8 According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, in that they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also to you. 9 Now therefore listen to their voice: however you shall protest solemnly to them, and shall show them the manner of the king who shall reign over them.” 10 Samuel told all the words of Yahweh to the people who asked of him a king. 11 He said, “This will be the manner of the king who shall reign over you: he will take your sons, and appoint them to him, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and they shall run before his chariots; 12 and he will appoint them to him for captains of thousands, and captains of fifties; and he will set some to plow his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the instruments of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. 14 He will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive groves, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants, and your female servants, and your best young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks: and you shall be his servants. 18 You shall cry out in that day because of your king whom you shall have chosen you; and Yahweh will not answer you in that day.” 19 But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No; but we will have a king over us, 20 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.” 21 Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of Yahweh. 22 Yahweh said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice, and make them a king.”
Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Every man go to his city.”
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Samuel 8:8-22
Commentary on 1 Samuel 8:4-9
(Read 1 Samuel 8:4-9)
Samuel was displeased; he could patiently bear what reflected on himself, and his own family; but it displeased him when they said, Give us a king to judge us, because that reflected upon God. It drove him to his knees. When any thing disturbs us, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to show our trouble before God. Samuel is to tell them that they shall have a king. Not that God was pleased with their request, but as sometimes he opposes us from loving-kindness, so at other times he gratifies us in wrath; he did so here. God knows how to bring glory to himself, and serves his own wise purposes, even by men's foolish counsels.
Commentary on 1 Samuel 8:10-22
(Read 1 Samuel 8:10-22)
If they would have a king to rule them, as the eastern kings ruled their subjects, they would find the yoke exceedingly heavy. Those that submit to the government of the world and the flesh, are told plainly, what hard masters they are, and what tyranny the dominion of sin is. The law of God and the manner of men widely differ from each other; the former should be our rule in the several relations of life; the latter should be the measure of our expectations from others. These would be their grievances, and, when they complained to God, he would not hear them. When we bring ourselves into distress by our own wrong desires and projects, we justly forfeit the comfort of prayer, and the benefit of Divine aid. The people were obstinate and urgent in their demand. Sudden resolves and hasty desires make work for long and leisurely repentance. Our wisdom is, to be thankful for the advantages, and patient under the disadvantages of the government we may live under; and to pray continually for our rulers, that they may govern us in the fear of God, and that we may live under them in all godliness and honesty. And it is a hopeful symptom when our desires of worldly objects can brook delay; and when we can refer the time and manner of their being granted to God's providence.