1 Samuel 8
BSASBSamuel is old, and his sons are corrupt judges. Israel’s elders ask for a king like the nations around them. God tells Samuel that this request is really a rejection of God himself, warns them what a king will cost, and then lets them have their way.
1 Samuel 8:1-2
In his old age Samuel made his sons Joel and Abijah judges at Beersheba, far to the south. It was a natural step, but it treated leadership as something handed down in the family. God had not chosen these men.
BSA: judges (“rulers, leaders”): A judge in Israel did more than hear cases. He led and governed the people under God.
1 Samuel 8:3
Samuel’s sons did not follow their father’s example. They chased profit, took bribes and bent justice. Bribery was strictly forbidden, because the poor and weak depended on honest courts. The failure of the next generation is a sad theme in Scripture.
BSA: perverting (“twisting, corrupting”): Justice was bent out of shape, so that it favored whoever could pay. walk (“follow, live according to”): Walking pictures a whole manner of life, not a single act.
See also: Exodus 23:8; Deuteronomy 16:19.
1 Samuel 8:4-5
The elders came to Ramah, Samuel’s home, with a complaint that had some truth in it: Samuel was old and his sons were corrupt. But their solution went further. They wanted a king, so that they could be ’like all the other nations.'.
BSA: nations (“Gentile countries, non-Hebrew peoples”): Israel was called to be different from the nations. Now it wanted to copy them.
See also: Deuteronomy 17:14-15.
1 Samuel 8:6
Samuel was displeased, perhaps hurt, and perhaps saw that the request set God aside. He did not argue with the elders or defend himself. He took the matter to the LORD in prayer, which is where a troubled leader should go first.
BSA: prayed (“interceded, made petition”): Samuel laid the whole matter before God and did not simply react.
1 Samuel 8:7
God comforts Samuel by telling him the real target. The people were refusing God’s own rule over them, not Samuel’s. God was Israel’s King from the time of the exodus. Their request was a serious spiritual turning away, though dressed up as a practical need.
BSA: rejected (“spurned or refused”): This is a deliberate refusal, not just a mistake. Listen (“to hear and obey”): God tells Samuel to yield to them, not just to hear their words.
See also: Exodus 15:18; Judges 8:23.
1 Samuel 8:8
God sees a long pattern. Ever since the exodus, Israel had kept leaving him for other gods. Asking for a king was one more step down the same road. Samuel was only the latest person to be pushed aside.
BSA: forsaking (“abandoning, turning away from”): Israel kept leaving the God who had rescued them.
1 Samuel 8:9
God lets them have their way, but Samuel must first warn them clearly. The people would choose with open eyes. Giving someone what they demand is not the same as approving it.
BSA: warn (“protest, testify”): Samuel must bear solemn witness against the choice, as in a courtroom.
Hebrew: מִשְׁפַּט (mishpat, H4941) — “manner, custom, right, judgment.” The word ‘manner’ is the usual Hebrew word for justice or judgment. Here it means what a king will claim as his ‘right’, in sharp contrast to the justice of God’s law.
1 Samuel 8:10
Samuel passed on everything God had said, without softening it. The people were asking for a king, and they heard what a king would really cost.
BSA: spoke (“divine messages”): Samuel spoke as a prophet, delivering God’s words and not his own opinion.
1 Samuel 8:11-12
First the king will take their sons. Some will run before his chariots, some will lead his troops, and some will work his fields and make his weapons. Their sons would serve the state’s power and not the family or the farm.
BSA: take (“seize, appoint”): The key word of the passage. The king takes and does not ask.
Hebrew: לָקַח (laqach, H3947) — “to take.” This one verb is repeated through the warning. A king mostly takes, where God mostly gives.
1 Samuel 8:13
The daughters are taken too. Perfumers, cooks and bakers served the royal household. The luxury of a palace would be paid for by the labor of ordinary families.
BSA: take (“to seize, to get”): The same word is repeated. Nothing in the family is beyond the king’s reach.
1 Samuel 8:14-15
Next come the land and the crops. The best fields, vineyards and olive groves would go to the king’s servants. A tenth of the harvest would feed his officials. The land had been God’s gift to each family, and it would now be handed to royal favorites.
BSA: tenth (“to tithe”): The king would collect what really belonged to God, as a tax paid to himself.
See also: Leviticus 27:30.
1 Samuel 8:16-17
Servants, the best cattle, donkeys and a tenth of the flocks would all be used by the king. The warning ends with its sharpest line: ‘you yourselves will become his slaves.’ They had been freed from slavery in Egypt, and now they were choosing a new master.
BSA: slaves (“servants, bondmen, in a state of bondage”): Israel, freed from Egypt, would find itself in bondage again.
See also: Exodus 20:2.
1 Samuel 8:18
A day would come when they cried out to God because of the king they had picked. God warns that he will not answer them then. They chose the king, and they would live with the choice. It is a sobering picture of the weight of a choice made against God’s wisdom.
BSA: chosen (“selected, appointed”): The weight falls on their own choice. answer (“respond, hear”): God’s silence would be part of the consequence of their choice.
1 Samuel 8:19-20
The warning did not work. They said no and demanded a king. They wanted to be like the nations, with a leader who would fight their battles. They forgot that the LORD had fought for them before, at the Red Sea and in many other places.
BSA: refused (“to obey, said no”): They heard clearly, and they would not obey.
See also: Exodus 14:14.
1 Samuel 8:21-22
Samuel brought the people’s words to the LORD. God told him to give them a king. God would work through even this decision, and later he would bring a king after his own heart. Samuel sent the men home to wait.
BSA: Appoint (“make, establish”): God himself will have a hand in setting up the king, though the people asked for him wrongly.
See also: 1 Samuel 13:14; Hosea 13:11.