20 So that we may be like the other nations, and so that our king may be our judge and go out before us to war.
And said to him, See now, you are old, and your sons do not go in your ways: give us a king now to be our judge, so that we may be like the other nations.
For is not the fact of your going with us the sign that I and this people have grace in your eyes, so that we, that is, I and your people, are separate from all other people on the face of the earth?
But I have said to you, You will take their land and I will give it to you for your heritage, a land flowing with milk and honey: I am the Lord your God who have made you separate from all other peoples. So then, make division between the clean beast and the unclean, and between the clean bird and the unclean: do not make yourselves disgusting by any beast or bird or anything which goes flat on the earth, which has been marked by me as unclean for you. And you are to be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy and have made you separate from the nations, so that you may be my people.
From the top of the rocks I see him, looking down on him from the hills: it is a people made separate, not to be numbered among the nations.
For you are a holy people to the Lord your God: marked out by the Lord your God to be his special people out of all the nations on the face of the earth.
If you were of the world, you would be loved by the world: but because you are not of the world, but I have taken you out of the world, you are hated by the world.
Being glad in hope, quiet in trouble, at all times given to prayer,
For our country is in heaven; from where the Saviour for whom we are waiting will come, even the Lord Jesus Christ:
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Samuel 8
Commentary on 1 Samuel 8 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 8
Things went so very well with Israel, in the chapter before, under Samuel's administration, that, methinks, it is a pity to find him so quickly, as we do in this chapter, old, and going off, and things working towards a revolution. But so it is; Israel's good days seldom continue long. We have here,
Thus hard is it for people to know when they are well off.
1Sa 8:1-3
Two sad things we find here, but not strange things:-
1Sa 8:4-22
We have here the starting of a matter perfectly new and surprising, which was the setting up of kingly government in Israel. Perhaps the thing had been often talked of among them by those that were given to change and affected that which looked great. But we do not find that it was ever till now publicly proposed and debated. Abimelech was little better than a titular king, though he is said to reign over Israel (Judges 9:22), and perhaps his fall had for a great while rendered the title of king odious in Israel, as that of Tarquinius did among the Romans; but, if it had, by this time the odium was worn off, and some bold steps are here taken towards so great a revolution as that amounted to. Here is,