"Give Us a King"

Samuel grew old. And when he was old he made his two sons judges over Israel — but his sons were not like him. They took bribes, and gave crooked judgments, and cared about money. So all the leaders of Israel came together and went to Samuel and said, “Look — you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. So give us a king to rule us, like all the other nations have.” Samuel hated it. It hurt him. And he took it to God in prayer, and the Lord said to him, “Listen to the people, and do everything they say to you. It is not you they have turned away from — it is me. They have been doing it ever since I brought them up out of Egypt. So listen to them. Only warn them first, and warn them properly: tell them what a king will be like.”

So Samuel told them exactly what having a king would mean, and he did not make it sound nice: “This is what your king will do. He will take your sons and put them in his chariots and set them running in front of his horses. He will make them plow his fields and reap his harvest and make his weapons. He will take your daughters to cook and bake and mix his perfumes. He will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your best olive trees, and hand them to his officials. He will take a tenth of your grain and a tenth of your flocks. He will take your servants and your best animals for his own work. And in the end you yourselves will be his servants. And on that day you will cry out because of the king you chose for yourselves — and the Lord will not answer you.” And the people listened to the whole speech, and then said, “No. We want a king over us anyway. Then we shall be like all the other nations, and our king will judge us and go out in front of us and fight our battles.” And the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Listen to them. Give them a king.’

Now in the tribe of Benjamin there was a man named Kish, and Kish had a son named Saul — a tall, handsome young man, a head taller than anybody else in the country. And one day some of Kish’s donkeys wandered off and got lost, and he said to his son, ‘Take one of the servants and go and find them.’ So Saul and the servant went looking. They walked through the hill country, and through this district and that district, and three whole days went by, and there was not a donkey to be seen anywhere. And Saul said, “Come on, let us go home. My father will stop worrying about the donkeys and start worrying about us.” But the servant said, “Wait — there is a man of God in this town, and he is held in great honor. Everything he says comes true. Let us go to him. Perhaps he can tell us which way to go.” So they climbed the hill toward the town, and asked some girls coming out to draw water whether the seer was there — and the girls said yes, hurry, he has just come, go up now.

Now the Lord had already told Samuel, the day before: ‘Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man out of the land of Benjamin, and you are to anoint him as ruler over my people, and he will save them out of the hand of the Philistines. For I have looked at how low my people are brought, and their cry has come to me.’ And as Saul came up the street, Samuel came walking down it — and God said to Samuel, ‘That is the man.’ So Saul, who was only looking for his father’s donkeys, walked up to the old prophet and said, ‘Excuse me — could you tell me where the seer’s house is?’ And Samuel said, “I am the seer. Come up and eat with me today, and in the morning I will send you on your way, and I will tell you everything that is in your heart. And do not worry about those donkeys you have been looking for these three days — they have been found. And besides — who is it that all Israel is longing for? Is it not you, and your father’s house?” And Saul said, “Me? I am from Benjamin — the smallest tribe there is. And my family is the least important family in it. Why would you say a thing like that to me?” But Samuel took him into the hall where thirty men were dining, and sat him at the head of the table, and had the cook bring out the best portion — the one Samuel had told him the day before to put aside for a guest who had not come yet.

And early the next morning, out on the empty road at the edge of town with the servant sent on ahead, Samuel took out a little flask of olive oil and poured it over Saul’s head, and kissed him, and said, “The Lord has anointed you as ruler over his people Israel.” And that is what anointing meant. You did not put a crown on a man’s head in Israel; you poured oil on it. It was how everybody knew that this one was God’s choice. And Samuel told him the signs he would meet on the road home — the men who would tell him the donkeys were found, the travellers who would give him bread, and a band of prophets coming down the hill with harps and drums and pipes; and when he met them, Samuel said, the Spirit of the Lord would come on him and he would be turned into another man. And it all happened, that very day. And when the people who had known Saul all his life saw him singing away among the prophets, they said to each other, “What has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul a prophet now too?” And Saul went home and said nothing to anybody about being king.

Then Samuel called the whole nation together at Mizpah, and reminded them of everything God had done for them, and how they had asked for a king anyway. And then, tribe by tribe and family by family, they cast lots to find the man — and the lot came out on Benjamin, and then on the family of Kish, and then on Saul son of Kish. And they looked for him, and could not find him. So they asked the Lord, ‘Is the man here?’ And the Lord said, “He is hiding among the baggage.” So they ran and pulled the new king out from behind the luggage and stood him up in front of everybody — and there he was, a head taller than the whole nation. And Samuel said, “Do you see the man the Lord has chosen? There is nobody like him in all the people.” And all the people shouted, “Long live the king!” And Samuel wrote down the rules for a king in a book and laid it up before the Lord, and sent everybody home. And Saul went back to his own house, and brave men went with him — men whose hearts God had touched. But there were others who said, ‘What is this fellow going to do for us?’ and thought nothing of him at all.