A King Does Not Cancel the Covenant

“Hearkened unto your voice” is exactly what the LORD three times told Samuel to do in chapter 8 (8:7, 9, 22). Samuel opens by reporting obedience, but to the people’s voice rather than God’s, and the chapter will turn on whose voice Israel obeys.

To “walk before” someone was the language of a trusted servant in view of his master; the faithful priest of 2:35 was to “walk before mine anointed for ever”. Now the king walks before the people. “My sons are with you” is left without comment, and the reader of 8:3 supplies one.

“His anointed” here means a living, present king for the first time in the book. A bribe was kopher, hush money, and “to blind mine eyes” echoes the law that a gift blinds the wise (Exodus 23:8). The Greek adds “or a pair of sandals”, which Ben Sira also remembered (Sirach 46:19). Moses once made the same protest about an ass (Numbers 16:15).

The people answer in Samuel’s own terms, handing back three of his verbs: defrauded, oppressed, taken. “Ought” is the 1611 spelling of aught, anything at all. The acquittal is complete and public, which is what Samuel needs before he turns the hearing around.

The people’s reply is a single Hebrew word, ed, “witness”, the answer given in a court. The new king’s first recorded public duty is to stand as co-witness to the old judge’s clean hands, so the monarchy begins by certifying the man it replaces.

“Advanced” is an old sense of the word, promoted or appointed; the Hebrew simply says the LORD “made” Moses and Aaron, the verb used of appointing to office. Samuel starts his review with the two brothers, a prophet and a priest, not with a king.

“Reason with you” is the Hebrew for entering into judgment, a lawsuit. Samuel has been cleared as defendant and now becomes prosecutor. “The righteous acts of the LORD” is the phrase Deborah’s song told Israel to rehearse at the watering places (Judges 5:11).

Four centuries fold into a single sentence, from Jacob’s arrival in Genesis 46 to settlement in the land. Strictly, Moses and Aaron died before Israel crossed the Jordan, so “made them dwell in this place” compresses the work of Joshua into theirs. Standing at Gilgal, “this place” is almost literal.

“Sold them” is the Book of Judges’ own verb for handing Israel to oppressors (Judges 4:2, of Jabin and Sisera). The three enemies are not in chronological order: Sisera (Judges 4), the Philistines (Judges 10 and 13), and Eglon of Moab (Judges 3). Samuel groups them by argument, not by date.

The confession is nearly word for word the one in Judges 10:10. Baalim and Ashtaroth are Hebrew plurals, the many local Baals and Astartes; Samuel had made Israel put away the same pair at Mizpah (7:4). The bargain “deliver us, and we will serve thee” is the cycle in miniature.

Jerubbaal is Gideon’s other name, “let Baal contend” (Judges 6:32), a useful name to cite just after confessing Baal worship. Samuel lists himself last, recalling the thunder at Mizpah (7:10). The Syriac and some Greek manuscripts read Samson for Samuel here. “Dwelled safe” means lived in security, the word betach.

“Nay; but a king shall reign over us” is the people’s own line from 8:19, played back to them. “The LORD your God was your king” recalls Gideon refusing a throne: “the LORD shall rule over you” (Judges 8:23). The verse sets a human king beside a divine one who was already there.

“Desired” is the Hebrew sha’al, to ask, and the name Saul, Sha’ul, means “asked for”. Samuel is punning on the king’s name as he presents him: here is your asked-for one. The book never explains the pun; it simply lets the verb and the name sit together.

The Hebrew conditional trails off without a clear “then”; the King James supplies “continue” in italics to complete it. Read literally, the outcome is that king and people will be “after the LORD your God”, the same phrase for following that returns in verse 20.

The warning mirrors verse 14 line by line, and its second half swaps the promise for “the hand of the LORD”, the phrase used for the plagues on the Philistines in chapters 5 and 6. The Greek reads “against you and against your king”, anticipating the chapter’s last words.

“Stand and see” echoes Moses at the Red Sea: “stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD” (Exodus 14:13). Samuel twice tells the people to stand (verse 7 and here), a posture of a court waiting for evidence to be produced.

Wheat harvest fell in late May and June, the dry season, when rain in the land is almost unknown and could ruin a crop in the field. Proverbs 26:1 uses “rain in harvest” as its picture of something out of place. The sign is chosen to be impossible to explain away.

“Thunder” in Hebrew is qolot, literally “voices”, the plural of the word for the voice of the LORD that the people were told to obey in verses 14 and 15. Fearing “the LORD and Samuel” together recalls Israel at the sea, who feared the LORD and believed his servant Moses (Exodus 14:31).

They ask Samuel to pray to “the LORD thy God”, not our God, a small distance in the pronoun. “That we die not” is what Israel said at Sinai when the thunder frightened them (Exodus 20:19). For the first time they name the request for a king as a sin.

The Hebrew makes “ye” emphatic: you yourselves have done all this. The comfort does not wait until the guilt is admitted; “Fear not” comes first. “Turn not aside from following” is literally “from after the LORD”, picking up the phrase of verse 14.

“Vain things” translates tohu, the word for the formless earth in Genesis 1:2. Isaiah uses it for idols and their makers (Isaiah 44:9). Samuel describes the alternative to the LORD as emptiness that can neither profit nor deliver, and says “vain” twice to make sure.

The reason given is the LORD’s reputation, “his great name’s sake”, the argument Joshua pressed after Ai (Joshua 7:9). “It hath pleased” renders a verb meaning to resolve or be determined. The ground of the promise lies entirely in God’s choice, with nothing said about Israel’s merit.

“God forbid” translates chalilah, literally “a profane thing”. Samuel treats giving up intercession as sin against God, not merely as neglect of the people. Jeremiah 15:1 and Psalm 99:6 later name Moses and Samuel as Israel’s great intercessors, and this verse is why.

“Consider” is literally “see”, the verb of verse 16, and “how great things he hath done” picks up the “great thing” just seen in the storm. “In truth” is be’emet, faithfully, with the steadiness of something that holds its weight.

“Consumed” is the verb for being swept away. The chapter ends on the words “your king”, and the book will close with Saul and his sons dead on Gilboa (31:6). Samuel’s first speech to a monarchy leaves the monarchy as its last word.