Give Us a King

Behold

(NRSV)

5 and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” The people wanted what the so called heathens had, a king to judge them. So why would this disappoint Samuel? Samuel was a prophet of God and he knew that God was their judge.

(NRSV)

Limitations of Royal Authority

14 When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,” This is not what God would have for us. He needs to be our King. We need him to be our king. But the people only wanted what Moses had told them in the Book of the Law. Quoted above. Is this a misinterpretation of the scripture? I think that what God foretells through his prophets will happen as he said it would. Perhaps the people mistook the scriptures and perhaps no matter what it was going to happen.

(NRSV)

8 Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. So God tells Samuel that the people are not rejecting his instructions but rather they are rejecting him.

English Standard Version Chapter 8

Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

Samuel then tells the people what a king will do to them. (NRSV)

11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots;

My yoke is light, (NRSV)

30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

You would think that a people who had come through the burdens of slavery 430 years, a people who had wondered in the wilderness for 40 years, a group of people witnessing the hand of God in mighty ways, would appreciate having a god whose burdens would be light. But these people reject the one god who delivered them from the hand of oppression.

For a prophet such as Samuel, who was called to be a leader of the people, this rejection is personal. So what should we take from this scripture? God loves you and wants you to be his, and he wants you to be his children. Appointing someone else to be your master is a direct rejection of his authority.

When I struggled working in the secular world I used to complain about working conditions, pay, and many other things right up until I made Him my king. After that I began to serve in every way knowing that those who lorded over me were only chaff blowing in the wind.

I serve my King. May He also be your king.