all know how many of those leaders return to their homes after conflict. Those sons found unfit for battle—those lame or halt or weak or diseased—will not escape his service. They will plow and sow and reap the kingly harvests or they will make his weapons, his swords and bows, his chariot wheels and armor.
You think your daughters will be spared the all-seeing eye and insatiable greed of the king? He will take them to make the fruity perfumes for his many wives as well as the sweet lotions to mask his human smells when he chooses to lie on his bed or in his bath at any hour of day or night. Some of your daughters he will send to his huge kitchens where in the roaring heat of the many ovens’ blast they will bake his bread and dress his meat and create sweet cakes to adorn his groaning table.
Those of you blessed with fine fields and vineyards and orchards, listen! He will take them and hand them over to his indolent friends at court. Your vines and your olive trees will never be safe while the king’s appetites are in need of satisfaction. And if he does not confiscate your lands, he will demand a tax on all of it, stealing 10 percent of it all, giving it to his fat, lolling cronies. He will, whenever he wants, take outright any of your male and female slaves that he chooses, as well as the very best of your livestock and pack animals to do whatever work his whims urge him to do. And what he does not steal, he will tax whatever you may have left. My fellow Israelites, you will be his slaves and no longer free. The freedom that YHWH gave to your ancestors at the great sea will disappear, and you will once again return to the slavery of Egypt. And, like of old, you will cry out to YHWH, because of this king whom you have chosen for yourselves. But unlike the days of Egypt, YHWH will give you no answer on that day of your new slavery. You will cry for God until your lips are cracked and your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, but the heavens will be silent. Silent on that day!”
Samuel was exhausted after this furious speech; his words stopped, his still large chest heaved with the exertion, sweat poured from his face like the fall rains, his thinning hair stuck to his pate in clumps. His priestly garment had slipped from his right shoulder and hung down, touching the hard-packed soil of the speaking ground. He was spent, but also knew that he had delivered a fatal blow to any possible thought of a king for Israel. YHWH had told him to listen to their demands, but YHWH had also said to warn them about the disasters that having a king would surely bring. He had done as YHWH had commanded, as he always did. Once again, Samuel’s words were YHWH’s words; YHWH’s words had poured out of Samuel’s old mouth. The exhausted prophet waited in silence for the people to admit the foolishness of their request for a king. His ears ached for confirmation that his speech had won the day for him and for YHWH, that he would remain as God’s only spokesperson and that YHWH would remain as Israel’s only king.
But Samuel’s words had sounded rather different to some in the crowd, those men of Beer Sheba who had raised the desire for a king in the first place. Everything that Samuel had said were the evils of a king was in fact the evil of his own sons! They had stolen and bribed and taxed and paid off their friends and lain about in increasing luxury, almost from the first day of their coming to Beer Sheba. But they had no armies or chariots or weapons while the Philistine threat was once again increasing all around them. At least a king would establish a standing army for necessary defense of the land against the cruel pagans. At least a king would be a reliable bulwark who could lead the people as needed. At least a king, unlike these noxious sons of Samuel, would demonstrate real authority, have real power to make decisions that needed making, not would-be likenesses of their much greater father. For the men of Beer Sheba, Samuel’s speech, far from turning them away from their desire for a king, had rather reconfirmed that desire.
They did not listen to the warnings of Samuel, but listened to the implications of his words for them and their situation. The same man who had voiced desire for a king the previous night in Samuel’s room now spoke again.
“No! We will not be turned aside! We are now even more determined to have a king over us. That way we will be like all the other nations, solid in leadership, fixed in government, firmly established for the future. Our king will actually lead us, go before us, fight our battles with us! Samuel, you are too old to do all these things we need for the future of our land. Make a king for us, and do it now!”
This stirring speech fired the rest of the delegation of Beer Sheba to unrestrained shouting, and the citizens of Ramah, and all visitors, soon joined the uproar. The indiscriminate voices quickly coalesced into the cry, “A king! A king for Israel! A king! A king for Israel!” Every face was streaked with joy, both young and old, both man and woman. The word “king” thundered from every throat; it arced into the morning sky; it echoed down the valleys and up the mountains that surrounded the city.
Only one voice was silent. The great voice of Samuel was stunned in his throat, and though he willed it to cry out against the madness of the crowd before him, he could not summon it to the task. As the bedlam continued, he retreated into the temple, defeated and alone. No one in the crowd saw him leave. Samuel went to the one who had always spoken exactly what he needed to hear, exactly what he himself knew to be true. He entreated the mysterious YHWH. Throwing himself down before the familiar altar, with pain wracking his aging knees and feet, the prophet repeated to YHWH the words he had just heard from the mob outside.
“They still want a king, O YHWH. I did just as you said. I warned them in the strongest terms I could muster about the horrors of kings, but they still want one. Tell me, my God, what am I to do?”
And he waited for YHWH’s reply. He fully expected YHWH to commend the work of the prophet, to reiterate God’s feeling of rejection at the hands of the ungrateful people, to command Samuel to go back out and try again to convince the idiots that YHWH was king, and that Samuel was alone YHWH’s prophet. But Samuel this time heard the unexpected from his God. The words were brief and the words were clear, sounding in his head.
“Listen to their voice; set a king over them.”
There was this time no talk of warning, no talk of rejection, no commendation for the lifetime ministry of God’s faithful prophet. YHWH said for the third time, “Listen to their voice.” Well, Samuel had listened, but what he had heard had sickened him, infuriated him, disgusted him. Surely, YHWH was just as angry as he about being replaced in the hearts and minds of the people! Surely, YHWH would show forth divine rage against any who would dare to choose a king over YHWH, God of Israel! But the words of YHWH that Samuel heard contained no rage, no disgust, no anger. “Set a king over them,” YHWH had said. Set a king over them? After Samuel’s speech of dire warning against the dangers of kingship, how could he simply go out to the delirious mob and calmly pick a king from among them? They would think he was a fool, he, Samuel, prophet/priest of YHWH! No, he was still Samuel; he still was leader in Israel. He still had two sons who would be his heirs, despite some rumors of their bad behavior in Beer Sheba. Those rumors would quickly be proven false, and the hotheads who spread them would be dealt with severely. Samuel had no intention of setting a king over Israel. Perhaps he had heard God wrongly; perhaps God had really said for Samuel to continue to resist the would-be kingmakers in Israel. Surely that must be it; he had simply not heard God clearly.
And with that conviction, he strode out of the temple with new assurance about the course he must follow. He was Samuel and while he was leader in Israel, there would be no king, ever! The crowd had quieted down considerably while Samuel had been in the temple, and when many of them noticed the priest signaling for silence, they passed the word to their jubilant companions that Samuel had something else to say. All of them fully expected him to announce his choice of king among them, or if not that, at least he would say that the process for the selection of their king would begin now with a final decision made in due course. Their silence was eager, and they became eerily quiet in anticipation.
Samuel waited for absolute calm, and then said, clearly and loudly, “Each of you may go home.”
He turned and moved back into the temple without another word, but if any of them could have seen his
