1 Samuel 8:7

_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._ They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. They could not by their requisition have rejected the Lord if he had not stood in the relation of a supreme political head to Israel; because they made no proposal of renouncing subjection to Him in any other respect. They did not desire a change in their worship, nor ask a new code of civil laws. Their demand was limited to an alteration in the executive form of government (see Jamieson's 'Sacred History,' 1:, p. 312). God intimated, through Samuel, that their request would, in anger, be granted, while at the same time he apprised them of some of the evils that would result from their choice....

4-9 Samuel was displeased; he could patiently bear what reflected on himself, and his own family; but it displeased him when they said, Give us a king to judge us, because that reflected upon God. It drove him to his knees. When any thing disturbs us, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to show our trouble before God. Samuel is to tell them that they shall have a king. Not that God was pleased with their request, but as sometimes he opposes us from loving-kindness, so at other times he gratifies us in wrath; he did so here. God knows how to bring glory to himself, and serves his own wise purposes, even by men's foolish counsels....

Verse 1 Samuel 8:7. _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_....

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 THE LORD SAID UNTO SAMUEL,.... He appeared to him in a vision or dream, and by an articulate voice delivered to him what follows: HEARKEN UNTO THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE IN ALL THAT THEY SAY UNTO THEE; not as approving of what they said, but permitting and allowing what they asked, as a punishment of them for their disloyalty and ingratitude, and as resenting their ill behaviour to him; for it was in anger he assented to their request, Hosea 13:11 FOR THEY HAVE NOT REJECTED THEE, BUT THEY HAVE REJECTED ME THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM; most interpreters supply the word "only", as if the sense was, that they had not only rejected Samuel from judging them, but the Lord also from reigning over them; and which is spoken to comfort Samuel, and to alleviate the pressure on his mind for the ill treatment he had met with; for since they had served the Lord

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

Jehovah's answer to the request 6. _the thing displeased Samuel_ 1 Samuel 8:7 implies that Samuel's displeasure arose from a feeling of the ingratitude of the Israelites toward himself in desiring that one who had done so much for them should be superseded by a king. God's answer, "Not thee (their judge) have they rejected, but me (their true king) have they rejected from reigning over them" (the Heb. order is emphatic) at once consoles him and points out the real sinfulness of the request. This consisted not in the mere desire for a king, which would not necessarily have been wrong, but in the spirit of distrust of the invisible sovereignty of Jehovah and desire for the splendour of a visible monarch which really prompted the request. _Samuel prayed_ He does not let his own personal feelings decide, but endeavours to learn what is the Will of God in the matter....

THEY HAVE REJECTED ME, &C.— Samuel had now, by a wise and painful direction of affairs, restored the purity of religion, and rescued the nation from the power of the Philistines, and their other hostile neighbours, against whom they were utterly unable to make head when he entered upon the administration. At this very time, the people, debauched as usual by power and prosperity, took the pretence of the corrupt conduct of the prophet's two sons, to go in a tumultuous manner and demand a king: but the secret spring of their rebellion was the ambition of their leaders, who could live no longer without the splendor of a regal court and household. _Give me,_ say they, in Hosea 13:10 _a king and princes,_ where every one of them might shine a distinguished officer of state. They could get nothing when their affairs led them to their judges' poor residence, in the schools of the pro

_The Lord instructs Samuel._ 1 Samuel 8:6-9 6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. 7 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. 8 According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. 9 Now therefore hearken unto their voice: howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them. _6._ What was their real reason? 1 Samuel 8:6-9 They wanted to be like ot