings which they desire, like those of other nations. Show them at large into what a state of servitude they are going to throw themselves by casting off the government of judges, set over them by myself, and subjecting themselves to the power of such kings as rule in other nations.

8. According to all the works — All their rebellions and murmurings since the time of the exodus had been provocations to their Divine King, and now they add to all these offences by demanding the government of a human king. This being the case, Jehovah cannot now grant the desired change, except after solemn protest.

V. 9. Ye protest-That, if it be possible, thou mayst yet prevent their sin and misery. The manner-That is, of the kings which they desire like the kings of other nations.

Verse 9. Show them the manner of the king] The word cpvm mishpat, which we here render manner, signifies simply what the king would and might require, according to the manner in which kings in general ruled; all of whom, in those times, were absolute and despotic.

The whole of this manner of the king is well illustrated by Puffendorf. “Hitherto,” says he, “the people of Israel had lived under governors raised up of God, who had exacted no tribute of them, nor put them to any charge; but, little content with this form of government. they desire to have a king like other nations, who should live in magnificence and pomp, keep armies, and be able to resist any invasion. Samuel informs them what it was they desired; that when they understood it, they might consider whether they would persist in their choice If they would have a king splendidly attended, he tells them that he would take their sons for his chariots, &c.; if they would have him keep up constant forces, then he would appoint them for colonels and captains, and employ those in his wars who were accustomed to follow their family business; and since, after the manner of other kings, he must keep a stately court, they must be content that their daughters should serve in several offices, which the king would think below the dignity of his wives and daughters, 1 Samuel 8:13. Many ministers also, in several departments, both of war and peace, must have salaries to support them, which must be paid out of their fields and vineyards, 1 Samuel 8:14. In one word, that to sustain his dignity their king would exact the tenth of all they possessed, and be maintained in a royal manner out of their estates,”

It is perfectly vain in Grotius, or any one else, to state that this shows what a king, as king, may any where in virtue of his office, claim and exact; and that he can take the property and persons of his subjects, and dispose of them as he may judge necessary for the exigence of the state. This was the manner of Saul, but Saul was not a king of God’s choosing: “He gave him in his wrath, and took him away in his displeasure;” and the manner of such a king should not be arrogated by any potentate who affects to rule jure divino, by Divine right. The manner of the king of God’s choice is distinctly detailed, Deuteronomy 17:15-20, to which the reader will do well to refer, that he may have an impartial statement of the subject.

Verses 8, 9. So do they also unto thee — Thou farest no worse than myself. This he speaks for Samuel’s comfort and vindication. Yet protest solemnly unto them — That, if it be possible, thou mayest yet prevent their sin and misery. Show them the manner of the king — That is, of the kings which they desire, like those of other nations. Show them at large into what a state of servitude they are going to throw themselves by casting off the government of judges, set over them by myself, and subjecting themselves to the power of such kings as rule in other nations.

9. Protest solemnly — Their ill-judged notions of a monarchy needed rebuke, and a monarchical form of government has its peculiar dangers. Israel must not take the responsibility of adopting that form of government without solemn warning as to the possible, and even probable, consequences. The manner of the king — The powers and privileges which a king will think it his right to exercise. See next verse. That shall reign over them — If we render this, as is equally proper, that may reign over them, the sense will be more plain. The Lord would fully warn his people of the possible dangers of a human monarchy, but he does not say that the king must necessarily, or would certainly, exercise despotic power and purposely afflict the people. It is clear from this passage that Jehovah did not favour Israel’s adoption of a monarchical form of government. But his wisdom and power did not interfere with their free action. The nation had long suffered from the neglect to fix upon a central place of worship, and the lack of a strong national government, whose proper authority should be heeded in every part of the land.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 11. Will take-Injuriously and by violence.

Verse 11. He will take your sons — Injuriously, and by violence. And appoint them for himself — To attend him as the guards of his body, and in other offices. This shows that he speaks of the arbitrary power which the kings in those days used. And therefore Samuel doth not say absolutely, I will show you the manner (Hebrews tpcm, mispeth, judgment, or right) of a king, as if it were a right belonging to all kings, but, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: or, such will be the consequence of your having kings. They will indeed be like those of the neighbouring nations, puffed up with their authority, haughty, arbitrary, and tyrannical: and you will find yourselves in a state of oppression and servitude. For his chariots, and to be his horsemen — To look after his chariots and his horses. Some shall run before his chariots — As his footmen.

Ver. 11. This will be the manner of the king. Oppression of the subject to support the fastidious splendour of royalty, is here expressly forbidden. The courts of Egypt, Persia, and Babylon seem to have supported their splendour by tenths from the farmer: ver. 15.

11. This will be the manner of the king — cpvm, judgment, right, claim. The judgment or manner of the king is what he would claim as his prerogative and right. Verses 11-17 contain a statement of what an eastern king, like those of the nations around Israel, would claim. The items of his claim (which extends both to the persons and properly of his subjects) may be classified thus: 1. Over their persons; to seize them arbitrarily for his court-servants and attendants, (ver. 11,) and appoint them to his military, agricultural mechanical, or domestic service, (verses 12, 13.) 2. Over their property, whether it consist in lands, harvests, slaves, or beasts. Verses 14-17. Here are presented the main features of an absolute monarchy; but observe, they are set forth as the possible manner or judgment of the king himself, not as divine or God-given rights which every king must claim. In Deuteronomy 17:16-20, we learn that the king of Jehovah’s choice must in divers ways be limited in his power.

V. 12. Will appoint-Heb. To, or for himself; for his own fancy, or glory, and not only when the necessities of the kingdom require it. And though this might seem to be no incumbrance, but an honour to the persons so advanced, yet even in them that honour was accompanied with great dangers, and pernicious snares of many kinds, which those faint shadows of glory could not recompense; and as to the public, their pomp and power proved very burdensome to the people, whose lands and fruits were taken from them, and bestowed upon these, for the support of their state. Will set them-At his own pleasure, when possibly their own fields required all their time and pains. He will press them for all sorts of his work, and that upon his own terms.

Verse 12. He will appoint him — Hebrew, To or for himself; for his own fancy, or glory, and not only when the necessities of the kingdom require it. Captains over thousands, and captains over fifties — Will dispose of them to military offices, higher or lower as he pleases, (1 Samuel 14:52,) to be perfectly subject to him, and placed or displaced as he thinks fit. And though this might seem to be no disadvantage, but an honour to the persons so advanced; yet even in them that honour was accompanied with great dangers, and pernicious snares of many kinds, for which those faint shadows of glory could not recompense them; and as to the public, their pomp and power proved very burdensome to the people, whose lands and fruits were taken from them, and bestowed upon these, for the support of their state. And will set them to ear his ground, &c. — Will make them his husbandmen, to plough his ground and reap his corn, at his own pleasure, and on his own terms, when, perhaps, their labour is necessary about their own fields. To make his instruments of war, &c. — Others he will make artificers: which was not very agreeable to that nation, who were inclined, from their first rise, rather to employ themselves in attending to the breeding of cattle, and in looking after their flocks and herds.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 13. Daughters-Which would be more grievous to their parents, and more dangerous to themselves, because of the tenderness of that sex, and their liableness to many injuries.

Verse 13. He will take your daughters, &c. — He will exercise as arbitrary a power over the women as over the men; whom he will make to serve in such employments as he shall think fit; either for nothing, or such wages as he shall please to give them. To have their daughters taken in this manner would be peculiarly grievous to the parents, and dangerous to themselves, because of the tenderness of their sex, and their liableness to many injuries.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 14. Your fields-By fraud or force, as Ahab did from Naboth. His servants-He will not only take the fruits of your lands for his own use, but will take away your possessions to give to his servants.

Verses 14, 15. He will take your fields — By fraud or force, as Ahab did from Naboth. And give them to his servants — He will not only take the fruits of your lands for his own use, but will take away your possessions to give to his servants. The tenth — Besides the several tenths which God hath reserved for his service, he will when he pleaseth, impose another tenth upon you. And give to his officers — Hebrew, to his eunuchs, which may imply a further injury, that he should, against the command of God, make some of his people eunuchs; and take those into his court and favour whom God would have cast out of the congregation.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 15. The tenth-Besides the several tenths which God hath reserved for his service, he will, when he pleaseth, impose another tenth upon you. Officers-Heb. To his eunuchs, which may imply a farther injury, that he should against the command of God, make some of his people eunuchs; and take those into his court and favour, which God would have cast out of the congregation.

Verses 14, 15. He will take your fields — By fraud or force, as Ahab did from Naboth. And give them to his servants — He will not only take the fruits of your lands for his own use, but will take away your possessions to give to his servants. The tenth — Besides the several tenths which God hath reserved for his service, he will when he pleaseth, impose another tenth upon you. And give to his officers — Hebrew, to his eunuchs, which may imply a further injury, that he should, against the command of God, make some of his people eunuchs; and take those into his court and favour whom God would have cast out of the congregation.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 16. Will take-By constraint, and without sufficient recompense.

Verses 16-18. He will take your men-servants — By constraint, and without sufficient recompense. Your goodliest young men — The most beautiful and proper person she can find; and your asses, and put them to his work — Either at the plough, or for carriage, or any other employment wherein he shall think they will be useful. And ye shall be his servants — So subject to him, that if he please ye shall be no better than slaves, deprived of that liberty which you now enjoy. And ye shall cry out in that day — Ye shall bitterly mourn for the sad effects of this inordinate desire of a king. This shows that in the foregoing verses Samuel describes the uncontrollable power which the eastern princes exercised over their subjects, who were obliged patiently to bear whatever their kings imposed upon them, without any power to help themselves. The Lord will not hear you in that day — Because you will not hear nor obey his counsel in this day; but he will leave you under this heavy yoke.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 17. His servants-That is, he will use you like slaves, and deprive you of that liberty which now you enjoy.

Verses 16-18. He will take your men-servants — By constraint, and without sufficient recompense. Your goodliest young men — The most beautiful and proper person she can find; and your asses, and put them to his work — Either at the plough, or for carriage, or any other employment wherein he shall think they will be useful. And ye shall be his servants — So subject to him, that if he please ye shall be no better than slaves, deprived of that liberty which you now enjoy. And ye shall cry out in that day — Ye shall bitterly mourn for the sad effects of this inordinate desire of a king. This shows that in the foregoing verses Samuel describes the uncontrollable power which the eastern princes exercised over their subjects, who were obliged patiently to bear whatever their kings imposed upon them, without any power to help themselves. The Lord will not hear you in that day — Because you will not hear nor obey his counsel in this day; but he will leave you under this heavy yoke.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 18. Cry out-Ye shall bitterly mourn for the sad effects of this inordinate desire of a king. Will not hear-Because you will not hear, nor obey his counsel in this day.

Verses 16-18. He will take your men-servants — By constraint, and without sufficient recompense. Your goodliest young men — The most beautiful and proper person she can find; and your asses, and put them to his work — Either at the plough, or for carriage, or any other employment wherein he shall think they will be useful. And ye shall be his servants — So subject to him, that if he please ye shall be no better than slaves, deprived of that liberty which you now enjoy. And ye shall cry out in that day — Ye shall bitterly mourn for the sad effects of this inordinate desire of a king. This shows that in the foregoing verses Samuel describes the uncontrollable power which the eastern princes exercised over their subjects, who were obliged patiently to bear whatever their kings imposed upon them, without any power to help themselves. The Lord will not hear you in that day — Because you will not hear nor obey his counsel in this day; but he will leave you under this heavy yoke.

18. Ye shall cry out in that day — By this dark picture of regal prerogative Samuel hopes that the people will withdraw their request for a king like those of the nations.

Verse 19. The people refused to obey] They would have the king, his manner and all, notwithstanding the solemn warning which they here receive.

Verses 19, 20. Nevertheless the people refused to obey — This description of kingly government, as then exercised in the East, did not deter them from persisting in their desires. But they still peremptorily demanded a king, although Samuel told them that this demand was, in effect, throwing off the government of God. That we also may be like all other nations — Strange blindness and stupidity, that they could not see it was their singular felicity that they were not like other nations! Numbers 23. 9; Deuteronomy 33:28; as in other glorious privileges, so especially in this, that they had God for their king and governor, who never failed in time of need to raise up men of wonderful worth to be their deliverers. But they wanted a king to go out before them, and to fight their battles — Could they desire a battle better fought for them than the last was, by Samuel’s prayers and God’s thunders? Were they fond to try the chance of war at the same uncertainty that others did? And what was the issue? Their first king was slain in battle; and so was Josiah, one of the last and best.

19. The people refused to obey — They had counted the cost, and were willing to submit to regal exactions for the sake of having a government like the nations around them. “On this Samuel sorrowfully dismissed them to their homes, that he might have time to take the necessary measures for effecting this great change.” — Kitto.

V. 20. Be like-What stupidity! It was their happiness that they were unlike all other nations, Numbers 23:9 Deuteronomy 33:28, as in other glorious privileges, so especially in this, that the Lord was their immediate king and lawgiver. But they will have a king to go out before them, and to fight their battles. Could they desire a battle better fought for them than the last was, by Samuel’s prayers and God’s thunders? Were they fond to try the chance of war, at the same uncertainty that others did? And what was the issue? Their first king was slain in battle: and so was Joshua, one of the last and best.

Verse 20. May judge us] This appears to be a rejection of Samuel. Go out before us] Be in every respect our head and governor. And fight our battles.] Be the general of our armies.

Verses 19, 20. Nevertheless the people refused to obey — This description of kingly government, as then exercised in the East, did not deter them from persisting in their desires. But they still peremptorily demanded a king, although Samuel told them that this demand was, in effect, throwing off the government of God. That we also may be like all other nations — Strange blindness and stupidity, that they could not see it was their singular felicity that they were not like other nations! Numbers 23. 9; Deuteronomy 33:28; as in other glorious privileges, so especially in this, that they had God for their king and governor, who never failed in time of need to raise up men of wonderful worth to be their deliverers. But they wanted a king to go out before them, and to fight their battles — Could they desire a battle better fought for them than the last was, by Samuel’s prayers and God’s thunders? Were they fond to try the chance of war at the same uncertainty that others did? And what was the issue? Their first king was slain in battle; and so was Josiah, one of the last and best.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 21. Rehearsed-He repeated them privately between God and himself; for his own vindication and comfort: and as a foundation for his prayers to God, for direction and assistance.

Verse 21. Rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord.] He went to the altar, and in his secret devotion laid the whole business before God.

Verse 21. He rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord — He repeated them privately between God and himself, for his own vindication and comfort, and as a foundation for his prayers to God for direction and assistance.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.

V. 22. Go-Betake yourselves to your several occasions, till you hear more from me in this matter.

Verse 22. Hearken unto their voice] Let them have what they desire, and let them abide the consequences.

Go ye every man unto his city.] It seems the elders of the people had tarried all this time with Samuel, and when he had received his ultimate answer from God, he told them of it and dismissed them.

ON this account we may observe: 1. That GOD did not change the government of Israel; it was the people themselves who changed it. 2. That though God permitted them to have a king, yet he did not approve of him.

3. That, notwithstanding he did not suffer them to choose the man, he ordered his servant Samuel to choose him by lot, he disposing of that lot.

4. That God never gave up the supreme government; he was still KING in Israel, and the king, so called, was only the vicegerent or deputy of the Lord. 5. That no king of Judah attempted to be supreme, therefore they never made new laws, nor altered the old; which was a positive confession that God was the supreme Legislator. 6. That an absolute monarchy is always an evil, and is contrary to all the rights, civil and religious, of mankind; a mode of government that all people should avoid, as pregnant with evils to mankind. 7. That although it was a sin in the Israelites to desire a king, that is, to change a constitution of which God was the author, yet kingly government, properly understood, is a good of the first magnitude to the civil happiness of mankind. 8. That by kingly government, properly understood, I mean such a monarchical government as that of Great Britain, where the king, the nobles, and the people, are duly mixed, each having his proper part in the government, and each preventing the other from running to excess, and all limited by law. 9. That the three grand forms of government which have obtained among mankind, viz., monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, have each certain advantages without which no state can be well preserved; but they have evils by which any state may be injured. 10. That, from a proper mixture of these, the advantages of the whole may be reaped without any of their attendant evils, and that this is the British constitution; which, not merely the wisdom of our ancestors, but the providence of God has given unto us, and of which no other state has had common sense enough to avail themselves, though they see that because of this the British empire is the most powerful and the most happy in the universe, and likely at last to give laws to the whole world. The manner of our king is constitutional, widely different from that of Saul, and from that of any other potentate in the four quarters of the globe. He is the father of his people, and the people feel and love him as such. He has all the power necessary to do good; they have all the liberty necessary to their political happiness, had they only a diminution of taxes, which at present are too heavy for any nation to bear. I SAMUEL

Verse 22. Go ye every man unto his city — Betake yourselves to your several homes and employments, till you hear more from me in this matter. Thus he bade them leave the business unto him, intimating, that he doubted not but God would set a king over them.

THE DEMAND FOR A KING, 1-22.

Samuel’s declining years, and the perversion of justice sadly manifest in the administration of his sons, were the immediate occasion of Israel’s demand for a king. Possibly there were suspicions abroad that Samuel meant to make his judgeship hereditary. But there were other and deeper reasons for the demand for a king. Repeated attacks from the Philistines, who were loth to lose their power over Israel, and a knowledge of warlike intentions on the part of the king of Ammon, (1 Samuel 12:12,) made them anxious for a military chieftain like the kings of the neighbouring nations. Their ideal king seems to have been a mighty warrior, of great physical powers, and skilled in all manner of strategy. They would have him judge the people, and at the same time be ever on the watch against hostile invasions.

But there were deeper, though more remote, reasons for a modification — a revolution even — in the form of the Israelitish government. We do not understand that it was the purpose or desire of Jehovah to have his people permanently governed by a class of rulers like the Judges, who had no constitutional authority over all the tribes. These officers, as we have shown in the Introduction to the Book of Judges, were extraordinary ministers, raised up by the special providence of God to meet existing emergencies, but formed no permanent part of the machinery of the Hebrew government as contemplated in the Laws of Moses. The Law prescribed no specific form of government, but was full of suggestive principles, which should have guided the people long before the time of Samuel into the adoption of a constitution that would have secured them national unity. It was surely no design of the Lord for the Israelitish nation to continue a loose confederacy, racked with sectional feuds and tribal jealousies, as was largely the case during the period of the Judges. This state of things was both a national weakness and a sin. The Law made it very prominent that there should be a central seat of worship — a place which the Lord should “choose out of all the tribes to put his name there.” Deuteronomy 12:5, 11, 14; 17:8, etc. It was also clearly intimated that there should be a supreme civil and executive authority, having the same seat and centre — a supreme court of appeals. Deuteronomy 17:8, 9. Besides this, there were to be “judges and officers” in all the gates of Israel. Deuteronomy 16:18. The provision suggested by Jethro, (Exodus 18:21,) and adopted by Moses, for selecting able and God-fearing men out of all the people, “to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens,” contemplated also, by necessary implication, a supreme judge and national executive, and it needed no additional revelation from God to inform Israel that such a national executive would be required just as much after Moses’ death as before. God never meant to rule Israel any more than other nations without the instrumentality of human agency. Absurdly have some writers seemed to assume that the Israelitish Theocracy was a government in which Jehovah was the sole and immediate governor, and that this form of government came to an end after the election of Saul. But Jehovah governed the Israelitish nation after the establishment of the monarchy just as truly as he did before. He always governs among the nations, so far as civil government extends, by means of human agents. And yet he never prescribed for any nation, not even for Israel, a specific form of civil government. He has plainly shown that the “powers that be,” whether represented by Saul, or David, or Solomon, or Cesar, “are ordained of God.” He has revealed certain great principles of truth and justice which all nations are bound to observe, but his dealings with ancient Israel have made very plain and prominent this lesson — that to nations themselves is left the responsibility of choosing the form of government by which they will be ruled.

The elders of Israel were, doubtless, aware that, according to God’s own word, kings were to proceed from Abraham. Genesis 17:6, 16. Balaam also had prophesied of a sceptre yet to rise in Israel. Numbers 24:17. Moses had made provision in the Law (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) for the appointment and guidance of a king in Israel, should the people choose to establish a monarchy. So we are not to blame these elders for the choice of a monarchical form of government, for they might have naturally inferred from the ancient prophecies that God intended that a monarchy should rise in Israel. Their sin in asking for a king is to be seen in the spirit of disaffection with which they asked, and their implied reflection on Jehovah’s mercy and care in raising up for them deliverers when they were about to sink under the bitter oppression of foreign powers. It was for this culpable ingratitude, and their tendency to heathenish customs, manifest in the demand for a king like all the nations, that Jehovah, with abundant reason, declared, (verse 7,) “They have rejected me.”

None can properly question the right of a nation to modify or change its form of government. Such a revolution, when it becomes a desire of the great body of the people, and can be effected peacefully and by general consent, as was the case in Israel, should always result in good. So it did in Israel’s case. Saul’s reign was indeed a failure, for God gave that king in his anger to scourge his people for their ingratitude, and desire to be like the heathen. But David’s reign, and the greater part of Solomon’s, were the greatest triumph and glory of Israelitish history. Under them the kingdom became a mighty civil and religious power, and made an indelible impression of its worth and excellency on all the contemporaneous nations of antiquity.

The sins of Solomon’s old age, and the wickedness of subsequent godless kings, brought sorrow and calamity on the nation, but that was not the fault of the form of government. God himself declared at the time of Saul’s election that obedience and virtue would insure the divine blessing on both king and people. 1 Samuel 12:14. But when the wicked are in power the whole land must mourn; and sin and forgetfulness of God, who should ever be duly recognised as Supreme Ruler, will ruin any nation, whatever its form of government.

1. Made his sons judges — Not with authority equal to his own, but assistant judges, who might attend to judicial matters in remote places, to which Samuel’s age prevented his going. “As we do not find that either God or the people censured him for making his sons judges in Israel, we may infer that he had properly educated them, and that they appeared well qualified for the office, and were appointed to it for the good, and by the approbation of, the people.” — Scott. At the same time there is not sufficient reason to believe that Samuel designed to make the judgeship hereditary, and expected his sons to succeed him in the government of Israel. See on 1 Samuel 12:2.