1 Samuel 8:11

_AND HE SAID, THIS WILL BE THE MANNER OF THE KING THAT SHALL REIGN OVER YOU: HE WILL TAKE YOUR SONS, AND APPOINT THEM FOR HIMSELF, FOR HIS CHARIOTS, AND TO BE HIS HORSEMEN; AND SOME SHALL RUN BEFORE HIS CHARIOTS._ This will be the manner of the king. The following is a very just and graphic picture of the despotic governments which anciently and still are found in the East, and into conformity with which the Hebrew monarchy, notwithstanding the restrictions prescribed by the law, gradually slid. HE WILL TAKE YOUR SONS, AND APPOINT THEM FOR HIMSELF. Oriental sovereigns claim a right to the services of any of their subjects at pleasure. SOME SHALL RUN BEFORE HIS CHARIOTS. The royal carriages were generally, throughout the East (see 2 Samuel 15:1; 1 Kings 1:5), as in Persi

10-22 If they would have a king to rule them, as the eastern kings ruled their subjects, they would find the yoke exceedingly heavy. Those that submit to the government of the world and the flesh, are told plainly, what hard masters they are, and what tyranny the dominion of sin is. The law of God and the manner of men widely differ from each other; the former should be our rule in the several relations of life; the latter should be the measure of our expectations from others. These would be their grievances, and, when they complained to God, he would not hear them. When we bring ourselves into distress by our own wrong desires and projects, we justly forfeit the comfort of prayer, and the benefit of Divine aid. The people were obstinate and urgent in their demand. Sudden resolves and hasty desires make work for long and leisurely repentance. Our wisdom is, to be thankful for the advant...

EXPOSITION SAUL (CHS. 8-31). THE great interest of the First Book of Samuel lies in the fact that we have in it the orderly consolidation of two of the main factors in the preparation for the manifestation of our Lord, namely, prophecy and the kingdom. The first seven chapters give us the history of Samuel's birth, and of the gradual development in him of those spiritual powers which finally made him not merely a prophet, but the founder of prophecy as a permanent and regularly organised institution of the Jewish Church. The whole of the rest of the book, while adding many interesting particulars about Samuel, is occupied with the establishment of the kingdom and with Saul. We have in him, both in his uprise and his fall, one of the most remarkable personages of the Old Testament. But his character for good and for evil will develop itself as we proceed. Before, however, we can apprecia...

AND HE SAID, THIS WILL BE THE MANNER OF THE KING THAT SHALL REIGN OVER YOU,.... Not in which he ought to proceed, but what he will do: and this not the manner of one king, or of the first only, but of all of them, more or less; of kings in general, who are commonly inclined to arbitrary power. So Aristotle a in opposition to theocracy, describes a full and absolute kingdom, as he calls it, when a king does all things according to his will: and observes, that he that would have the mind or reason preside, would have God and the laws rule; but he that would have a man to reign, adds also a lust, or one led by his own lust: so it follows, HE WILL TAKE YOUR SONS, AND APPOINT THEM FOR HIMSELF; for his own use and service, to wait upon him, to be his pages, or grooms, or guards: FOR HIS CHARIOTS; to take care of them, and drive them, though not without paying them for it; yet this being but...

II. KING SAUL: HIS REIGN AND REJECTION 1. The King Demanded CHAPTER 8:4-22 _ 1. The king demanded (1 Samuel 8:4)_ 2. The rights of the king (1 Samuel 8:10) The kingly government is now to be established through the deliberate and untheocratic self-determination of the people. Jehovah was their invisible King, and Him they rejected by requesting a king like all the nations. The motives for the demand of a king are three: 1. The old age of Samuel and the unfitness of his sons; 2. The desire to be upon the same footing with other nations; 3. To have a leader and fight their battles (verse 20). “The state or political organization reaches its highest development when royalty is introduced. The King of Israel is not, however, intended to be an autocratic but a theocrat

1 SAMUEL 8. DEMAND FOR A KING. Opening section, continued 1 Samuel 10:17, of later account of Saul's appointment as king: either Deuteronomic or late stratum of E. Probably 1 Samuel 10:17_ a_ (to over us) in the Deuteronomic document stood in the place of 1 Samuel 8:10, giving the following sequence of events: appeal of the elders, convocation of assembly (as in 1 Samuel 7:5), Saul's election, etc. Also, in 1 Samuel 8:22; Go ye every man unto his city, is, like 1

THIS WILL BE, &c. Fulfilled, 1Sa 14:62....

The rights of a king 10. _unto the people_ Through their representatives the elders. Cp. note on 1 Samuel 8:4....

THIS WILL BE THE MANNER OF THE KING— They had desired such a king to judge or rule over them as all the nations had. Now it is very well known, that all the eastern nations were under despotic government. It is, therefore, such a kind of government which Samuel sets forth in the following verses, in order to dissuade them from their purpose. This is very evident from the 18th verse particularly. The people of Israel, says Baron Puffendorff, had hitherto lived under governors raised up by 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 ready to resist any invasion. Samuel informs them what it was that they desired, that when they understood it they might consider whether they would persist in their choice. If th...

_Samuel Describes a King._ 1 Samuel 8:10-18 10 And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. 11 And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint _them_ for himself, for his chariots, and _to be_ his horsemen; and _some_ shall run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and _will set them_ to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. 13 And he will take your daughters _to be_ confectionaries, and _to be_ cooks, and _to be_ bakers. 14 And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, _even_ the best _of them,_ and give _them_ to his servants. 15 And he will ta