1 Samuel 8:22

And the Lord said to Samuel,.... an audible voice, or by an impulse upon his mind: hearken unto their voice, and make them a king; since they will have a king, let them have one, and let them know

Betake yourselves to your several occasions, till you hear more from me in this matter; for God hath heard your words, and will give way to your irregular and obstinate desire; and accordingly I shall wait upon God for the determination of the person, which he hath wholly reserved to himself, as for judges, so for the king also, , and for the regulation of all the circumstances.

1 Samuel 8:22 And the LORD said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king. And Samuel said unto the men of Israel, Go ye every man unto his city.Ver. 22. Go ye, &c., ] q.d., Your request is granted, and shall shortly be accomplished. Meanwhile wait God’ s pleasure.

(22) Hearken unto their voice.—And for the third time (see 1 Samuel 8:7; 1 Samuel 8:9) the voice of the Eternal, which Samuel the seer knew so well, used the same expression, bidding the reluctant and indignant old man comply with the request of the people. God had allowed His servant to remonstrate, well knowing all the time what would be the result of his remonstrances. So now, with the self-same words with which He had spoken to the seer when at the first he laid the petition of Israel before the eternal throne, He finally directs Samuel respecting the course of action he was to pursue on this momentous occasion. The men of Israel.—That is, to the elders. The words which follow, “Go ye every man unto his city,” show that these elders were in truth a representative body, drawn from the chief centres of the land. Attention has already been drawn to the perfect trust which the Eternal must have placed in Samuel the judge, seeing that He entrusted him with all the arrangements connected with this vital change in the Hebrew constitution, although his own downfall from power was necessarily involved in it. The confidence of the God-Friend of Israel in their upright judge was evidently shared in by the people. It was to their ruler, to the earthly head of their republic, that they in the first instance carried, through their representative chiefs, their request, which in other words said, “Let kings for the future, and not judges like yourself, rule over us.” The elders of Israel seem to have listened respectfully to the urgent remonstrances of their great judge, and to have deliberated carefully over them, and then, still respectfully, but firmly, to have reiterated their first request, which asked for a king instead of a judge. Again they watched him go alone into the presence of the Eternal, and after the seer’s solitary prayer, the “elders,” at the bidding of their judge, dispersed quietly, each one journeying to his own city. They loved and trusted the patriot Samuel, and though they were ready to depose him, they waited till he should give them a sign.

Verse 22. Hearken unto their voice] Let them have what they desire, and let them abide the consequences. Go ye every man unto his city.] It seems the elders of the people had tarried all this time with Samuel, and when he had received his ultimate answer from God, he told them of it and dismissed them. ON this account we may observe: 1. That GOD did not change the government of Israel; it was the people themselves who changed it. 2. That though God permitted them to have a king, yet he did not approve of him. 3. That, notwithstanding he did not suffer them to choose the man, he ordered his servant Samuel to choose him by lot, he disposing of that lot. 4. That God never gave up the supreme government; he was still KING in Israel, and the king, so called, was only the vicegerent or deputy of the Lord. 5. That no king of Judah attempted to be supreme, therefore they never made new laws, nor altered the old; which was a positive confession that God was the supreme Legislator. 6. That an absolute monarchy is always an evil, and is contrary to all the rights, civil and religious, of mankind; a mode of government that all people should avoid, as pregnant with evils to mankind. 7. That although it was a sin in the Israelites to desire a king, that is, to change a constitution of which God was the author, yet kingly government, properly understood, is a good of the first magnitude to the civil happiness of mankind. 8. That by kingly government, properly understood, I mean such a monarchical government as that of Great Britain, where the king, the nobles, and the people, are duly mixed, each having his proper part in the government, and each preventing the other from running to excess, and all limited by law. 9. That the three grand forms of government which have obtained among mankind, viz., monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, have each certain advantages without which no state can be well preserved; but they have evils by which any state may be injured. 10. That, from a proper mixture of these, the advantages of the whole may be reaped without any of their attendant evils, and that this is the British constitution; which, not merely the wisdom of our ancestors, but the providence of God has given unto us, and of which no other state has had common sense enough to avail themselves, though they see that because of this the British empire is the most powerful and the most happy in the universe, and likely at last to give laws to the whole world. The manner of our king is constitutional, widely different from that of Saul, and from that of any other potentate in the four quarters of the globe. He is the father of his people, and the people feel and love him as such.

A repetition for the third time 1 Samuel 8:7, 1 Samuel 8:9 of the expression of God’s will in the matter, marks Samuel’s great unwillingness to comply with the people’s request.