_THE PEOPLE DEMAND A KING._
1 SAMUEL viii.
Whatever impression the "Ebenezer" of Samuel may have produced at the
time, it passed away with the lapse of years. The feeling that, in
sympathy with Samuel, had recognized so cordially at that time the
unbroken help of Jehovah from the very beginning, waxed old and vanished
away. The help of Jehovah was no longer regarded as the palladium of the
nation. A new generation had risen up that had only heard from their
fathers of the deliverance from the Philistines, and what men only hear
from their fathers does not make the same impression as what they see
with their own eyes. The privilege of having God for their king ceased
to be felt, when the occasions passed away that made His interposition
so pressing and so precious. Other things began to press upon them,
other cravings began to be felt, that the theocracy did not meet. This
double process went on--the evils from which God did deliver becoming
more faint, and the benefits which God did not bestow becoming more
conspicuous by their absence--till a climax was reached. Samuel was
getting old, and his sons were not like himself; therefore they afforded
no materials for continuing the system of judges. None of them could
ever fill their father's place. The people forgot that God's policy had
been to raise up judges from time to time as they were needed. But would
it not be better to discontinue this hand-to-mouth system of government
and have a regular succession of kings? Why should Israel contrast
disadvantageously in this respect with the surrounding nations? This
seems to have been the unanimous feeling of the nation. "All the elders
of Israel gathered themselves together, and said to Samuel, Make us a
king to judge us like all the nations."
It seems to us very strange that they should have done such a thing. Why
were they not satisfied with having God for their king? Was not the roll
of past achievements under His guidance very glorious? What could have
been more wonderful than the deliverance from Egypt, and the triumph
over the greatest empire in the world? Had ever such victories been
heard of as those over Sihon and Og? Was there ever a more triumphant
campaign than that of Joshua, or a more comfortable settlement than that
of the tribes? And if Canaanites, and Midianites, and Ammonites, and
Philistines had vexed them, were not Barak and Deborah, Gideon and
Jephthah, Samson and Samuel, more than a match for the strongest of them
all? Then there was the moral glory of the theocracy. What nation had
ever received direct from God, such ordinances, such a covenant, such
promises? Where else were men to be found that had held such close
fellowship with heaven as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Aaron, and
Joshua? What other people had had such revelations of the fatherly
character of God, so that it could be said of them, "As an eagle
stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her
wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord did lead him,
and there was no strange god with him." Instead of wishing to change the
theocracy, we might have expected that every Israelite, capable of
appreciating solid benefits, would have clung to it as his greatest
privilege and his greatest honour.
But it was otherwise. Comparatively blind to its glories, they wished to
be like other nations. It is too much a characteristic of our human
nature that it is indifferent to God, and to the advantages which are
conferred by His approval and His blessing. How utterly do some leave
God out of their calculations! How absolutely unconcerned they are as to
whether they can reckon on His approval of their mode of life, how
little it seems to count! You that by false pretences sell your wares
and prey upon the simple and unwary; you that heed not what
disappointment or what pain and misery you inflict on those who believe
you, provided you get their money; you that grow rich on the toil of
underpaid women and children, whose life is turned to slavery to fulfil
your hard demands, do you never think of God? Do you never take into
your reckoning that He is against you, and that He will one day come to
reckon with you? You that frequent the haunts of secret wickedness, you
that help to send others to the devil, you that say, "Am I my brother's
keeper?" when you are doing your utmost to confirm others in debauchery
and pollution, is it nothing to you that you have to reckon one day with
an angry God? Be assured that God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap; for he that soweth to the flesh shall
of the flesh reap corruption, while he that soweth to the Spirit shall
of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
But the lesson of the text is rather for those who have the favour and
blessing of God, but are not content, and still crave worldly things.
You are in covenant with God. He has redeemed you, not with corruptible
things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.
You are now sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what you shall be.
There is laid up for you an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and
that fadeth not away. Yet your heart hankers after the things of the
world. Your acquaintances and friends are better off. Your bare house,
your homely furnishings, your poor dress, your simple fare distress you,
and you would fain be in a higher worldly sphere, enjoying more
consideration, and participating more freely in worldly enjoyments. Be
assured, my friends, you are not in a wholesome frame of mind. To be
depreciating the surpassing gifts which God has given you, and to be
exaggerating those which He has withheld, is far from being a wholesome
condition. You wish to be like the nations. You forget that your very
glory is not to be like them. Your glory is that ye are a chosen
generation, an holy nation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people, your
bodies temples of the Holy Ghost, your souls united to the Lord Jesus
Christ.
Yet again, there are congregations, which though in humble
circumstances, have enjoyed much spiritual blessing. Their songs have
gone up, bearing the incense of much love and gratitude; their prayers
have been humble and hearty, most real and true; and the Gospel has come
to them not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in
much assurance. Yet a generation has grown up that thinks little of
these inestimable blessings, and misses fine architecture, and
elaborate music, and highly cultured services. They want to have a king
like the nations. However they may endanger the spiritual blessing, it
is all-important to have these surroundings. It is a perilous position,
all the more perhaps that many do not see the peril--that many have
little or no regard for the high interests that are in such danger of
being sacrificed.
This then, was the request of all the elders of Israel to Samuel--"Give
us a king to judge us like all the nations." We have next to consider
how it was received by the prophet.
"The thing displeased Samuel." On the very face of it, it was an affront
to himself. It intimated dissatisfaction with the arrangement which had
made him judge of the people under God. Evidently they were tired of
him. He had given them the best energies of his youth and of his
manhood. He had undoubtedly conferred on them many real benefits. For
all this, his reward is to be turned off in his old age. They wish to
get rid of him, and of his manner of instructing them in the ways of the
Lord. And the kind of functionary they wish to get in his room is not of
a very flattering order. The kings of the nations for the most part were
a poor set of men. Despotic, cruel, vindictive, proud--they were not
much to be admired. Yet Israel's eyes are turned enviously to them!
Possibly Samuel was failing more than he was aware of, for old men are
slow to recognise the progress of decay, and highly sensitive when it is
bluntly intimated to them. Besides this, there was another sore point
which the elders touched roughly. "Thy sons walk not in thy ways."
However this may have come about, it was a sad thought to their father.
But fathers often have the feeling that while they may reprove their
sons, they do not like to hear this done by others. Thus it was that
the message of the elders came home to Samuel, first of all, in its
personal bearings, and greatly hurt him. It was a personal affront, it
was hard to bear. The whole business of his life seemed frustrated;
everything he had tried to do had failed; his whole life had missed its
aim. No wonder if Samuel was greatly troubled.
But in the exercise of that admirable habit which he had learned so
thoroughly, Samuel took the matter straight to the Lord. And even if no
articulate response had been made to his prayer, the effect of this
could not but have been great and important. The very act of going into
God's presence was fitted to change, in some measure, Samuel's estimate
of the situation. It placed him at a new point of view--at God's point
of view. When he reached that, the aspect of things must have undergone
a change. The bearing of the transaction on God must have come out more
prominently than its bearing on Samuel. And this was fully expressed in
God's words. "They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me."
Samuel was but the servant, God was the lord and king. The servant was
not greater than his lord, nor the disciple greater than his Master. The
great sin of the people was their sin against God. He it was to whom the
affront had been given; He, if any, it was that had cause to remonstrate
and complain.
So prone are even the best of God's servants to put themselves before
their Master. So prone are ministers of the Gospel, when any of their
flock has acted badly, to think of the annoyance to themselves, rather
than the sin committed in the holy eyes of God. So prone are we all, in
our families, and in our Churches, and in society, to think of other
aspects of sin, than its essential demerit in God's sight. Yet surely
this should be the first consideration. That God should be dishonoured
is surely a far more serious thing than that man should be offended. The
sin against God is infinitely more heinous than the sin against man. He
that has sinned against God has incurred a fearful penalty--what if this
should lie on his conscience for ever, unconfessed, unforgiven? It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Yet, notwithstanding this very serious aspect of the people's offence,
God instructs Samuel to "hearken to their voice, yet protest solemnly to
them, and show them the manner of the kingdom." There were good reasons
why God should take this course. The people had shown themselves
unworthy of the high privilege of having God for their king. When men
show themselves incapable of appreciating a high privilege, it is meet
they should suffer the loss of it, or at least a diminution of it. They
had shown a perpetual tendency to those idolatrous ways by which God was
most grievously dishonoured. A theocracy, to work successfully, would
need a very loyal people. Had Israel only been loyal, had it even been a
point of conscience and a point of honour with them to obey God's voice,
had they even had a holy recoil from every act offensive to Him, the
theocracy would have worked most beautifully. But there had been such a
habitual absence of this spirit, that God now suffered them to institute
a form of government that interposed a human official between Him and
them, and that subjected them likewise to many an inconvenience. Yet
even in allowing this arrangement God did not utterly withdraw His
loving-kindness from them. The theocracy did not wholly cease. Though
they would find that their kings would make many an exaction of them,
there would be among them some that would reign in righteousness, and
princes that would rule in judgment. The king would so far be approved
of God as to bear the name of "the Lord's anointed:" and would thus, in
a sense, be a type of the great Anointed One, the true Messiah, whose
kingdom, righteous, beneficent, holy, would be an everlasting kingdom,
and his dominion from generation to generation.
The next scene in the chapter before us finds Samuel again met with the
heads of the people. He is now showing them "the manner of the
king"--the relation in which he and they will stand to one another. He
is not to be a king that gives, but a king that takes. His exactions
will be very multifarious. First of all, the most sacred treasures of
their homes, their sons and their daughters, would be taken to do hard
work in his army, and on his farms, and in his house. Then, their landed
property would be taken on some pretext--the vineyards and olive-yards
inherited from their fathers--and given to his favourites. The tenth
part of the produce, too, of what remained would be claimed by him for
his officers and his servants, and the tenth of their flocks. Any
servant, or young man, or animal, that was particularly handsome and
valuable would be sure to take his fancy, and to be attached for his
service. This would be ordinarily the manner of their king. And the
oppression and vexation connected with this system of arbitrary
spoliation would be so great that they would cry out against him, as
indeed they did in the days of Rehoboam, yet the Lord would not hear
them. Such was Samuel's picture of what they desired so much, but it
made no impression; the people were still determined to have their
king.
What a contrast there was between this exacting king, and the true King,
the King that in the fulness of the time was to come to His people, meek
and having salvation, riding upon the foal of an ass! If there be
anything more than another that makes this King glorious, it is His
giving nature. "The Son of God," says the Apostle, "loved me, and gave
Himself for me." Gave Himself! How comprehensive the word! All that He
was as God, all that He became as man. As prophet He gave Himself to
teach, as priest to atone and intercede, as king to rule and to defend.
"The Good Shepherd _giveth_ His life for the sheep." "This is My body
which is _given_ for you." "If thou knewest the gift of God, and Who it
is that saith unto thee, Give Me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of
Him, and He would have _given_ thee living water." With what kingly
generosity, while He was on earth, He scattered the gifts of health and
happiness among the stricken and the helpless! "Jesus went about all
Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the
kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease
among the people." See Him, even as He hung helpless on the cross,
exercising His royal prerogative by giving to the thief at His side a
right to the Kingdom of God--"Verily I say unto thee, this day shalt
thou be with Me in Paradise." See Him likewise, exalted on His throne
"at God's right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give
repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins." How different the
attributes of this King from him whom Samuel delineated! The one
exacting all that is ours; the other giving all that is His!
The last scene in the chapter shows us the people deliberately
disregarding the protest of Samuel, and reiterating their wilful
resolution--"Nay, but we will have a king over us; 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." Once more, Samuel brings the matter to the
Lord--repeats all that he has heard; and once more the Lord says to
Samuel, "Hearken unto their choice and make them a king." The matter is
now decided on, and it only remains to find the person who is to wear
the crown.
On the very surface of the narrative we see how much the people were
influenced by the desire to be "like all the nations." This does not
indicate a very exalted tone of feeling. To be like all the nations was
surely in itself a poor and childish thing, unless the nations were in
this respect in a better condition than Israel. Yet how common and
almost irresistible is this feeling!
Singularity is certainly not to be affected for singularity's sake; but
neither are we to conform to fashion simply because it is fashion. How
cruel and horrible often are its behests! The Chinese girl has to submit
to her feet being bandaged and confined till walking becomes a living
torture, and even the hours of what should be rest and sleep, are often
broken by bitter pain. The women of Lake Nyassa insert a piece of stone
in their upper lip, enlarging it from time to time till speaking and
eating become most awkward and painful operations, and the very lip
sometimes is torn away. Our fathers had terrible experience of the
tyranny of the drinking customs of their day; and in spite of the
greater freedom and the greater temperance of our time, there is no
little tyranny still in the drinking laws of many a class among us. All
this is just the outcome of the spirit that made the Hebrews so desire
a king--the shrinking of men's hearts from being unlike others, the
desire to be like the world. What men dread in such cases is not
wrong-doing, not sin, not offending God; but incurring the reproof of
men, being laughed at, boycotted by their fellows. But is not this a
very unworthy course? Can any man truly respect himself who says, "I do
this not because I think it right, not even because I deem it for my
interest, but simply because it is done by the generality of people?"
Can any man justify himself before God, if the honest utterance of his
heart must be, "I take this course, not because I deem it well-pleasing
in Thy sight, but because if I did otherwise, men would laugh at me and
despise me?" The very statement of the case in explicit terms condemns
it. Not less is it condemned by the noble conduct of those to whom grace
has been given to withstand the voice of the multitude and stand up
faithfully for truth and duty. Was there ever a nobler attitude than
that of Caleb, when he withstood the clamour of the other spies, and
followed the Lord fully? or that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
when alone among myriads, they refused to bow down to the image of gold?
or that of Luther when, alone against the world, he held unflinchingly
by his convictions of truth?
Let the young especially ponder these things. To them it often seems a
terrible thing to resist the general voice, and hold by conscience and
duty. To confess Christ among a school of despisers, is often like
martyrdom. But think! What is it to _deny_ Christ? Can that bring any
peace or satisfaction to those who know His worth? Must it not bring
misery and self-contempt? If the duty of confessing Him be difficult,
seek strength for the duty. Pray for the strength which is made perfect
in your weakness. Cast your thoughts onward to the day of Christ's
second coming, when the opinion and practice of the world shall all be
reduced to their essential worthlessness, and the promises to the
faithful, firm as the everlasting hills, shall be gloriously fulfilled.
For in that day, Hannah's song shall have a new fulfilment: "He raiseth
up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar out of the
dunghill, to set them among princes, and make them inherit the throne of
glory."