I Shmuel 8: Long Live the King?

Is the idea of a king good or bad? Shmuel certainly seems to think it is a bad idea. He acts almost like a biblical Thomas Jefferson, warning the people about the dangers of concentrating power in a single ruler. A king will control every aspect of national life. He will draft sons into his army, take daughters into his service, seize fields and vineyards, impose taxes, and ultimately do as he pleases without consequence. Shmuel's warning is not really about one particular king. It is about the nature of power itself. Once authority is centralized, it inevitably expands. God also recognizes that Shmuel must feel personally rejected by the people's request. God's response is surprisingly sympathetic: “Heed the demand of the people in everything they say to you. For it is not you that they have rejected; it is Me they have rejected as their king” (7). God appears to view the request as a spiritual failure. The people are looking for security in political institutions rather than in their relationship with God. Yet this creates a major problem. God had already established a system of laws governing kings in Deuteronomy (17:14-20). If God opposed monarchy, why provide instructions for a king at all? Furthermore, what practical difference existed between a king and what Shmuel was already doing? Shmuel functioned as a national leader. Why, then, did the people suddenly conclude that they needed a king? The answer may lie in the immediate context. The request only comes after Shmuel appoints his sons as judges. The people looked at Shmuel's sons and saw a familiar problem. Every generation depended on God raising up a new leader. When that leader died or his successors failed, the nation entered another period of instability. The people were tired of the cycle. Ironically, their proposed solution should have raised even greater concerns. The failures of Eli's sons and Shmuel's sons were arguments against hereditary leadership, not in favor of it. A king's son would inherit power whether he was worthy or not. Nevertheless, the people preferred the predictability of succession over the uncertainty of waiting for God's next chosen leader. This may explain why Scripture repeatedly emphasizes that they wanted to be “like all the nations.” The issue was not merely that they desired a king. Rather, they desired the same kind of hereditary monarchy enjoyed by their neighbors. They wanted a stable political system that did not depend on prophecy, or divine intervention. A king's son, however, would automatically assume the throne. In the minds of the people, monarchy promised continuity and stability. Their mistake was assuming that political stability was Israel's primary problem. The Book of Shoftim repeatedly teaches the opposite lesson. Israel's downturns did not occur because there was no king. They occurred because the people abandoned God. A monarchy could solve the problem of succession, but it could not solve the problem of faithfulness. Sforno therefore explains that the laws of kingship in Deuteronomy are permissive rather than mandatory. Significantly, the Torah introduces the institution similar to the people's request in Shmuel: “If, after you have entered the land that your God has assigned to you… you decide, ‘I will set a king over me, as do all the nations about me’” (Deut 17:14). The Torah does not command Israel to desire a king; it anticipates that they eventually will. In this reading, God understood that the people would one day choose hereditary stability over a direct reliance on divine leadership. Knowing that monarchy would eventually emerge, He established rules to limit its excesses and restrain its power. The existence of those laws does not imply divine enthusiasm for the institution. As in many areas of the Torah, what is allowed is not necessarily what is preferred. The tragedy of the people's request is that they sought security in a throne when their real security had always come from God.