Mind Blowing Prophecy?: Deuteronomy 17

As you are comfortably reading along in Deuteronomy you bump into a passage in chapter 17 that makes you stop and say "WHAT"? Did I read that right?
The passage is Deuteronomy 17:14-10. Here is the passage.

The King

¹⁴ When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” ¹⁵ be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. ¹⁶ The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” ¹⁷ He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.
¹⁸ When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. ¹⁹ It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees ²⁰ and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.

Here's the thing.

This passage predicts what Israel will do in the book of 1 Samuel, many years in Israel's future.  It doesn't condone it, it just states as a fact that it will happen.

1 Samuel 8:4-9
⁴ So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. ⁵ They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead^[b] us, such as all the other nations have.”
⁶ But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. ⁷ And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. ⁸ As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. ⁹ Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”

We could go into all the ramification of this passage, however

to boil it down

God knows the hearts of men. He knows that we are sinful at heart and will choose to be like those around us. He knows that we have daily choices in our lives that will pull us away from Him. He knows that Solomon as king will have much wealth and many wives. He knows these wives will pull the heart of Solomon toward the worship of idols. He knows that
There is an incredible circular message in Deuteronomy.

• Remember what God has done for you
• Because you are grateful for what God has done for you obey Him
• however, when you disobey, because you are sinful, remember God and repent
• God will hear you when you cry out to Him
• Remember God's mercy and be grateful

It's another of those Lather Rinse Repeat passages.

This message is just as applicable today as it was then.