1 Samuel 8 - You Asked For It

1 Samuel 8 - You Asked For It

SUMMARY:

The prophet Samuel is older and has grown son's. They are serving as leaders of Israel in several areas. They are corrupt, just as the son's of Eli were in chapters 1-3. The people decide they don't want to deal with judges anymore, they want a king. Being chosen by God to be different isn't working out for them.
When Samuel goes to God and prays about this, God tells Samuel to give the people what they are asking for. He tells Samuel that the people are rejecting Him, not Samuel, and not to take it personally. God also sends a warning about what  a King will do, just as he did in Deuteronomy 17 and 18 when he foresaw this moment.
Below you will see the passage in Deuteronomy where God gives instructions to Israel for just this moment. God had told them that He was their loving and wise King, a human King would not love them like he does. I have also posted from Chronicles how King Solomon will do exactly what God has warned: trade routes to Egypt, demanding their son's join his army, amassing riches, horses and foreign wives that pull his heart away from God.
Samuel tells the people that God is going to give them what they have asked for, along with a warning of the trouble this will bring. Then he tells them to go home. I imagine he said this much like a mother at the end of a shopping trip with a spoiled toddler.

“And the Lord said unto Samuel, ‘Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto you: for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.’”

• 1 Samuel 8:7 (cf. 1 Samuel 10:19)

“Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, ‘Rule thou over us, both you, and your son, and your son's son also: for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian.’ And Gideon said unto them, ‘I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you.”

• Judges 8:22–23

What I learned from 1 Samuel 8:

1. Listening to God will keep me from a heap of trouble.
2. True inner peace and trust go hand in hand.
3. Being like everyone else is not the goal God has chosen for me, I need to keep my eyes on him, not the world around me.
4. Sometimes God gives us what we want to teach us to trust him.
5. Being a Godly person does not guarantee Godly children.

God's warnings and His predictions come true:

Deuteronomy 17 and  1 Samuel 8

¹⁰ Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. ¹¹ He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. ¹² Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. ¹³ He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. ¹⁴ He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. ¹⁵ He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. ¹⁶ Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle^[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. ¹⁷ He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. ¹⁸ When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

God's Instruction in Deuteronomy 17

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.

Solomon did everything predicted in the passage of Deuteronomy 17 and 1 Samuel 8 down to the last word, you will see this if you read 1 Kings chapter 10 and 2 Chronicles 8-9 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Chronicles+8-9&version=NIV

In chapter 1 Kings 11 it speaks of his many wives that due in fact turn his heart to idols and away from God.

Read 1 Samuel 8:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+samuel+8&version=NIV