1 Samuel 8 · a question people ask
Was it wrong to ask for a king?
The chapter holds both sides. The LORD calls the request a rejection of himself: "they have rejected me as the king over them" (8:7). He also tells Samuel to listen to their voice, and at the end, "Listen to their voice, and make them a king" (8:22). Moses' law had spoken of this very request: "I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me" (Deuteronomy 17:14). Deuteronomy 17's honest question sets out the same two readings from the side of Moses' law. Christians read it in two main ways, each resting on verses. Both agree that the king was to be "him whom the LORD your God chooses" (Deuteronomy 17:15), that the LORD did give Israel a king (8:22), and that Samuel later told them, "the LORD will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake" (12:22).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A king was allowed; the reason and the way were wrong
Those who read it this way note that Moses' law gives the terms for a king without forbidding one (Deuteronomy 17:15), and that kings were promised long before: "Kings will come out of you" (Genesis 17:6), and "kings will come out of your body" (Genesis 35:11). They find the wrong in the reasons the people give: "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" (8:20), when in the chapter before, "the LORD thundered with a great thunder on that day on the Philistines" (7:10). Samuel later ties their asking to a threat: "When you saw that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the LORD your God was your king" (12:12). And they set "your king whom you will have chosen for yourselves" (8:18) beside the law's "him whom the LORD your God chooses" (Deuteronomy 17:15), and the LORD's later word, "I have provided a king for myself among his sons" (16:1).
Deuteronomy 17:15 · Genesis 17:6 · Genesis 35:11 · 1 Samuel 8:18 · 1 Samuel 8:20 · 1 Samuel 7:10 · 1 Samuel 12:12 · 1 Samuel 16:1
Asking for a king was itself the wrong
Those who read it this way take the LORD's words as the verdict on the asking: "they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me as the king over them" (8:7). Samuel says the same at Mizpah: "But you have today rejected your God, who himself saves you out of all your calamities and your distresses; and you have said to him, ‘No! Set a king over us!’" (10:19). Later Samuel calls on the LORD to send thunder and rain, "and you will know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the LORD’s sight, in asking for a king" (12:17), and the people say, "we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for a king" (12:19). They recall Gideon's answer when Israel asked him to rule: "The LORD shall rule over you" (Judges 8:23). They read Deuteronomy 17:14-20 as the LORD setting limits around a request he knew Israel would make.
1 Samuel 8:7 · 1 Samuel 10:19 · 1 Samuel 12:17-19 · Judges 8:22-23 · Deuteronomy 17:14-20
The verses
“The LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they tell you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me as the king over them.”
“The LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice, and make them a king.” Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Everyone go to your own city.””
“When you have come to the land which the LORD your God gives 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,” you shall surely set him whom the LORD your God chooses as king over yourselves. You shall set as king over you one from among your brothers. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.”
“For the LORD will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself.”