Chapter 19: A Tale of Two Kings - Part 1

The quest to find the right kind of king begins

What the Book of Judges made clear is that Israel needed a king. Without a king, the nation spiraled into chaos and evil. Even though Ruth made it clear that good things could still happen in a chaotic nation because of God’s sovereignty, it is evident – Israel needed a king. The question is: what kind of king is the right kind of king? That is the question the Book of Samuel answers.

Instead of the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, I will just say the Book of Samuel. Originally, these books would have been written down on scrolls, and the story in 1 and 2 Samuel is really the same story split over two scrolls, simply because the story is so long. This is where we get our books of 1 and 2 Samuel from. Since this is one story, I will just call this the Book of Samuel.

The book starts with the story of Hannah. She is barren, a common issue in the redemption story, and her barrenness reminds us that Israel is spiritually barren at this point. They are not bearing any spiritual fruit, just like Hannah can’t bear any physical children. In response to her barrenness, Hannah, whose name means grace, cries out to God to give her a child, and God is gracious to her. He gives her a child, and this child grows up to be Samuel, after whom the book is named.

When Samuel grows up, he becomes both a prophet and the last judge of Israel. The first 7 chapters of the book deal with Samuel’s rulership of Israel, and when Samuel gets old, it is time to appoint a new ruler for Israel. The natural choice is for Samuel’s sons to succeed him, but his sons were wicked, and they did not serve God. So the elders of Israel come to Samuel and tell him, “Appoint us a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”

We should not miss the significance of this: remember the Book of Samuel teaches us what kind of king Israel needed. Is the right kind of a king, a king like the other nations have? Chapter 8 of 1 Samuel starts answering this question. Samuel warns the people that if they are to have a king, they will be subject to that king’s rule: the king will have the power to tax them, and he will take their sons and daughters as servants to work for him. But the people are relentless, they insist, “We must have a king… then we will be like all the other nations.”

This statement was a monumental slap in the face of God. Remember, Israel was saved out of Egypt to be a holy nation, set aside, precisely not to be a nation like all the others. They were supposed to be a beacon of light among the nations next to them, radiating God’s goodness to all around them. Now they had once more turned their back on God, demanding a king like all the other nations had so that they could be a nation like all the other nations were.

God tells Samuel to give the people what they want, and so Samuel is instructed to appoint a king for Israel. The first king of Israel is Saul. Saul comes from the tribe of Benjamin, the weakest of the tribes of Israel. He himself is hardly kingly material. Samuel anoints Saul, and he tells him that God’s Spirit will enter him and empower him. This was important because, as a king, Saul was supposed to lead God’s people so that they would no longer do what was right in their own eyes. However, when Samuel summons Israel to tell them who would be their king, Saul is nowhere to be found. He is hiding behind a pile of supplies. This was the man to whom the task of saving Israel from the hands of their current enemies, the Philistines, was given!

Nevertheless, Saul starts off pretty well. He wins several initial victories against the Philistines. As Saul starts to deliver Israel as an army commander, Samuel’s time as the last judge of Israel comes to an end. Samuel gets ready to hand over the reins to Saul, and he gathers the people together once more to make a farewell speech. He once more warns Israel to obey the commands of the Lord and to stay true to worshiping God. Crucially, as Samuel’s farewell speech ends, Samuel tells the people that if they were to turn from God, both they and their king would perish. As Samuel steps back, Saul’s reign over Israel begins in earnest.

The first thing Saul does as Israel’s king is to make war on the Philistines at a place called Gilgal. He gets an army together, and the Philistines respond by sending their army to fight Saul. Except, the Philistine army so vastly outnumbers Israel that Israel’s army scurries away to hide behind the bushes and in the caves.

While this happens, Saul waits for the prophet Samuel to come and offer an offering before the Lord. As a Benjamite, Saul could not offer the offering himself, but since Samuel took too long to come, Saul took matters into his own hands. He offers the offering himself in direct disobedience to the Lord’s commands. Saul, in self-reliance, refuses to submit to God and trusts in his own strength. In short, Saul acted exactly as you would expect a king to act. At least the kind of king the other nations have.

Samuel rebukes Saul and says, “You have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people because you have not kept the Lord’s command” (1 Sam 13:13-14).

In doing so, Samuel tells us what kind of king Israel needs – one after the Lord’s own heart. This is not King Saul, so who will it be?

It will be the king who comes from the family line of Ruth and Boaz, the grandson of Obed and son of Jesse. You know that family that the Lord so sovereignly provided for during the famine in the time when the judges were judging? It’s almost as if God had a plan, set in place since the beginning of the world… But more on that next time.