A King like all the nations

Why did Israel Want a King?

I. Because of a Lack of Qualified Leadership

Samuel’s age means that Israel must contemplate the next generation of leadership. But Samuel wasn’t any more successful than most of the other judges to tried to carry their leadership to the next generation. Gideon denied in words an appeal to become king, because God is their king (Judges 8:22-23 ). However, his actions did quite the opposite. He lived as a king with a large harem, and named one of his 70 sons “Abimelech” which means “my father is King.” Abimelech, in the next generation, killed all but one of his siblings and ruled as King from Shechem (Judges 9). It lasted just three years and ended in a bloody war. Also, Abimelech only ruled over a small portion of Israel, he was not a national ruler. Eli was also called a Judge (1 Samuel 4:18 ), and we know how disastrous his sons were.

The only judge to appoint his sons as judges with some success was Jair , a man about whom we have just three verses (Judges 10:3-5 ). He too must have had a Harem since he had thirty sons, and so ruled rather like a king; however, he was not a king because his appointment of his sons was never intended to produce a succession. We don’t know how spiritual Jair was at all, we only know that he ruled for 22 years and that his sons seem to have been fairly successful.

A survey of the other judges shows just how difficult it was to find good leadership. God was the one who selected judges, and presumably he chose the best man available. However, many of the judges were not particularly spiritual. Gideon needed quite a lot of persuading before he would trust God enough to do the job. Samson was a very wicked man despite his remarkable gift from God. There’s not enough information about several of them to know how spiritual they were, just that God used them to deliver Israel and bring some measure of peace and prosperity. Deborah was clearly a good judge who loved God, though it seems that God usually chose a man when one was available.

So the question is, why was it so hard to find godly leaders? Were godly men in such short supply that there wasn’t a true man of God who could lead? it seems so. But that must have meant that the people really did turn away from God rather completely. So much so that true servants of God were in very short supply. Half-hearted worshippers who tried to serve God and idols simultaneously were commonplace. Those who worshipped God alone were not. The entire system of rule during the period of the Judges depended on most of the people being true worshippers of God from the heart. Without this, the whole thing collapsed. Unfortunately, the reality was that true worshippers of God were even rarer than they are in America today. Those who did truly worship God were ostracized so that they would not be accepted by the people.

It’s no accident that when a godly leader did arrive, God elevated him to national status. And it’s no accident that God didn’t allow that debacle with the ark until there was a godly leader. God is seeking godly leadership - not just for the big things, but for the little ones too. And he will move heaven and earth if you are willing to step up to lead.

II. Because they wanted national leadership

Samuel is described as somehow impacting all Israel eleven times in 1 Samuel. He was the first leader since Joshua to do so. The issue created by his approaching death was enough to gather the most prominent leaders from every tribe to a summit to discuss the problem.

Judges didn’t govern the whole nation. They were local leaders who influenced a limited region. See Maps. This included Samuel (1 Samuel 7:15-17 ), whose regular circuit was less than 15 miles from Ramah to Gilgal.

There are several downsides to having a multiplicity of local judges. First, you need more of them, so there must be many more qualified leaders if it is to be effective. Second, without the ability to command the entire nation, larger armies couldn’t be organized. These downsides were only real if God didn’t protect them. With God as their defender, any size of army could defeat anyone, so the judges ability to command only a few soldiers didn’t matter. Further, if the majority of people in a region truly followed God, they would value and select leaders who loved God, and there would be plenty of those to choose from.

There wasn’t anything wrong with wanting national leadership per se, it’s just that national leadership itself wasn’t going to solve their problems. Samuel’s national leadership existed because there wasn’t enough people who both valued God and were also respected by the People. And that existed because the people didn’t put God first.

On this day, I cannot help but remember the founding of our nation. Israel had 12 tribes that asked for a King to wield them together for protection, partly because of the threat of foreign powers. America had 13 Colonies that came together and created a government, also for protection, because the threat of tyranny from Britain. However, the circumstances of the founding were quite different. God promised supernatural protection to Israel - he did not promise that to America, though God did aid us providentially. Therefore, while our national motto - In God is our Trust - is still important, we needed to find our protection by banding together. Which is why Ben Franklin wisely quipped “Gentlemen, we must all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

III. Because they wanted a Commander and Judge

What the People wanted wasn’t inherently wrong, in fact it pretty much describes the entire legitimate function of Government according to God. Just two - Judge the people and fight battles. In our government we have a third important function of government - to make laws. However, Israel had a fixed law that could not be changed - the Law of Moses was the law of the land. It was, in effect, their constitution. That only worked because God gave that law, so it was perfect. Human laws aren’t perfect, so in our country we need a process to make new ones or change old ones. Even our constitution, as great as it is, is just a document devised by man. That’s why we’ve amended it many times. We can’t and shouldn’t operate by the Law of Moses. It’s God’s perfect Word, but it wasn’t designed for our country, our people, or our times. So we must have human laws for our country to exist, and they must be able to be changed. We can use the Law of Moses to inform our laws, and we should. We can use the Law of Moses to help us understand the God who gave it better. But laws must be made to fit the circumstances of the people.

They wanted a commander, a man who could lead the whole nation into battle. There were quite a few threats that plagued Israel, and when people feel unsafe, they will agree to almost any degree of tyranny to escape the threat. We already saw the Philistines in the last few chapters. Also, it seems that the Ammonites were also an immanent threat (1 Sam 12:12 ). Nahash was terrorizing the transjordanian tribes especially. In the days of the Judges, it was nearly impossible to get all the tribes together to fight for a common cause. Gideon managed it, though he got only 32,000 from the entire nation, when Moses had five times that amount. When the whole nation got together to attack the tribe of Benjamin, that did get the whole nation, but it almost wiped out the tribe of Benjamin, and that was pretty much the only time the whole nation fought together since Joshua. the Elders reasoned that a King would have the authority to get everyone together and therefore they would be safer with a larger army.

1 Samuel 12:12 NKJV

And when you saw that Nahash king of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the Lord your God was your king.

The problem with that was that they were trying to do through political means what God had wanted to do through spiritual means (Judges 3:4). God didn’t allow the threatening nations to invade Israel because he was too weak to drive them away. He allowed them because he wanted to motivate them to obey Him. Even with a King, Israel still only won when God helped them. Further, with a King the nation became more of a threat to the other nations. A loosely organized bunch of tribes didn’t threaten anyone, so as long as Israel trusted God, the largest nations simply left them alone. Appointing a King placed Israel on the international stage and provoked greater nations to threaten Israel.

Judges 3:4 NKJV

And they were left, that He might test Israel by them, to know whether they would obey the commandments of the Lord, which He had commanded their fathers by the hand of Moses.

the other major responsibility of the King was to judge the people. The lack of a King gave the average Israel a freedom without parallel almost throughout history. But it also brought moral chaos. Judges repeats the refrain that “there was no king in Israel” four times; twice it adds that “everyone did that which was right in their own eyes.” (Judges 17:6) In the context of this gloomy refrain, there were two stories that illustrated the moral depravity that this freedom had permitted the average Israelite to go. First, we find a Levite trying to find a place to live, finds a man named Micah and becomes his pagan priest; then becomes the pagan priest of the entire tribe of Dan as that tribe goes to the far north and finds a defenseless people to conquer. the false worship he set up lasted as long as the tabernacle of God was in Shiloh. Second, we find another Levite who had gone to retrieve his concubine and on the way back was she was assaulted by the town men and killed. He sent pieces of her to the whole nation, and when confronted, the tribe of Benjamin defended the town. So all Israel fought Benjamin and nearly destroyed it.

But that’s why God appointed Judges. if the Judge followed God as he should, he would be able to make sure that justice was done, and bad people were punished. During Samuel’s lifetime, though he was only one man, it was enough. Surely Israel needed more good judges than just him, but at least someone was doing the right thing. Good judges would have naturally sprung up from a godly people, since a godly people would only respect people that truly followed God, and from many true followers, someone would rise to the top. The chaos was evil and should have been fixed, but the cause was the people’s wayward hearts that meant that they didn’t respect the right kind of leader.

So a King would end that problem by making one man the highest judge in the land, and by passing that authority to his descendants he would ensure a continuity of power. But the same spiritual problem that existed during the judges didn’t go away in the era of the Monarchy. Now, however, it was not enough for the people to follow God. The King must do so, too. When he did, the King was able to do a lot of good very quickly. He could force the people to do what was right. But when the King did not follow God, he dragged the people away from God just as fast.

IV. Because they wanted to be like all the other nations

Twice the Elders stated that part of the reason they wanted a King was to be like the other nations. Peer pressure can be not just individual, it can also be national as it is here. The problem with this is that Israel was intended to be different, and her government was supposed to differ. (Deut 7:6 ) God already had a system of government in place, a system that depended and relied on the people being those who truly follow God. Yet he had already anticipated the request for a king (Deut 17:14 )

Deuteronomy 7:6 NKJV

“For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 17:14 NKJV

“When you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, ‘I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me,’

The Law required the appointment of local judges and military officers (Deut 16:18 ). The plural indicates that every village has the right to organize those leaders as they saw fit. So these local leaders were not just an accident of history, God wanted them to rule and do all that the King was supposed to do.

Deuteronomy 16:18 NKJV

“You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment.

In the event of a crime, each citizen was supposed to care enough about the law to investigate and bring their cases to the Judge (Deut 17:1-6). If a case deserved death, the citizen was supposed to investigate first, and if true, he needed to bring witnesses to the gate. In this public place the Judge had to use evidence to decide what was right. Since the well-being of every person depended on whether the nation followed God, any citizen that believed God would be very interested in making sure covenant violators were punished. If he didn’t, he might suffer when God cursed the nation.

In the event of cases too difficult for the local judges, the Levites or Priests could decide. There were some 48 Levitical or priestly cities where a leader could do for help. If one levitical city didn’t do right, he could choose another one.

So as long as the majority of people follow God, it will work. They will search out covenant violators, and the Judges will be godly people. Godly judges will only seek out Levites who are also godly. Because of their continued exposure to difficult cases, the Levites will be equipped to handle it.

But because this solution is so local and decentralized, there would be very little cost and the judges will be familiar with the people and their needs. In contrast, Samuel’s warning shows that the centralization of power in a King would vastly increase government expense and curtail personal freedom without improving justice. The need to raise an army means conscription. The need to pay for an army means taxes. The need to feed an army means that even the women will be conscripted to be cooks and bakers. The need to reward those who faithfully do these tasks means that land will be taken. Asking for a King is not asking for one man, it inevitably bring bureaucracy, and the bureaucracy will be a burden on the people.

V. Because they Rejected God

Samuel understandably took the request quite personally. It was his sons’ behavior that caused the problem. Yet God does not blame Samuel for the problem. Quite the opposite, God himself declares that the rejection is deeper than a personality conflict with Samuel or his character as a father. It was about rejecting God as their King. If your children have wandered away from God, it is not necessarily your fault.

But how was this rejecting God? Quite simply, the elders wanted safety and just leadership without a relationship with God. They wanted protection, but not by keeping God’s commands and therefore securing God’s deliverance. They wanted judges who could enforce the law, but without the relationship that made justice possible.

Thus, God rehearses the sad history of Israel - a history of the people rejecting God. God had set up a good government for Israel. It was a system designed to only work well if the majority of the people followed God. Now if only a few people worshipped idols, the system would still work fine. They would be driven out by the majority, and justice would prevail. There would be plenty of good leaders, who would be respected by a people that valued the right things. No foreign armies would oppress Israel, for God himself would come to their defense whenever it was needed. But it was also a system designed to highlight the damage that idolatry brings very quickly.

So the people needed faith. They needed to believe that what God said was true, that he would do what he said. If they did, they would trust him for protection. If they did, they would be careful to create a culture that elevated godliness. Without that faith, they would look for human solutions to very real problems.

The problems that faced Israel were not imaginary or slight. They were real and serious. But the solution was faith and a real relationship with God. Without that, no system would provide lasting protection or justice.