1 Samuel 8


1 Samuel 8 is the eighth chapter of the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the first part of the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter records the request from the elders of Israel to Samuel for a king, part of a section comprising 1 Samuel 7–15 which records the rise of the monarchy in Israel and the account of the first years of King Saul.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 22 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis. Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls including 4Q51 with extant verses 7, 9–14, 16–20.
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus.

Places

  • Beersheba
  • Ramah

    Analysis

This chapter records the elders of Israel's request for a king and reports their persistence despite the warning from Samuel regarding the 'oppressive ways of kings'. One reason for the quest for a king was that Samuel's sons were unfit to succeed him, because they perverted justice in Beersheba, recalling the behavior of Eli's sons. One more explicit reason was that the people wished to be governed 'like other nations' with supposedly better military advantages, than a new line of judges.
The antimonarchial stance was given in three different sections of this chapter:
  1. the proposal displeased Samuel and was regarded by Yahweh as a rejection of himself, instead of Samuel
  2. Samuel gave a negative view of 'the ways of the king', such as the conscription of personnel for military duties and for labor, the confiscation of property and provisions for maintaining a court, and the confiscation of stock. Akkadian texts from Ras Shamra testify to many of the practices listed in verses 11–17. The practice was listed during Solomon's reign in 1 Kings 10–11.
  3. The kingship was reluctantly permitted, tolerated rather than approved, because of Israel's determination.
The narrative further harmonized two opposing views: the monarchy was not approved by Yahweh, but Yahweh himself was responsible for selecting the first kings of Israel.

Samuel's sons (8:1–3)

When Samuel was at old age, his sons, who were appointed as judges, became corrupt. This draws a parallel to Samuel's mentor, Eli, whose sons became corrupt at Eli's old age, leading to prophetic judgments on his family, Israel's defeat and loss of ark to the Philistines. In the case of Samuel, the corruption of his sons led to the elders of Israel requesting for a king.

Verse 2

  • Cross reference:
  • "Beersheba": located on the southernmost frontier of Judah, implying the recovery of the territory from the Philistines. The placement of Samuel's sons here is supported by the writing of Josephus.

    The demand for a king (8:4–22)

The elders of Israel point to the corrupt ways of Samuel's sons and Samuel's old age as reasons to have a king like all 'other nations', contrary to God's declaration that Israel is 'above all the nations' because they have YHWH as their king. This has once been brought out in Judges 8, when people asked Gideon to rule over them, but Gideon declined by saying that "the Lord will rule over you". Samuel was deeply offended by the request, as verse 6 states the request "displeased" him, because the request in Hebrew was literally for "a king to judge them", thereby attacking his lifelong role. When Samuel 'prayed to the Lord', God assured Samuel that the people did not reject Samuel personally but rejecting God's kingship over them. God did not seem surprised nor offended, instead quickly agreed to give the people a human king, while explaining to Samuel that this behavior was consistent ever since God delivered the people in Exodus from Egypt until that time, in which the people tend to forsake God for false gods. In fact, the Torah already anticipated and prepared specific instructions for this occasion.

Verse 7

  • "Should not reign over them": that is, the people did not even want a theocratic king, whose first duty would be to maintain the Torah.

    Commentaries on Samuel

General

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