Was it wrong for the Israelites to ask for a king?

It was not in keeping with God's original institution, or according to His heart, that a man should put away his wife; but, in consequence of the hardness of the human heart, divorce was permitted by the lawgiver. Is there any difficulty in this? Surely not, unless the heart is bent on making one. Neither is there any difficulty in the matter of the spies. Israel ought not to have needed them. Simple faith would never have thought of them. But the Lord saw the real condition of things, and issued a command accordingly; just as, in after ages, He saw the heart of the people bent on having a king, and he commanded Samuel to give them one. "And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee; for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also to thee. Now, therefore, hearken to their voice; howbeit yet protest solemnly to them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them." (1 Sam. 8:7-9.)

Thus we see that the mere granting of a desire is no proof whatever that such desire is according to the mind of God. Israel ought not to have asked for a king. Was not Jehovah sufficient? Was not He their King? Could not He, as He had ever done, lead them forth to battle, and fight for them? Why seek an arm of flesh? Why turn away from the living, the true, the Almighty God, to lean on a poor fellow worm? What power was there in a king but that which God might see fit to bestow upon him? None whatever. All the power, all the wisdom, all real good was in the Lord their God; and it was there for them — there at all times, to meet their every need. They had but to lean upon His almighty arm, to draw upon His exhaustless resources, to find all their springs in Him.

But the next chapter (1 Samuel 8) brings out the failure, not of Eli's sons, but of Samuel's. The intermediate person, however blessed, fails to meet the depth of need. The seer is not Christ; the herald is not His master. The sons of Samuel then perverted judgment, and took bribes; and the children of Israel say, "Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations." Thus, you see, two currents are flowing on. But let us mark that God divulges His plan before man as the enemy seems to bring it in. So in the Book of Job, it is not Satan that begins the action, but God. It is He that has Himself a purpose of good for Job. Satan no doubt tries to spite Him, as he has plan after plan of mischief; but God is before Satan in good — a very comforting thought for our souls. As God is before Satan, He will certainly be after him. The good that God has then is the first thought, and the good that He at the beginning has at heart will be accomplished, even though it may be late, if not last. Thus good is before evil, and abides when the evil is gone. We may see similarly here. Who was it that raised the hope of a king? Who was it that saw fit, if not to pronounce death on the priests, as on the people before, at any rate to set them aside from the place they once had to make room for a better thing, the true secret of Israel's blessing, as will be shown another day? It was God. But here may be found the under-current; not a blow from the Philistines, but an effort to undermine Israel by Satan's craft.

Thus the thought of a king was not from man, but from God; yet the desire for one like the nations was rebellion against God on man's part. The purposed king would be a rich blessing from God, and it was His purpose to give them a king before their wicked heart desired it to get rid of Himself. It was an evil in man to be judged; it was grace in God to purpose as He surely will also accomplish it. Both are true; but man's mind often sets one against the other, instead of believing both. Here we have man's heart. They desire a king. Samuel feels it deeply, not because it was against himself so much as it was against God, and so he tells them the thing displeased him. "And Samuel prayed." Oh that we might in this take pattern by so true a servant of the Lord! that when things displease us, we might pray, and not fret or fume or scold! It is not that Samuel did not feel Israel's state; but he prayed to Jehovah. "And Jehovah said to Samuel, Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee: for they have not rejected thee" (what a God of patience so to speak and act!), "but they have rejected me." Yet was he to hearken. How God moves in love above all man's evil, and accomplishes His own blessed plans! "They have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also to thee. Now therefore hearken to their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly."

The elders of Israel with reason disapprove of Samuel's sons' conduct (v. 4), but they make this the occasion to ask for a king (v. 5): “Appoint us a king to judge us, like all the nations.” The evil they were complaining of does not push them toward the Lord, but toward the Gentiles; they seek human assistance to remedy man's ruin, thinking that they can in this way escape their own misery as God's people.

Their desire for a king was, in reality, giving up the Lord, the denial of His direct government through the judges, but their capital sin was the request for a king like the nations. Was it not God's counsel to give them a king according to His own heart, an Anointed whom He would have chosen for them Himself (1 Sam. 2:35; 1 Sam. 13:14)? Their desire for a king like all the nations was a renouncing of their title as God's people and involved assimilation to the world. Due to their unfaithfulness, a system established by God was being jeopardized in their hands. Christendom on its path of apostasy has acted no differently when, instead of humbling itself and mourning, it has sought the world's support in order to maintain itself.

Saul was given to Israel in answer to their request. But was this request unforeseen by God? A sceptic may affirm that the portion of Deuteronomy above referred to could not have been extant, or known, to the prophet, else why did he seek to turn the people from their purpose? The fact was that they asked for a king through unbelief. The motive first put forward, that Samuel was old, and his sons walked not in his ways, was not the real reason which made them anxious to have a king. Samuel was, it is true, displeased at their request. It seemed like a personal slight in his eyes. In measure that was true; but God showed him that Israel's conduct on this occasion was only in harmony with their ways since they came out of Egypt. (1 Sam. 8:6–8.) And far worse than the personal slight put on Samuel was the rejection of the Lord as their King, for the proximate cause of their request was the invasion of Israel's territory east of Jordan, by Nahash, king of the children of Ammon. (1 Sam. 12:12.) In wilfulness and unbelief they clamoured for a king: "We will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles." (1 Sam. 8:19-20.) Their words, then, clearly intimated distrust of the Lord's care of them, and interest in them. Unbelief really lay at the bottom of that popular movement — for popular movement it was; and the conditions under which they asked for a king were certainly not such as God could approve of.

Let us examine this in another point of view. It is certain that God, in His determinate counsel, designed to glorify His Son, even in the kingly power as regards Israel and the world. But on the other hand, the people ought to have remained before God by the means of the high priest, without a king being needed for the maintenance of its order. The Lord was their King. Consequently God permitted the sin of the people to ripen, ere He established His anointed. Now the priesthood, as we have seen, and as all the Levitical system testifies, was the centre of all the relationships of the people with God - the link of the chain which was near the throne of the Lord. The Lord was Himself King in Israel; but Israel needed to see a king, to be like the other nations. The notion that the sin was simply in desiring a king like the other nations, and that the thing was not evil because it was foreknown of God, cannot be admitted for a moment: "And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them," 1 Sam. 8:7.

250 At the same time, God presents before the people what will be the consequences; but the people say, "Nay, but a king shall reign over us": "Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations," 1 Sam. 8:5; compare with chap. 12:12.

It is clear that nothing can happen without the will of God. But it is certain that the establishment of Saul was not, morally, according to the divine will. Several passages in the book of Samuel furnish unanswerable proofs of this. "The thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Now therefore hearken unto their voice; howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them," 1 Sam. 8:6-7, 9.

Then Samuel recounts the oppressions which they must needs endure at the hand of the king, and adds, "And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day," 1 Sam. 8:18. But "ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign over us: when the Lord your God was your king," 1 Sam. 12:12.

We have seen the sorrowful circumstances out of which arose the first desire to have a king in Israel, and the remarkable fact that, although it was a sin, God nevertheless did not put the people back into the condition in which they had been before they sought in this to be like the nations, but gave them a king after His own heart, as far as that could be, till He comes whose right it is. Now this is exceedingly instructive to my own mind, and the rather as in fact it is a principle in the dealings of God. So far is man's unfaithfulness from hindering God, that it only furnishes Him fresh occasion to glorify Himself, by proving and making known His supremacy over evil, and this invariably too by taking up the results of sin in order to make them the opening for the display of the resources of His wisdom and goodness. It was sin to have asked a king, but it was grace on God's part to give it.

But God was looking onward to a better than David; and now we have seen that, even after David was designated to the kingdom and anointed for it, God did not set aside at once the miserable consequences of man's choice. He allows the whole thing to resolve itself responsibly before the eyes of all men. He permits Israel to see, on the one hand, the ruin which the king of their own choice had brought in; but He lets them see, on the other hand, the weakness of the one He chose from among them to establish the kingdom according to His mind, a type, and only a type, of the good and enduring things to come.

Nor let it be thought for a moment that there is no necessity for human government at the present time. Kings and all that are in authority are, after all, but "the powers that be;" and the fault is not in the power, but in the men who misuse that power. But for a people who had God as their Ruler, for whom He had interposed in an especial way, it was nothing short of apostasy to desire a king like the nations. However, after the solemn witness is borne and the people repeat their desire, they are left — solemn thought — left to their choice. They shall have their request, even though it bring leanness to their own souls. Our blessed God often permits us to have our own way, that He may show us the folly of it. Alas, would that we might learn His way in His own presence, and be spared the sorrow for ourselves and the dishonor to His name which come from the bitter experience of a path of disobedience.

At this point a most important moral question is settled. Israel has a king, and he is crowned with victory; but how does Israel now stand before God? This question has its solemn answer in 1 Sam. 12. There Samuel reminds the people of past mercies. When their fathers sinned and came under the power of their enemies, they cried to God, they did not ask for a king, and God sent deliverers. Now, says Samuel, When. ye saw Nahash the king of the children of Ammon come against you, ye did not cry to God, but said to me, "Nay, but a king shall reign over us, when Jehovah your God was your King." They were worse than their fathers. Jehovah thundered upon them, and in terror they own their sin, "We have added unto all our sins this evil, to ask us a king."

God, while vindicating His own title to be King, allows their choice to stand — for the accomplishment of His own purpose. At the same time by the mouth of the prophet He declares their responsibility and the danger of this new position. Priesthood had connected them with God from Aaron to Eli; that link subsists no longer. The people have chosen royalty not as a new link between God and Israel, but to be like the nations. Such choosing was their sin, it was in truth rejecting God. Nevertheless royalty, was God's purpose, and is henceforth to be the connecting link between God and His people. For so He will be exalted in Israel, and in the world. But the establishment of a king must be in God's way, and the man must be of His choosing. This necessity is proved by the failure of marl's way and of man's king. The divine principle of God acting upon man, is ever "first that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual." Christ's exaltation in the earth is dependent — if we may use such a word — upon the utter inadequacy of man to meet the purposes of God's glory.

God, in the law, had made provision for a king with Israel (see Deut. 17:14-20). Had they waited in faith, on the decease of Samuel God might have raised them up a king of His own providing, "a man after His own heart," David, a pattern prince, and type of Him who is both "King of Israel," and "Prince of peace." But no, they could not wait, they would not be advised, and so God gave them their desire. But "sudden resolves and hasty desires make work for sore and leisurely repentance."

"And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a, king" (vers. 21, 22).