20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.
and they said to him, Behold, you are old, and your sons don't walk in your ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
For how would people know that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Isn't it in that you go with us, so that we are separated, I and your people, from all the people who are on the surface of the earth?"
But I have said to you, "You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey." I am Yahweh your God, who has separated you from the peoples. "'You shall therefore make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean fowl and the clean: and you shall not make yourselves abominable by animal, or by bird, or by anything with which the ground teems, which I have separated from you as unclean for you. You shall be holy to me: for I, Yahweh, am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples, that you should be mine.
For from the top of the rocks I see him, From the hills I see him: behold, it is a people that dwells alone, And shall not be reckoned among the nations.
For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God: Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.
If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
rejoicing in hope; enduring in troubles; continuing steadfastly in prayer;
For our citizenship is in heaven, from where we also wait for a Savior, 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,