FIRST SAMUEL 7-12

Translation and Commentary by Nate Wilson

Click here to download a map of cities mentioned in I Samuel.

I Samuel CHAPTER 7

 Introduction

• What would it be like to have faithful leaders at all levels of society – civil government, community, church, and home? 1 Samuel 7 gives us an encouraging picture of Israel at a high point where there was a faithful priest, prophet, and judge.

• But God had to do a lot of refining first to get Israel to that point of blessing,

  • including striking 70 (or 50,070) dead in Beth Shemesh in chapter 6,

  • and letting 34,000 die in the war against the Philistines at Ebenezer in chapter 4,

  • and removing His special presence (and the opportunity to worship Him) from His people for over half a year in chapter 5, and then 20 years of veiled silence in chapter 7.

  • Only after all that does God bring revival and peace.

• Chapter 7 appears to be the end of the ark narrative, presenting Samuel as a deliverer of Israel in the same way that the 12 Judges before him had done.

  • The typical cycle of Israelites turning away from God to idols, then being oppressed and crying out to God for deliverance, then God raising up an obscure person to judge, then that judge pulling off a surprising deliverance for the nation with reliance upon God, has come to its final act again.

  • The next story arc in chapter 8 will be Israel’s transition from Judges raised up by God to Kings raised up by man.

• Let me start back in with the last couple of verses of chapter 6 for context: Then the men of Beth Shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before the face of Yahweh, this holy God, and to whom shall the {ark of Yahweh} go up from among us?” So they sent messengers to the residents of Kiriath Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of Yahweh! Come down and bring it up to yourselves.” 7:1 So the men of Kiraith-Jearim came and took up the ark {of the covenant} of Yahweh, and they brought it to Abinadab’s house on the hill, and they consecrated his son Eleazar to keep the ark {of the covenant} of Yahweh. 2 And the days increased from the day the ark began to reside in Kiraith-Jearim ‘til it had been twenty years, and the whole community of Israel was going after Yahweh, mourning. 3 Then Samuel spoke to the whole community of Israel saying, “If it is with all your heart that y’all are turning to Yahweh, you will remove foreign gods from among yourselves – and the goddesses too, and y’all will set the course for your heart toward Yahweh and serve Him only, and He will deliver y’all from the control of the Philistines.” 4 And the children of Israel removed the Baals and the Ashtoreths and served Yahweh only! 5 Then Samuel said, “Assemble all of Israel at Mizpah, and I will pray on behalf of y’all to Yahweh.” 6 So they assembled at Mizpah, and they drew and poured out water before the face of Yahweh, and they fasted during that day, and they said there, “We have sinned against Yahweh!” And Samuel presided as judge with the children of Israel in Mizpah. 7 Meanwhile, the Philistines heard that the children of Israel had assembled themselves at Mizpah, so the lords of the Philistines mounted [an assault] against Israel. When the children of Israel heard, then they became afraid of the Philistines' presence. 8 And the children of Israel said to Samuel, “Don’t let there be silence from us; you keep crying out to Yahweh our God so He will save us from the control of the Philistines!” 9 So Samuel took one suckling lamb and offered it up whole as a burnt offering to Yahweh, and Samuel cried out to Yahweh in behalf of Israel, and Yahweh answered him! 10 So, there was Samuel, offering up the whole burnt offering while the Philistines engaged in battle with Israel, and then Yahweh rumbled with a loud voice on that day against the Philistines and made a commotion among them, so that they were routed in front of Israel! 11 Then the men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, and they struck them down as far as below Beth-Car. 12 Therefore Samuel took one rock and placed it between Mizpah and Shen, and he named it “Rock of the Help,” and he said, “Yahweh has helped us up to this point!” 13 So, the Philistines were subordinated and did not try again to invade the territory of Israel, for the hand of Yahweh was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. 14 And the cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel went back to belonging to Israel, from Ekron even to Gath. Israel also delivered the border-country from the control of the Philistines, and it became peaceful between Israel and the Amorites. 15 And Samuel presided as judge with Israel all the days of his life, 16 and he would periodically travel, year by year, and make a circuit of Bethel and Gilgal and Mizpah, and he would judge Israel at all these places, 17 but his retiring-place was to Ramah because his household was there, and he judged Israel there, and he had built an altar to Yahweh there.

• I want to look at this passage in terms of successes in the offices of priesthood, prophecy, and judgeship, and use that to chart the way forward towards blessing for our own church, community, and nation.

• We begin with the priestly care of the ark which symbolized the special presence of God, and which was carried from the valley of Beth shemesh up to Kiriath Jearim in the hill country.

vs. 1-2 - Faithful Priests Eleazar and Aminidab’s Ark Care

• “This hill was the higher place of the citie, as sequestred and set apart by it self, and so fitter for this holy use... where Abinadab dwelt, a... good man, to whom the charge of the Arke was committed... Thus... the Arke... was remooued into the tribe of Judah, where the Lord had appointed to erect the kingdome of David… Eleazar... is not recited in the Catalogue of the high Priests, 1. Chron. 6… [He was not a priest but] a Levite, as Josephus¹ thinketh: therefore it is not like[ly], that he drew neere to the Arke, but it was kept drawne ouer with curtaines, and covered according to the Law.” ~Andrew Willett, 1607

• Abinidab must have been a great man of God and a great father. He was the one they carried the ark to – the whole Levite clan there felt he was the one most worthy of the office of ark-keeper. He had trained his sons in God's ways so well that he could appoint his son for this prodigious office! And there the ark stayed for several decades until a temple was prepared for it in Jerusalem under King David.

• What a special position, to be "keeper of the ark of the LORD!" Can you imagine what it must have been like for Eleazar? He watched over the ark – the very presence of God, the receptacle for His law, that most holy thing, for which thousands had just been struck dead for mishandling. What awe Eleazar must have had; what a sense of privilege He must have felt! What a desire he must have had to simply be near it..., and what care he must have taken to keep the place spotless!

  • He must have known what God would teach Jeremiah later, “Do not go after other gods to serve them and worship them, and do not provoke Me to anger with the works of your hands; and I will not harm you.” (Jer. 25:6, NKJV)

  • “The judgments of God on those who profane his ordinances should not make us afraid of the ordinances, but of profaning them and making an ill use of them.” ~Matthew Henry, 1714 AD

• And yet, we the church now have God's Spirit living INSIDE US! Are we awed by this?

  • Are we afraid that God may strike us dead for sinning against Him? Are we keeping our bodies and minds spotless before this holy God that dwells in us?

  • Do we have a sense of joy that God is with us? Do we desire to commune with Him all day long?

  • May God give us the grace to remember and live out this spiritual reality like Eleazar did with the physical ark!

  • And may God give us grace to teach our children His ways, like Abinidab did, so our children can take on big spiritual responsibilities like Eleazar did!

• Now, for 20 years² the ark stayed with Eleazar, and it seems to have been a dark time for Israel, but after this time, the people of Israel had a revival! A major factor in this revival was that Israel had godly leaders.

  • Careless Eli, Hophni, and Phineas were now replaced by godly Abinidab and Eleazar, who quietly and faithfully kept the ark for 20 years,

  • and also, whereas there had been no prophet earlier, the prophet Samuel had now been quietly but faithfully keeping the word of the LORD for 20 years.

• But by the end of those 20 years, the whole house of Israel was mourning their state of brokenness and looking to the LORD for help.

  • “It was better with the Israelites when they wanted the ark, and were lamenting after it, than when they had the ark, and were prying into it, or priding themselves in it.” ~M. Henry

  • The Hebrew phrase “house of Israel” pictures the nation at its best, as a community that is not quarrelling among themselves or running every which-way, but is unified in its identity as descendants of Jacob and as the spiritual church of God.

  • The Hebrew phrase “going after the LORD” occurs 9 other times in the Bible, always as a description of godly faith.

  • Few times in Israel’s history did revival ever occur to this extent! (Lightfoot)

• How wonderful it would be if truly godly men could fill the seats of our nation's government! But such men must be proved faithful first in adversity and obscurity.

  • Now, moving from the priesthood to the office of prophet, Samuel was quietly faithful for 20 years, and then he saw revival!

vs. 3-6 - Faithful Prophet Samuel’s Purge of Idolatry

• Samuel begins emphasizing in v.3 that faith is not about outward forms of religion – such as whether or not you have carved wooden idols on your shelf at home and whether or not you show up at worship services for God, rather, this is about the HEART. “If it’s with all your heart that you are returning to the LORD… if you are fixing your heart on the LORD,” then ‘put away the idols… and serve God alone.” The heart attitude comes first, the actions flow secondarily out of what’s in the heart.

• And after turning their hearts toward God, they put away their idols and began serving Yahweh only.

  • The idols they put away are called “gods and Ashtoreth/goddesses” in v.3, then “Baals and Ashtaroth” in v.4 – specific names of local foreign gods and goddesses. (Tsumura)

  • “Ashtaroth was the peculiar Idol of the Zidonians (1 Ki. 11.5) and of the Philistims (1 Sam. 31.10), so called of the forme, because it was like unto a sheepe³: for so signifieth the word Ashterah: and hereof this may be an argument, because of this Idol there was a citie called Ashteroth Carnaim, Gen. 14.5. which addition of Karnaim signifieth Bicornis, two horned...” ~Andrew Willett, 1607 AD

  • Once your heart is fixed on God, you will have your own sorts of idols to put away.

  • Jesus said, “...it has been written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and you shall serve Him alone.'” and “No one is able to serve two masters… You are not able to serve God and Wealth.” (Matthew 4:10, 6:24, NAW)

  • “True repentance strikes at the darling sin, and will with a peculiar zeal and resolution put away that, the sin which most easily besets us.” ~Matthew Henry, quoting Heb. 12:1

• Samuel then calls a big meeting at Mizpah so God’s people can confess sin and receive God's forgiveness. This time was appropriately observed with fasting.

  • “The people then beeing vexed and oppressed many ways by the Philistims, turned themselues by mourning and prayer unto the Lord… [T]he Israelites drew water, and poured it out before God… [T]he Chaldee interpretation⁴ is best, that they poured out their heart unto God, and shed teares before the Lord in such abundance, as if they had drawne water.” ~Willett

  • “The act was symbolical either of repentance and contrition… or of humility.” (Goldman, quoting the Targums and Rashi⁵)

  • In their culture, drawing water was what servants did⁶, so part of the symbolism may have been been that these men were humbling themselves and accepting the role of servants of God.

  • Also, “this ritual water must have something to do with the preparation for Samuel’s intercessory prayer for the people… ‘[P]ouring,’ instead of drinking the water, and ‘fasting’ are connected… as the act of ‘the self-denial of the occasion…’ for a penitential purpose.” ~Tsumura (NICOT, quoting Gordon)

  • Psalm 62:7-8 “...Trust in Him at all times, you people; Pour out your heart before Him...” (NKJV, cf. Lam. 2:19)

  • And that’s not just an Old Testament thing; it’s a New Testament church thing too: James 4:8-10 "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you." (NASB)

  • We often think of revival in terms of feel-good meetings with happy music and amazing deliverances, but that’s not how it starts. It starts with people taking their rebellion against God seriously and weeping over it – not only expressing regret but openly confessing it, as the Israelites did here, “We have sinned against the LORD.”

  • Jesus said, “Blessed are the ones who are lowly in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Blessed are the ones who mourn, because it is they who will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, because it is they who will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for it is they who will be satisfied.” (Mt. 5:3-6, NAW)

• “But when sinners begin to repent and reform, they must expect that Satan will muster all his force against them, and set his instruments at work to the utmost to oppose and discourage them. But… good is, at length, brought out of that evil… God... makes man's wrath to praise him, and serves the purposes of his grace to his people even by the malicious designs of their enemies against them.” ~Matthew Henry

• And when Israel heard of the impending Philistine attack, they wanted to take the matter to God!

  • Notice how they call Him “our God” in verse 8; we haven’t heard anybody in Israel call Him “our God” since Hannah’s prayer five chapters ago! Now they know they are right with God, their sins are forgiven, and they can expect God to act in a covenantal way with blessings! Wow, this is exciting! Might God do this in our nation today?

  • They said to Samuel, “‘Cease not to pray unto the LORD for us…’ [H]e had been praying for them that day, and they desired he would continue praying for them, well knowing that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much; they knew their salvation was of the Lord, and that he only could save them, and that he must be sought unto for it; and as Samuel had an interest in him, they beg he would continue to make use of it on their behalf; in which they expressed their trust in God...” ~John Gill, 1766

  • “Samuel selected a young lamb for the burnt-offering... as being the most suitable to represent the nation that had wakened up to new life through its conversion to the Lord, and was, as it were, new-born. For the burnt-offering represented the man, who consecrated therein his life and labour to the Lord.” ~K&D

  • “This sucking lambe was a signe of the true lambe Christ Jesus, by whom we have deliverance, and victorie ouer our spirituall aduersaries, as here the Israelites against the Philistims.” ~Willett

  • Can you imagine Samuel fervently crying out to God as the Philistine soldiers come over the horizon? He might have said something like David did later on in Psalm 28 “Yahweh... You must not be silent in regard to me. If you sit still in regard to me, then I will be [in] the same [boat] with those who go down the pit! Give heed to the voice of my supplication while I am crying out to You, while I am raising my hand in [Your] direction... Give to them what matches their deeds... Deal their payback to them... demolish them...” (NAW)

  • Christian, do you remember that you have someone who, “offered both pleas and petitions with a mighty cry – and tears – to the One able to save..., and He was listened-to... In view of which He is also able to save in any eventuality those who come through Him to God, since He is always living for the purpose of interceding on their behalf.” That’s what Heb. 5:7 and 7:25 says Jesus never ceases to do for you!

  • This, by the way, is a clear Biblical basis for leaders to pray in church meetings. Matthew Henry commented on this, “[W]hen we come together in religious assemblies, we must remember that it is as much our business there to join in public prayers as it is to hear a sermon.” We have assembled together as the people of God, confessed our sin, pledged our service to Him, so don’t hold back when it comes to prayer; we should expect God to answer with blessings!

• Now, not only was there a faithful Levite keeping the ark, and not only was there a faithful prophet in Samuel identifying sin and calling people to repent, Samuel also took on a civil leadership role as the 13^th and last of the Judges of Israel.

vs. 7-17 - Judge Samuel’s Faith-filled Defeat of Philistines

• I'm kinda surprised that the superstitious Philistines decided to attack Israel again after the ark incident. But the Israelites were all in one place and, since they had come for a religious ceremony, they probably were not armed for battle, so they were like “sitting ducks.”

• The Philistines had them now, and the Israelites remembered how they'd been slaughtered the last time by the Philistines. But they cried out to God.

  • Their strength had not won last time.

  • Their carrying the ark with them didn't win last time either.

  • They realized that their only hope was for God Himself to intervene, so they cried out to God and asked their godly leader to cry out to God for them too.

  • They were right before God this time; they had ditched their idols and confessed their sin, and they were worshipping and praying to God wholeheartedly. And God answered by frightening those superstitious Philistines, this time with some kind of a loud noise.

• In the first century AD, the historian Josephus wrote (perhaps with some embellishment), “God disturbed their enemies with an earthquake... insomuch that by its trembling, he made some unable to keep their feet, and made them fall down, and by opening its chasms, he caused that others should be hurried down into them; after which he caused such a noise of thunder to come among them, and made fiery lightning shine so terribly round about them, that it was ready to burn their faces; and he so suddenly shook their weapons out of their hands, that he made them fly and return home… So Samuel with the multitude pursued them to Bethcar... and there he set up a stone as a boundary of their victory and their enemies' flight.” (Antiquities, Book 6, Chapter 2, Paragraph 2)

  • Most English versions translate the Hebrew qol gadol as “great/loud thunder,” but this is not the Hebrew word for “thunder;” it is the word for “voice.”

  • The only other time in history that God’s qol gadol voice thundered like that was on Mount Sinai when He issued the 10 Commandments: “These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice...” (Deut. 5:22, NKJ)

  • so there is the possibility that God literally yelled at the Philistines to frighten them away.

  • Psalm 29 tells us that the voice of the LORD is so powerful, it can “splinter cedar trees” and “strip forests bare,” so it could certainly sent an army packing. What a mighty God we serve!

  • And this, of course, is a fulfillment of Hannah’s prayer in 1 Sam. 2:10 “His rival against him will be undone by Yahweh... Yahweh will rumble [against] them in the heavens...” (NAW)

• The men of Israel (notice, just the men were in the army) pursued the fleeing Philistines:

  • Perhaps they picked up weapons that the Philistines dropped while they were running away and used them.⁷

  • And Israel beat the Philistines back “below Beth-Car.” We don’t know exactly where that was, but it was somewhere to the west near the Philistine cities, as you come out of the Israelite hill country and go downhill to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

• Then, in v.12, Samuel erects a rock as a monument and names it “Ebenezer.”

  • The Hebrew word for “rock” is “eben” and the Hebrew word for “help” is “ezer.”

  • It may (Gill, Henry) or may not have been the same Ebenezer spot where Israel had lost the battles to the Philistines in chapter 4, but “it certainly is a reminder of God’s powerful intervention in the history of Israel as well as her former failure at the other ‘Ebenezer.’” ~Tsumura

  • And this is where the second verse to the hymn, "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," comes from: "Here I lay my Ebenezer; hither by Thy help I'm come."

  • The Philistines weren’t completely eradicated, but a real milestone had been accomplished, and Samuel wanted God’s people to remember that the progress they had seen was the result of God’s help and that God could be relied-upon, not only “thus far” but every day into the future. Every new day that we beat back sin and shine the light of God’s kingdom into this world is a new “thus far.”

    • The Apostle Paul made his memorials in writing. He said in Acts 26:22 “Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, bearing testimony… [of] Christ...”

    • We can say the same thing: “Having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, bearing testimony of Christ!”

  • The setting up of monuments commemorating God's work is a good thing too.

    • Joshua built a monument of 12 stones from the bottom of the Jordan River to remind future generations that God had dried up the river for them to enter the Promised Land. (Josh. 4).

    • Are there any monuments you can create to remind yourself of ways God has helped you? Do you keep prayer journals? Do you mention special things God did in your family photo album?

    • Some people make mementos for marriage anniversaries – I bought a cedar clock for my tenth, and I also keep empty cups and bottles in my office that remind me of special times with my family members. Find creative ways to remind yourself of God’s hand in your life!

• Now, Samuel continued on for some years in the office of judge and civil leader for his region, making rounds twice⁸ a year to three towns in the central part of Israel and spending the rest of his time on his parent’s property in Ramah.

  • Of those three towns, Mizpah has already been mentioned,

  • Bethel was a town “about 10 miles north of Jerusalem, located at the intersection of” the North-South “mountain ridge road [through Ephraim] and the [East-West] main road lead­ing from Jericho to the coastal plain” of the Mediterranean⁹. The ark had been located in that town of Bethel back when Aaron’s grand­son Phinehas was high priest in Judges 20:27.

  • And Gilgal was out to the east past Jericho by the Jordan River (Josh. 4:19). “Gilgal was where the tabernacle, ark, and camp of Israel were first pitched, when they came over Jordan.” (Gill)

  • Samuel seems to have built (or used pre-existing) altars for places of worship in each of the towns on his ministry circuit¹⁰. In so doing, this is more like the worship practices of the Patriarchs before the tabernacle rather than the more centralized temple worship we will see later under the Kings.¹¹

Conclusion

• “We read in v.13 that the Philistines came no more within the border of Israel; and the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. Yet we find the Israelites groan­ing under their oppression (9:16), a general disarmament of the nation by them (13:19), and three invasions of the country by their armies (13:5, 17:1, 23:27) – all in Samuel’s lifetime.” ~Goldman¹²

  • The best explanation seems to be that there was not an actual army invasion or war in which there was decisive loss to the Israelites, in other words, there was stasis. Despite tensions here and there, God kept an active control over Philistine activity, such that the Philistines kept their cities and Israel kept theirs. (Willett, K&D, Seb. Smith)

  • Habitable land within Israelite territory and outside the walled cities of Ekron and Gath was, for a season under Samuel’s judgeship, controlled by Israel, according to v. 14.

  • And, whether the term “Amorites” was used broadly here to include the Philistines (Gill, Goldman, Tsumura), or whether the Amorites were other Canaanite tribes (Josephus, Keil & Delitzsch), either way, there was relative peace with foreigners.

• So, a faithful community, under a godly judge, enjoyed peace. They didn’t need a king to be safe and prosperous; all they needed was a good relationship with God¹³.

  • I might mention that the same is true today. We worry about China building up its navy, about rogue missiles being launched from North Korea or Iran, or about terrorist attacks from Muslim extremists, but are we repenting and trusting God to protect our nation, or are we trusting our army to keep us safe while we coddle our idols?

  • Certainly God approved of self-defense, and Jesus told his disciples to carry a couple of swords, but Proverbs 16:7 says that "When a man's ways please the LORD, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him." (NKJV) When Israel got right with God, God kept His hand against the Philistines to keep them at bay. What we need first and foremost is to be in right relationship with the LORD. “Religion and piety are the best securities of a nation.” ~Matthew Henry

  • Today we live in a nation which has largely abandoned faith in God and which is being threatened by many sinister things. But, thank God, we have a greater prophet, priest, and judge than Old Testament Israel had in Samuel; we have Jesus, the great Prophet, Priest, and King to which all inferior judges pointed.

  • Thomas Halyburton, Scottish theologian in the early 1700s, wrote in his book, The Great Concern of Salvation, of how “Satan and the forces of darkness threaten the sinner with overwhelming attacks… ‘They charge him with things that he cannot deny. They lay deep contrivances against him that the cannot discover. They fall upon him with a force that he is not able to resist.’ But as Priest, Christ gives the believer an answer to all Satan’s accusations. As Prophet, Christ ‘gives... wisdom to escape his snares.’ And as King, Christ gives [the sinner] power ‘whereby he is made more than conqueror.’ Indeed, Christ in his offices satisfies every aspect of human need. He opens the blinded mind and fills it with light. He quiets the guilty conscience and fills it with peace. He captivates the will and fills it with contentment in Himself.” ~Joel Beeke, Reformed Preaching, p.302

• Let us always cry out to Him in trouble, confess our sins to Him, submit to His kingship, not displacing Him with anything! And let us always remember to thank Him for His deliverances and somehow record for the generations to come, what He does for us.

1 Samuel 7 - Side-by side comparison of versions^A

I Samuel CHAPTER 8

Introduction

• If I were to die next week, what would happen to this church?

  • Leadership continuity is an important question for any organization. I’ve watched from the inside as more than one non-profit organization had to end its ministry because it could not survive a change in leadership.

  • If a non-profits folds, that’s one thing, but what if it’s a civil government? The citizens of New York City, Seattle, and Portland are currently seeing what a tragedy can result from failures in leadership.

  • Our national constitution provides for continuity of executive government through an election every four years. When election day rolls around, who will be elected President, and will the transfer of power be peaceful?

• Our Scripture passage opens with the statement that Samuel is getting old and that he’s facing the question of continuity of leadership in his nation after he passes away. Some time has passed since the events of chapter 7, and now Samuel is estimated to be in his 60’s¹⁴.

• In chapter 8, three plans for continuity are presented, each by a different party:

1. Samuel’s plan, which involves appointing his sons as judges,

2. The plan of the elders of Israel to appoint a king over the entire country,

3. And God’s plan, which is not so much about monarchy as it is about whether or not Israel will relate to Him as their God and how He will show lovingkindness to them in their sin.

• Please follow along in your Bible as I read from the beginning of 1 Samuel chapter 8:1 Now, when Samuel became old, he then instated his sons to be judges for Israel: 2 the name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second-born was Abijah, and they began presiding as judges in Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not conduct themselves in the way he [did], for they went off-course after profit; they would even take a bribe and thus take justice off-course. 4 So all the elders of Israel assembled themselves together and went to Samuel at Ramah, 5 and said to him, “Look, you have gotten old, and your sons have not conducted themselves in the way you [have], so instate for us a king now to preside as judge over us like all the nations [do].” 6 But this proposal was bad in Samuel’s eyes, particularly when they said, “Give us a king to preside as judge over us,” so Samuel prayed to Yahweh. 7 Then Yahweh said to Samuel, “Give heed to the voice of the people, concerning all that they say to you, for it is not you that they have rejected, rather it is me that they have rejected from being king over them. 8 Therefore, they are doing also to you like all the doings which they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even until this day when they have forsaken me and have served other gods. 9 So now, give heed to their voice but see to it nevertheless that you solemnly testify to them and explain to them the justice-system of the king who will reign over them.” 10 So Samuel told all the words of Yahweh to the people who had asked for a king from him… (NAW)

• Let’s look at those three plans for continuity starting with...

Vs. 1-3 - Samuel’s Plan for Continuity: Hereditary Judgeship

• Samuel named his sons “Joel” (which means, “Yahweh is God”) and “Abijah” (which means “Yahweh is my father”). Great names!

• But Samuel did not instill great character in his sons.

  • Growing up from his earliest years under the care of Eli, who was a negligent father, Samuel seems to have followed Eli’s example of poor fatherhood.

  • This is Samuel’s book, but he didn’t even write in his book the name of his wife or how many kids they had. From that we can infer that Samuel didn’t prioritize his family and its vital connection with the next generation, so the corruption of his sons might not come as a surprise.

• At any rate, when his sons grew up, Samuel set them up in relationship with the town of Beersheba, far away to the South, as judges. Now, there are two schools of thought as to their relationship with that town of Beersheba.

1. One is that his sons set up a courthouse in Beersheba.

• That would make them regional judges in the south with Samuel still presiding as judge in central Israel.

• The writer of the Jewish Soncino commentary on 1 Samuel summed up this position saying, “They were appointed, not to replace him, but to assist him. This is clear from the fact that they held their court in Beer-sheba, far in the south, and not in the cities in which Samuel had held his assizes. The sons were given the southern district, while Samuel retained the northern circuit for himself.”¹⁵

1. The other position is that Beer-sheba was not the center, but rather the southern boundary of Joel and Abijah’s circuit as judges¹⁶.

• In other words, Eli set them up to judge everywhere, even as far away as Beer-sheba, which would indicate that Samuel was expanding his regional base into a nation-wide judicatory system, something no judge had ever done before.

• Although this second position is a little bit of a stretch linguistically, it is practically supported by the fact that elders representing all of Israel came to Samuel to institute a king for the entire nation, revealing that he was seen as an authority throughout the whole country, not just in one region.

• Now, Samuel’s plan for continuity of leadership in Israel had at least two problems:

1. Samuel’s decision to appoint these two sons as judges seems to have been his own idea, not something God had told him to do.

• Samuel may or may not have been trying to make the judgeship hereditary to his family.

• None of the previous judges of Israel had done that; in fact Gideon had openly repudiated the idea, saying in Judges 8:23 “...my son is not going to rule among y’all; it’s Yahweh who’s going to rule among y’all!” (NAW)

• At any rate, “This ‘[little dynastic] experiment’ of Samuel’s was certainly a breach of the old practice of waiting for the divine appointment of a new judge [from God].” ~Tsumura (quoting Gordon)

1. The second problem is that Samuel’s sons did not have the character to be good judges.

• Joel and Abijah were not content to live off of the tithes and offerings which God’s people gave to the Levites; they found that they could double their income by saying that when people came to court to argue their cases, they would, as judges, decide in favor of whoever paid them the most money!

• This was in direct violation of God’s law back in Exodus 23:2 “Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert justice. You shall not show partiality...” (NKJV)

• Nevertheless, Samuel felt that his sons would be good enough. At least, with his sons in place, there would be continuity of leadership for Israel, and the nation would not descend into anarchy. However, all those people who got cheated in their court cases under Joel and Abijah’s judgeship did not agree. They got to talking with their elders in each town, and they started a grass-roots movement to get rid of Joel and Abijah’s corrupt government.

• It is scary to see that Samuel’s unfaithfulness as a father, in part, spawned this rebellion. How much of the future rides on our faithfulness as parents? Nevertheless, God, in His mercy, still blesses some men like Samuel who have not governed their family well. I guess God can look at it like any other sin and decide not to add to the grief of an imperfect man who is nevertheless cultivating a close relationship personally with Him. All the same, such a man will reap trouble from his unruly family. If you have not had godly fathership modeled to you, get mentoring from godly fathers; the next generation will thank you for it!

• Now, from Samuel’s plan we move on to the...

Vs. 4-6 - Elder’s Plan for Continuity: Appointed Kings

• v.4 “...all the elders of Israel assembled themselves together and went to Samuel at Ramah, 5 and said... ‘instate for us a king now to preside as judge over us like all the nations [do].’”

• This is startlingly reminiscent of Exodus 32, “[W]hen the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, ‘Come, make us gods that shall go before us...’" (Ex. 32:1, NKJV) Now, out of their discontent, they come to Samuel, asking, “Make us a king to go before us!” (Henry)

• This request for a king, however, had some biblical basis. Deuteronomy 17:14-20 "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,' you shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses; one from among your brethren... Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law... and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God and... that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left..." (NKJV)

• 19^th century German Bible commentators Keil & Delitzsch noted that in Deuteronomy 17, “God had not only appointed no particular time for the establishment of the monarchy; but in the introduction to the law for the king, ‘When thou shalt say, I will set a king over me,’ He had ceded the right to the representatives of the nation to deliberate upon the matter… Externally regarded, the elders of Israel had a perfect right to present the request; the wrong was in their hearts… They wanted a king, because they imagined that Jehovah their God-king was not able to secure their constant prosperity. Instead of seeking for the cause of the misfortunes which had hitherto befallen them in their own sin and want of fidelity towards Jehovah, they searched for it in the faulty constitution of the nation itself.” (It can’t be my fault that the courts are corrupt; it’s the system that’s at fault; let’s call another constitutional convention and re-design the government! That’ll make it all better!)

• Now, Samuel could have naturally considered the elders’ proposal a bad plan because it was different from his own plan for his sons to succeed him. And as a Bible scholar, he may have also been able to come up with lots of reasons why they shouldn’t ape what the Canaanite nations were doing in their politics. But instead of blowing his top right away, Samuel does the right thing. He prays! Whenever you encounter problems, go to the Lord in prayer first! And God answers in verse 7 by deconstructing the request of the elders of the nation and explaining what’s wrong with it and what to do about it.

• The main problem with the elders’ plan was that, in their hearts, they were rejecting God as king. As God explained it to Samuel, “It’s not you they are rejecting, it’s me.”

  • At one level, God is nudging Samuel to drop the idea of making an issue over them not liking his sons and instead focus on the issue of the nation’s relationship with God.

  • This appears to be an allusion to Leviticus 26, where God uses the same word for “rejecting” Him: “I am Yahweh, y'all's God who delivered y'all out of the land of Egypt from being slaves to them – yes, I shattered the bondages of y'all's yoke; I caused y'all to rise up and walk. But if y'all don't give heed to me and y'all don't do all of these commands, and if you despise my statutes, and if your souls disdain my judgments, failing to do any of my commands such that y'all break my covenant, indeed, I myself will do the following to y'all: I will visit dismay upon y'all...” (Lev. 26:13-16, NAW)

  • You see, God was supposed to fulfill the role of king over the nation, and national rulers were to consider themselves under His authority and bound to obey His laws.

  • Although it isn’t often stated explicitly in Scripture, Samuel explains what is implied in the Biblical philosophy of government in chapter 12 v.12 when he said, “...you said to me, 'No, but a king shall reign over us,' when the LORD your God was your king.”

  • David and the Prophet Isaiah¹⁷ also laid it out in as many words:

    • Psalm 5 "Give ear to my words, Yahweh… my King and my God...,"

    • Psalm 44:4 "You are the same one who is my King, O God...,"

    • Psalm 47:7 "God is the King of all the earth..." (cf. 74:12),

    • Isaiah 33:22 "For Yahweh is our judge; Yahweh is our legislator; Yahweh is our king; He Himself will save us." (NAW)

  • “Though it would not entirely subvert their theocratic government, the appointment of a visible monarch would necessarily tend to throw out-of-view their unseen King and Head.” ~Jameison, Faussett, & Brown commentary

  • In our country today, the political ideal of being a secular, religiously-pluralistic country (that rejects God as king), and the democratic ideal of being ruled by the “voice of the people” are celebrated as good things, but in 1 Samuel 8, God did not present either pluralism or democracy as being a good thing for Israel. I want to explore the ramifications of that more in my next sermon.

  • But for now, suffice it to say that any form of government can be brought under God’s authority and moral law, so the issue is not so much which form of government a nation has, but who is the ultimate authority in that government – and what their relationship to “God, the ultimate lawgiver and judge” (Jas. 4:12) is. Will it be a nation “under God” or will it be another “city of man”?

• A second problem with the elders’ proposal flows out of the rejection of God’s sovereignty, and that is where they are getting their ideas from, if not from God.

  • It would have been one thing if they had come up to Samuel and said, “Sir, we’ve been read­ing in Elah HaDevrim (that’s the Hebrew name of the book we call Deuteronomy), and it says something about setting up a king once we’ve settled in to the Promised Land. Could you check with God and see if it’s about time for that?” But that’s not where they say they got their idea of a king. They say, “Give us a king now, like all the nations.” They are looking to “the nations” for norms to follow in Israel. Something’s wrong with this picture!

  • Who are these nations that they’re getting ideas from? Well, when “kings” are mentioned in the early historical books of the Bible, they’re almost all Canaanites, the very people whose “evil” God considered “complete” (Gen. 15:16). God told Israel to destroy these people and everything in their wicked civilization (Dt. 7:2, 20:17)! These are not the sort of people that should be followed as an example!

  • “The people [of Israel] wanted to become like all the other nations, but God had called them uniquely to be his people, under his especial care. But they are exchanging their true glory for status in the eyes of the world. Just as the Israelites were the people of a God who is unique and incomparable with any other god… so they were supposedly incomparable with any other nation: that is, ‘a kingdom of priests and a holy nation’ (Exod. 19:6)… set apart for service to their divine monarch... So what they hoped to do was exactly to throw away their special status as the chosen people of God in order to identify themselves with the nations of this world.” ~Tsumura (NICOT)

  • “It [is our] greatest honour and glory, as well as happiness, not to be like other nations.” ~Gill

  • God knows that we tend to become like the things we look at. We will inevitably choose the hairstyles, clothing, vocabulary words, speech patterns, posture, cultural ideals, attitudes, and goals of whoever we put before our eyes and ears the most.

  • Let me ask, what are the examples you are holding before your eyes? If most of them are on movie screens or secular news channels, I suggest you are doing the same thing that the elders of Israel were doing.

  • Don’t look to the world for your ideas. Instead, put the Bible before your eyes (and your household’s eyes!) every day so that the words, patterns, attitudes, goals, and ideals of God are what become your influences. Hebrews 12 says, “Fix... eyes on Jesus,” and Colossians 3 says, “Set your mind on heavenly things... where Christ is.”

• Not only did the elders’ plan have the problems of a broken relationship with God and undue influence from pagans, we might also infer that it was wrongly motivated by vain pride.

  • “[W]hat they were desirous of was to have a king appearing in pomp and splendour, wearing a crown of gold, clothed in royal apparel, with a sceptre in his hand, dwelling in a stately palace, keeping a splendid court, and attended with a grand retinue, as the rest of the nations about them had had for a long time.” ~John Gill, 1766

  • “A poor prophet in a mantle, though conversant in the visions of the Almighty, looked mean in the eyes of those who judged by outward appearance; but a king in a purple robe, with his guards and officers of state, would look great: and such a one they must have... They do not say, ‘Give us a king that is wise and good, and will judge better than thy sons do,’ but, ‘Give us a king,’ any body that will but make a figure. [And we’ll see that’s exactly what they get in King Saul.] Thus foolishly did they forsake their own mercies, and, under pretence of advancing the dignity of their nation to that of their neighbours, did really thrust themselves down from their own excellency...” ~Matthew Henry, 1714

• So we’ve see Samuel’s plan and its problems; we’ve seen the elders’ plan and its problems, now let’s look at...

vs. 7-9 - God’s Plan: Chastisement and Mercy

• 7 Then Yahweh said to Samuel, “Give heed to the voice of the people...”

  • This course of action of instituting a monarchy comes from the vox populi, the voice of the people.

  • Mind you, the word “people” in the Hebrew here refers to the Jewish people, it is not the plural of the word for “person,” but, all the same, the source of this idea is human rather than being from God.

  • This is essentially a move to secularize the civil government and remove God from authority over the nation, but God is going to let it happen, and if we don’t repent as a nation, God will let us keep democratizing and secularizing our government too.

• It’s interesting that sometimes God lets us have what we want, not because we’re making the best choice, but because He will use the foolishness of our choices to discipline us and bring us to a more mature relationship with Him.

  • Hosea 13:11 “I gave you a king in My anger...”

  • “So you want a king besides me, do you? Well, a king is what you’re gonna get, and you’re gonna get it good!”

  • “They had to learn in the painful school of experience.” ~Goldman

• And yet while chastening them with the very thing they thought they wanted, God also remains merciful. Just as in the garden of Eden, when God had a plan for redemption ready to launch before His revealed will had been broken (Eph. 1:4), so here in Samuel’s time, God knew ahead-of-time that the people of Israel would take off in a political direction that was not His will – or His timing, and He had a plan to redeem them and bring good out of the mess they made.

  • Notice how exasperated God’s tone sounds in verse 8 - “They’ve been doing these shenanigans ever since the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt!” (cf. Jer. 22:21) They’ve crossed a line relationally by acting unfaithfully toward Him, and, at the moment, God seems to be expressing that with boundary language, not calling them “my people” but “the people… they… them” - as opposed to “me.” Yet He still extends grace.

  • One evidence of God’s grace is His merciful custom of providing warnings. He doesn’t punish without first giving at least one warning – often more than one (2 Ki. 17:13). God gives second chances to repent and obey, so even here, after the minds of the people are made up, God, through Samuel’s warning, will give them an opportunity to take their proposal back.

    • God tells Samuel, before a king is instated, to be sure to explain to them what the “mish­pot/manner/procedure/ways/custom” of a king is going to look like - “what he will do.” v.9 “So now, give heed to their voice but still see to it that you sol­emnly testify to them and explain to them the mishpot of the king who will reign over them.”

    • This word mishpot in v.9 is the same word back used in v.3 to describe Samuel’s sons who “accepted bribes and perverted mishpot/justice.” In effect, God is saying, “You think you’re going to get any different outcome from a king than you did with judges? The potential for injustice is even greater with a king! How about cool down on your eagerness for a king and let me just be your king.¹⁸”

    • And if you consider “customary behaviour of an oriental despot” and what were “the actual constitutional rights of a king in those days” (Goldman) it should make any sober person cringe.¹⁹ I plan to get into the details of that in my next sermon.

    • But for now, I want to bring out the fact that it is God’s patient kindness which gives us warnings and opportunities to repent.

Another of God’s mercies becomes evident if we zoom out to the bigger picture. Just as God provided a descendant of Adam and Eve to fix the problem of their rebellion against God in Jesus Christ, so also God provided descendants of the king-system set up by Israel in defiance of God’s will, who would lead Israelites – and Gentiles too – back into following after God’s heart in David – and ultimately in Jesus, the great shepherd-king who “came to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10), “having made peace through the blood of His cross. [So that] you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight— if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard...” (Col. 1:21-23, NASB) 

vs. 10-22 - Introduction

• In the last sermon we looked at the beginning of chapter 8 in which three plans for continuity of leadership over the people of Israel were laid out²⁰:

  • Samuel’s plan, which involved appointing his sons as judges,

  • The plan of the elders of Israel to have “a king like all the [other] nations,”

  • And God’s plan, which was to relate to His people as their God unlike all the other nations and to graciously provide salvation for them even through their kings.

• God’s main point is not that monarchy is morally wrong. (In other places God affirms monarchy as a valid system of government²¹.) It’s the qualifying words that are the important ones in this story; it’s the phrase “like the other nations” which is, I believe the main problem, revealing that Israel was telling Samuel that it wanted to become like a pagan nation and reject God as their final authority. That was the real problem.

• But out of love for His people, God provided a warning to them through Samuel in the body of chapter 8 against wanting a king who would operate like the kings of the other nations. This warning is still useful to us today because the battle of worldviews continues on today as to the role of government in its citizenry. The general elections coming up for our nation illustrate the clash of some of these ideas. I want to look at Samuel’s critique of pagan monarchs in chapter 8 and apply its lessons to voting issues today and to the long-term work of reforming the government of our community and nation.

• 1 Samuel chapter 8:7 Then Yahweh said to Samuel, “Give heed to the voice of the people, concerning all that they say to you, for it is not you that they have rejected, rather it is me that they have rejected from being king over them. 8 Therefore, they are doing also to you like all the doings which they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even until this day when they have forsaken me and have served other gods. 9 So now, give heed to their voice but see to it nevertheless that you solemnly testify to them and explain to them the justice-system of the king who will reign over them.” 10 So Samuel told all the words of Yahweh to the people who had asked for a king from him. 11 and he said, “This will be the justice-system of the king who will reign over y’all: He will take your sons and instate them for himself among his cavalry and among his horses – and they will be running in front of his cavalry – 12 and to instate for himself army-officers – colonels to captains of fifties, and to be plowmen for his plowing and to be harvesters for his harvesting and to be makers of weapons for his army and weapons for his cavalry. 13 He will even take y’all’s daughters for spice-mixers and for meat-preparers and for bakers. 14 And he will take the best of y’all’s fields and of your vineyards and your olive-trees, and he will give [them] to his staff-members. 15 Furthermore, he will assess 10% of y’all’s grains and y’all’s grapes and give [that] to his officers and to his staff-members. 16 He will even take y’all’s men-servants and y’all’s maid-servants and y’all’s best oxen and y’all’s donkeys and use them for his work. 17 He will also assess 10% of y’all’s sheep, and you yourselves will turn into servants for him. 18 Then y’all will cry out during that time as a result of the presence of your king (which y’all chose for yourselves), and Yahweh will not answer y’all during those day{s because y’all chose a king for yourselves}.” 19 The people, however, refused to give heed to the voice of Samuel, and they said, “No one except a king will be over us. 20 Then we – we also – will be like all the nations, in that our king will preside as judge over us and he will go out before us and fight our battles!” 21 Once Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he then spoke them into the ears of Yahweh, 22 and Yahweh said to Samuel, “Give heed to their voice and cause a king to reign for them.” So Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Each of you go to his city.” (NAW)

• Now, compare what you just heard to the following statement from the highly-influential 17^th century philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in his book, The Leviathan: “This is the generation of that great leviathan, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god, to which we owe under the immortal God, our peace and defense. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him, that by terror thereof, he is enabled to perform the wills of them all to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad… And he that carrieth this… [power] is called sovereign, and said to have sovereign power; and every one besides, his subject.”

• A king, in many ways, is a human replacement to God that you revere, tithe to, and obey. This is only natural in a humanistic society, and it certainly has gained popularity in the USA. It's not so much over one man yet (although the President seems to be getting more and more attention–that bears a frightening resemblance to the tabloid coverage of European royalty.) Still, for us right now, it's more obeisance to the big government–an unknown mass of powerful bureaucrats who take 50% of our earnings and regulate every detail of our lives. And the masses ask for more, because they have no other god (except themselves).

• What does government power apart from God look like? It is greedy, it redistributes resources, and it treats citizens like slaves. Let’s look at these three problems in turn:

vs. 11-13 - “A King like the Nations” Will Be “On The Take”

• “Samuel describeth such manners and fashions, which are incident, not to true Monarchies, but such as decline rather unto a Tyrannie… Samuel sheweth, that their King should faile: first in the manner, that he should not by order or law, but by violence and compulsion take from them their sons and daughters, their lands and goods...” ~Andrew Willett²², 1607 A.D.

• v.11 He will take your sons and use them to make his mode of transportation impressive.

  • Keil & Delitzsch are authorities in Biblical Hebrew whom I highly respect, and their commentary is that this word for “chariot” (בְּמֶרְכַּבְתֹּו) “refers, not to war-chariots, but to the king's state-carriage; [and the word for “horses”] (פָּרָשׁ) does not mean a rider, but a saddle-horse (2Sam. 1:6; 1Kings 5:6)...” and

  • “It was the custom for the royal chariot to be escorted by a team of runners.” ~Tsumura

  • What Samuel warned that the kings of Israel would do, indeed came to pass: “...David... introduced chariots into the kingdom, Solomon increased them…” ~Tsumura

  • 1 Kings 10:26-29 “And Solomon gathered chariots and horsemen; he had one thousand four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horsemen, whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem... Also Solomon had horses imported from Egypt... a chariot that was imported from Egypt cost six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse one hundred and fifty...” (NKJV)

  • It was the equivalent of a limousine accompanied by a motorcade when a modern president travels down the road.

• v.12 says the king will also take your sons and impress them into service in his army

  • Jamieson, Fausset and Brown noted in their commentary that, “In the East, a person must accept any office to which he may be nominated by the king.” There was no choice but to take the appointment:

  • First as military officers: “[T]housands… and fifties… may be representing the entire range of units: namely, ‘tens’ … ‘fifites’ ... ‘hundreds’ ... [and] ‘thousands’ ... So these captains are military officers of varying rank.” ~Tsumura, NICOT

  • “He must needs have a standing army, for guards and garrisons; and your sons, instead of being elders of your cities, and living in quiet and honour at home, must be... disposed of at the pleasure of the sovereign...” ~Matthew Henry, 1714

  • And indeed this happened just as Samuel predicted. 2 Kings 1, for instance, mentions several captains of 50 commanded by King Ahaziah.

  • And then there’s the work of feeding that army, so there would be non-voluntary appointments to do the farmwork to produce food for that army, and, to top it off, the army needs weapons, so blacksmiths and other artisans would also be drafted.

  • Not only would the king take the sons of the people...

• v.13 He will also take your daughters for raqachot - spice-mixers

  • Ecclesiastes 10:1 indicates that these aromatic concoctions were oil-based.

  • 2 Chronicles 16:14 describes their use in enbalming dead bodies, and we might infer they were also used to scent rooms, like we use scented candles.

  • In addition, these spice mixes were used to flavor drinks (according to Song of Solomon 8:2), and to flavor meats (according to Ezekiel 24:10)²³.

  • This overlaps with the king taking the daughters of the people to prepare his food “daugh­ters... whom you hoped to prefer to houses and tables of their own…” (Henry)

  • The Hebrew word in v.13 for “cooks” is used exclusively in the Bible to describe butchering and preparing meat to eat.

  • So, in 1 Sam. 28:24-25, we see this come to pass under King Saul “Now the woman had a fatted calf in the house, and she hastened to kill it. And she took flour and kneaded it, and baked unleavened bread from it. So she brought it before Saul and his servants, and they ate….” (NKJV)

• One of the most influential writings (besides the Bible) upon the American Colonists during the War for Independence in the 18^th Century was a tract written in the 17^th Century entitled Vindiciae Contra Tyranos (“A Vindication of being Against Tyranny”), which makes a point similar to what Samuel makes here: “Let the burgesses and citizens of towns... consider with themselves that they have contracted two covenants, and taken two oaths: The first and most ancient with God, to whom the people have sworn to be His people: The second and next following with the king, to whom the people hath promised obedience, as unto him which is the governor and conductor of the people of God… In these days there is no rhetoric more common in the courts of rules, than of those who say ‘all is the king's.’ Whereby it follows, that in exacting anything from his subjects, he takes but his own, and in that which he leaves them, he expresseth the care he hath that they should not be altogether destitute of means to maintain themselves…. in all right and equity it ought to be [the] contrary. Now we must always remember that kings were created for the good and profit of the people, and that those (as Aristotle says) who endeavor and seek the welfare of the people are trust[worth]y kings; whereas those that make their own private ends and pleasures the only butt and aim of their desires, are truly tyr­ants… If then therefore, in the creation of kings, men gave not their own proper goods to them, but only recommended them to their protection; by what other right then, but that of freebooters[freeloaders], can they challenge the property of other men's goods to themselves?…”²⁴

• As we elect leaders, and as we seek to shape our nation for the years to come, we must renounce the idea of the Leviathan government, resist the idea that the government has a right to take everything it wants from us and work against its continued growth.

• But that’s not the worst of it. Not only does Samuel warn against confiscation of people’s properties, he also warns against government that starts bestowing the goods of the commonwealth upon other persons.

vs.14-15 - “A King Like the Nations” Will redistribute Wealth

• v.14 He will confiscate your means of production - your fields, vineyards, and orchards – and give them to his officials.

  • King Ahab and Queen Jezebel had Naboth killed in order to confiscate his vineyard.

  • And 1 Samuel 22:7 implies that Saul confiscated land from people he didn’t like and gave it to people he liked.

  • The New International Commentary on the Old Testament cites seal inscriptions, ancient Ugarit chronicles, Hittite land-grant documents, and passages in 2 Kings 22:12 and 25:8 to prove that these “servants/attendants” to whom the king would redistribute the property would be his “courtiers” and “high-ranking officials.”

  • 1 Chronicles 27:24-28:1 there is a list of the staff that served the administration under King David. It includes:

    • an official who oversaw “work in the grainfields” that were “David’s property”

    • an official who oversaw work in the royal “vineyards”

    • an official who oversaw work in the “olive groves”

    • and officials who oversaw the “storage” of the “oil” and “wine” and grain in “storehouses” near each production area and who oversaw the transporting of these goods to the palace and “fortresses.”

    • There were also officials over the royal “herds” of sheep & goats used for meat & clothing,

    • and overseers for the herds of “camels” and “donkeys” used for transportation.

    • v.31b “... All these were the officials over King David's property.” Also Jehonathan… the scribe… Ahithophel the king's counselor... Hushai the king's companion... the general of the king's army... and the captains of the divisions who served the king, the captains over thousands and captains over hundreds, and the stewards over all the substance and possessions of the king and of his sons, with the officials...”

    • Having the government own the means of production is still the goal today in Communist governments like China and Russia, and the idea regularly pops up in our country as well.

  • Not only is this a moral violation of the 8^th Commandment (“Thou Shalt not steal”), it also creates an unjust national leadership structure which is beholden to the king (or to the federal government which gives out the benefits) rather than accountable to the people.

  • Today, Social Security has become a government wealth redistribution program, taking mon­ey from the young and spending it on the old. Like other such Ponzi schemes, our government can’t afford to go on doing that, so most of you who are paying social security tax­es won’t get those checks when you get old, but no politician will eliminate it because so much of his voting base is older folks who want to keep getting that money from the government. And that’s just one of the many problems caused by government wealth redistribution.

    • Not only would the king confiscate means of production, he would also confiscate a tenth of what was privately produced!

• v.15 a tenth of your grain and grapes for his officials and his servants

• v.17 also mentions 10% of your flock of sheep

  • I’m not aware of any stories in the books of Kings and Chronicles where kings took a tenth of somebody’s sheep and goats, but in 1 Kings 8:63 Solomon sacrificed 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. Where did he get such a vast number of animals from? The people, of course!

  • 2 Chronicles 32:28-29 details how even the good king Hezekiah had storehouses built for the harvest of grain, wine, and oil, and stalls and folds for “flocks and herds which he possessed in abundance...”

• The income tax is an invention of pagan nations, “In Babylon, as Aristotle relates, there was an ancient law which required the tenth of whatever was imported for the public revenue, which was revived in the times of Alexander.” ~John Gill

  • It assumes that the citizen himself or herself is owned by the state and thus the state is entitled to a percentage of the fruits of all that person’s labor. God is the only one who has a legitimate claim on the creation and ownership of our bodies, and He rightfuly claims a tithe, but for a government to claim 10% (or more) of your income is tantamount to claiming to be your God; that is blasphemy. That’s why I am in favor of flat taxes.

  • It is said that the War for American Independence was fought over a tax that amounted to less than 1% of the American colonists’ incomes. Today, I don’t know how to adequately highlight the amount of oppression Americans live under because Americans have not known economic freedom for over a hundred years. We have nothing in living memory to compare our current economic circumstances to, except the slightly-lower taxes and slightly-lower prices of goods we knew when we were children.

  • I’m told that the average American now pays over 50% of income as taxes of various sorts.

    • Some of these taxes are straightforward, like the income tax which is over 10% for many.

    • Others are less straightforward, like the additional 10% (and more) added to our grocery bills as sales taxes, and the approximately 50% tax we pay at the fuel pumps.

    • Then there’s the even-more-hidden taxes that employers have to pay for each employee and the various taxes on businesses passed down to consumers in higher costs of goods and services.

    • Then there’s the most hidden-of-all tax, where the government creates money out of thin air to pay for things that all the other taxes weren’t enough to cover. That is why a dollar today can’t even buy as much as a penny could have bought a century ago. The Bible says that diverse weights and measures are an abomination to God²⁵. Inflation eats away the value of the hard-earned money you save.

• The Bible sets before us the ideal of a government that taxes less than 10% of your income and which preserves rock-solid value in currency so that a dollar will buy the same amount now as it will a hundred years from now. If, however, we keep electing representatives and senators and presidents who support the unbiblical humanistic ideal of the leviathan state which taxes everything, controls everything, and has no absolute standards, we will continue to live under the natural consequences (and divine judgment) of economic hardship. Unfortunately in next month’s election, I’m not aware of even one candidate on the ballots who believes in these Biblical economic principles of truly-limited government and an absolute standard for currency. That’s why we need to volunteer to run for office, and we need to get started on that long before campaign season hits and it’s too late to field alternatives.

vs.16-17 - “A King Like The Nations” Will Treat Citizens Like Slaves

• v.16 He will take your man-servants, maid-servants, oxen and donkeys for his work

  • There is some debate over whether the third item on the list is “cattle” or whether it is “young men,” but since this warning message is basically saying that a king is going to take anything and anybody for his own use, it doesn’t ultimately make a difference to the message: He’ll take both the oxen and the young men.

    • We know that King Saul took David into his court and into his army when David was a young man, and Isa. 31:8 speaks later on of a king taking “young men... for slave labor.”

    • King Saul also ordered the slaughter of all the oxen and donkeys²⁶ in the Israelite town of Nob in 1 Samuel 22:19.

• Notice the contrasting pronouns over and over in these verses between “Your” and “his.”

  • “Your sons… in his chariots...

  • your fields… for his staff...

  • your grain… for his officers...

  • your donkeys for his work.”

  • As more and more that was yours flows in his direction, you eventually realize you have nothing left that is truly yours. In this kind of government, anything and everything can be taken away from you by civil magistrates. This leads to the natural conclusion in v.17…

• v.17 [the subject is emphatic here in Hebrew] you yourselves will turn into slaves for him

  • “[T]he change of title from ‘judge’ to ‘king’ in ancient Israel would bring a new social structure... in which a king fundamentally ‘rules over’ rather than ‘judges’ the people… [L]abor corvées would be the most onerous form of this ‘slavery’...” ~Tsumura (NICOT)

  • 1 Kings 5:13-15 “King Solomon drafted forced labor out of all Israel, and the draft numbered 30,000 men. And he sent them to Lebanon, 10,000 a month in shifts. They would be a month in Lebanon and two months at home... Solomon also had 70,000 burden-bearers and 80,000 stonecutters...” (ESV)

  • Then in 1 Kings 12, the people of Israel complained to King Rehoboam about how heavy the yoke of forced labor had been for them under Solomon, and what did Rehoboam do? He made it even heavier, saying, “...My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.” (1Ki. 12:14b, ESV)

• Fast forward to the Reformation, where question over whether a king had a right to enslave his people was answered famously by Samuel Rutherford in the negative by his watershed book Lex Rex, the title itself boldly declaring that God’s law is above the King; the King is not above the law. He wrote: “All civil power is immediately from God in its root… The king hath no proper, masterly, or lordly dominion over his subjects; his dominion is rather fiduciary and ministerial, than masterly. 1. Because royal empire is essentially to feed, rule, defend, and to govern in peace and godliness, (1 Tim. 2:2, Psal. 78:71, Isa. 55:4, 2 Sam. 5:2, 1 Chron. 11:2; 1 Chron. 17:6) .... Not to be... under a master as slaves are, is a blessing, seeing freedom is a blessing of God (John 8:33; Exod. 21:2, 26, 27; Deut. 15:12) ... Subjects are called [in the Bible] ‘the servants of the king,’ ... but they are not slaves, because (Deut. 17: 20) they are his brethren... And therefore to be the king’s servants… is some other thing than to be the king’s slaves…. the king... must be under law, and so his will and lust cannot be the rule of his power and dominion....” ~Samuel Rutherford, Lex Rex, p.119, 1644 A.D.

• Francis Schaeffer continued that reformed tradition into the 20^th century with his book, A Christian Manifesto, which he wrote as a rebuttal to the Communist Manifesto and the Humanist Manifesto, pointing out that the problem of the enslaving of citizens is just as real today and it still stems from trying to institute government apart from God’s ultimate authority: “The Humanists push for ‘freedom,’ [that is, freedom from God’s law] but, having no Christian consensus to contain it, that ‘freedom’ leads to chaos or to slavery under the state (or under an elite). Humanism with its lack of any final base for values or law, always leads to chaos. It then naturally leads to some form of authoritarianism to control the chaos. Having produced the sickness, humanism gives more of the same kind of medicine for a cure. With its mistaken concept of final reality, it has no intrinsic reason to be interested in the individual, the human being. Its natural interest is the two collectives: the state and society… And our view of final reality – whether it is material-energy, shaped by impersonal chance, or the living God and Creator – will determine our position on every crucial issue we face today. It will determine our views on the value and dignity of people, the base for the kind of life the individual and society lives, the direction law will take, and whether there will be freedom or some form of authoritarian dominance.” (p. 51)

• Once the general population become slaves of the state, the state becomes obligated to provide for its servants as it has been doing for its other staff and officials. This is where we see socialism come in. I’ve heard that most of the citizens in our country today receive federal aid of some sort – WIC, foodstamps, scholarships, student loans, subsidized housing, redistribution checks from other people’s income taxes, and on and on the list goes. Where does a government with such a large dependent population get the money to provide for so many? Either through robbing other populations as we saw in the wars of past centuries or through robbing the future generation of citizens through debt, as we are seeing today with the trillions of dollars being spent on credit for COVID relief. Embracing personal responsibility with dependence upon God rather than dependence upon the leviathan state is the only way out.

vs. 18-22 - Israel’s Choice

• The statement in v.18 sounds harsh: “you will cry out but Yahweh will not answer,” but note that they aren’t crying out to God; they’re just “crying out,” so why should God respond? As long as people want to use a king (or, for that matter, a democracy or a republic) as a replacement for God, God is the very one they don’t want help from. Only if they cry out to God out of a desire to repent and live in keeping with God’s ways does it make any sense for God to step in and help.

  • “Those that submit to the government of the world and the flesh are told plainly what hard masters they are, and what a tyranny the dominion of sin is; and yet they will exchange God's government for it.” ~Matthew Henry

• In vs.19-20 there is a note of stubbornness and man-centeredness in the elders’ reply to Samuel, “No, no one except a king will be over us. We won’t hear of any other way. Then we – even we ourselves will finally be like all the nations, in that we will have a king to judge and fight for us! We don’t want God to fight our battles for us. We don’t want to fight His battles. We want to fight our own battles for ourselves, thank you very much!”²⁷

  • They wanted something "better," more tangible than God. They wanted a human king to lead them into battle.²⁸

  • 1 Samuel 12:12 explains the context of this statement: the Ammonites were showing signs of mobilizing for war against Israel, so they wanted a king quick to mobilize an army and defend Israel: “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.” (NKJV)

  • But, “Could they ever desire a battle better-fought for them that the last was, by Samuel's prayer and God's thunder? (1Sam. 7:10) … [W]ere they fond of trying the chance of war at the same uncertainty that other [nation]s did? ... Their first king was slain in a battle, which none of their judges ever were...” ~M. Henry

• Hosea 8:3-4 summarizes, “Israel rejected the good… They set up kings, but not by Me” (NKJ)

Conclusion

We can’t avoid living under some form of government. We also can’t avoid the fact that God cares about government and is sovereign over all governments. So, as God’s people, let us seek to influence our government in the direction of God’s word. We can begin by examining the legislators and executives and judges who will be on your ballot according to these principles from 1 Samuel:

1. Do they recognize and seek accountability to the authority of God? Are they a member of a church? Do they support their positions with the Bible?

2. Do they oppose increasing the size and power of centralized government? Are they content, or are they talking about big new programs?

3. Do they resist redistributing wealth through the government? Do they honor the private ownership of property and leave charity to the church and family to conduct through personal relationships?

4. Do they treat citizens as free persons, allowing them to make as many decisions for themselves as possible, or are they for passing lots of new laws to further regulate everything?

5. There are, of course other issues which other parts of scripture highlight, such as protecting human life, which should also be considered.

And since such candidates are rare, ask God to raise some up, then ask Him if you should run for office in a future election and seek to bring these Biblical values into our government!

Appendix: Further Excursus on God And Government

• “Rousseau once said that ‘man is born free and yet he is everywhere in chains.’ If that is true, then the problem is the system that enslaves all the innocents. To burn down the system therefore is to open cell doors, striking off chains. But as a fi􀂩tting spokesman for the conservative mind, James Madison put things a little differently: ‘If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.’ (Federalist Papers #51) The whole idea of limited government, with checks and balances, is predicated on the idea that the basic problem lies within human nature itself… We must not be cheerleaders for any form of secularism, right or left, because only Christ can deal with the heart of man. Only Christ.” Excerpted from “The Moment” by Douglas Wilson’s Blog & Mablog post from Sept 28, 2020

• Davy Crockett got it right when he spoke against spending American tax money on helping a widow with her private needs. He said, “Money is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people... The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man… the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount… I propose that every Congressman instead donate a week of their own pay to this lady.” And, of course he got no takers, because even then, American congressmen were buying into the idea that the federal government could be used to redistribute wealth, and they all wanted to be on the receiving end, not the giving end.

• “Law is rooted back to Him who is the final reality [that is, God]. Thus, neither church nor state were equal to, let alone above, that Law… and no one has the right to place anything, including king, state, or church, above the content of God’s Law. What the Reformation did was to return most clearly and consistently to the origins, to the final reality, God; but equally to the reality of Man… What we have had for four hundred years, produced from this clarity, is unique in contrast to the situation that has existed in the world in forms of government. Some of you have been taught that the Greek city states had our concepts in government. It simply is not true. All one has to do is read Plato’s Republic to have this come across with tremendous force. When the men of our State Department, especially after World War II, went all over the world trying to implant our form-freedom balance in government downward on cultures whose philosophy and religion would never have produced it, it has, in almost every case, ended in some form of totalitarianism or authoritarianism.” ~Francis Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto, p. 29, 1981 A.D.

• “When Jesus says in Matthew 22:21: ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’ it is not:
  GOD and CAESAR.
  It was, is, and it always will be:
  GOD
  and
  CAESAR
  The civil government, as all of life, stands under the Law of God.” ~Francis Schaeffer, A Christian Manifesto, p. 90, 1981 A.D.

• “When trade is free of active government involvement, competition is peaceful. But mercantilism makes competition into a contest between governments. When governments contest for advantage actively and vigorously, they are headed toward their ultimate recourse – war.” ~Clarence B. Carson, A Brief History of the United States, v.1,p112

• “That power of government in general must be from God, I make good, 1st, Because (Rom. xiii. 1) “there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God.” 2d, God commandeth obedience, and so subjection of conscience to powers; Rom. xiii. 5, “Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, (or civil punishment) but also for conscience sake;” 1 Pet. ii. 13, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king as supreme,” &c. Now God only by a divine law can lay a band of subjection on the conscience, tying men to guilt and punishment if they transgress. Conclus. All civil power is immediately from God in its root…” ~Samuel Rutherford, Lex Rex, p.1, 1644 A.D.

• “If I speak Your words and people don't heed them, help me remember not to take it personally. When we act as God's representatives in this world, the world will treat us with the innate hatred they have for God. It's not us they hate so much as the God we represent.” ~Nate Wilson, 1994

• “If God interest himself in the indignities that are done us, and the contempts that are put upon us, we may well afford to bear them patiently; nor need we think the worse of ourselves if for his sake we bear reproach (Ps. 69:7), but rather rejoice and count it an honour, Col. 1:24.”~Matthew Henry

1 Samuel 8 – Side-by-side comparison of versions^AI