1 Samuel · chapter 8 of 31
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1 Samuel 8 tells how Samuel, now old, appoints his sons Joel and Abijah as judges, but they turn aside and take bribes. The elders of Israel ask for a king to judge them like all the nations, and the Lord tells Samuel that they have rejected not him but God. Samuel warns what a king will do, yet the people insist and the Lord orders him to give them a king.
Until now Israel had been governed by judges whom God raised up in each time of need. In 1 Samuel 7 Samuel had judged the people successfully and in peace. Chapter 8 opens a new stage: Israel wants a monarchy like its neighbors, and the text shows both the human failure that prompts it and the rejection of God's leadership hidden in it.
When Samuel grows old, he appoints his sons Joel and Abijah as judges over Israel, serving at Beersheba. But they do not walk in their father's ways: they turn aside after gain, take bribes and pervert justice. All the elders of Israel gather and come to Samuel at Ramah to tell him that he is old, that his sons do not walk in his ways, and that they want a king to judge them like all the nations.
Samuel is displeased and prays to the Lord. The Lord tells him to listen to the people in all they say, for they have not rejected him but the Lord, that he should not reign over them. It is what they have done since he brought them out of Egypt: forsake him and serve other gods. He commands Samuel to warn them solemnly and show them how the king will reign.
Samuel describes what a king will do: take their sons for his chariots and horses, their daughters as perfumers and cooks, the best of their fields and vineyards, a tenth of their crops and flocks, and their servants and animals, and they themselves will become his servants. In that day they will cry out because of the king they have chosen, but the Lord will not answer them. The people refuse to listen: they want a king so they can be like the other nations, have him judge them and go out before them to fight their battles. Samuel reports this to the Lord, who repeats that he should give them a king, and Samuel sends everyone back to his city.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The elders point out that Samuel is old and his sons do not walk in his ways, and they ask for a king like all the nations. The real issue is not only succession: they want to look like the other nations instead of depending on the Lord.
The Lord tells Samuel that the people have not rejected him but their God. It comforts the prophet and at the same time reveals the root of the request: behind the desire for a king lies a rejection of God's rule.
Samuel lists what a king will cost: sons and daughters, fields, harvests and servants. It is an honest warning that human power charges a price and that whoever chooses a king ends up serving him.
The people answer that they want a king to be like all the nations and to go out before them in battle. They long for visible security, forgetting that it was the Lord who fought for them at Mizpah.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: His sons Joel and Abijah, at Beersheba. — 1 Samuel 8:1-2
Answer: They turned aside after gain, took bribes and perverted justice. — 1 Samuel 8:3
Answer: A king to judge them, like all the nations. — 1 Samuel 8:5
Answer: That they had not rejected Samuel but him, that he should not be king over them. — 1 Samuel 8:7
Answer: He would take the sons for his chariots, horses and army, and the daughters as perfumers, cooks and bakers. — 1 Samuel 8:11-13
Answer: To be like the other nations, to have a king judge them and go out before them to fight their battles. — 1 Samuel 8:19-20
The desire to be like everyone else remains a strong temptation, for churches too: copying the world's model of success and its ways of power instead of trusting God's direction. The elders had a legitimate concern, the poor leadership of Samuel's sons, but they sought the solution by a road that rejected the Lord's leadership.
This chapter also teaches us to listen to honest warnings. Samuel did not manipulate the people; he told them the price of their decision. In a small group we can ask what decisions we are making out of fear or by imitating what we see, and pray for discernment about whether we are seeking visible security in place of the Lord's guidance.
1 Samuel 8 ends with the Lord granting a king that his people asked for with the wrong motives. In chapter 9 we meet Saul, a young man from Benjamin who goes out to look for lost donkeys and finds the prophet Samuel.
The law of Moses already foresaw that Israel would have a king, and the Lord himself tells Samuel to listen to the people. What the text criticizes is the motive: wanting a king like the nations so as not to depend on the Lord. The king was meant to be the one God chose and to submit to his law.
It means that although the request was addressed to Samuel, at bottom it rejected God's rule over them. The Lord was already their king and defender, and asking for another king to be like the nations showed a lack of trust in him.