PRIESTS AND KINGS
1 Samuel 8-11

Even though the Bible is holy history, it is still history. And even though we read the stories of Biblical heroes, they are still painfully human. Therefore we should not be surprised when we meet an early example of church versus state, priest and king. Throughout most of history until the United States adopted the First Amendment the two lived in tension. In the minds of most people, the church and the state overlapped, sometimes one and sometimes the other commanding their opposite.

Remember we have just come from the time of the Judges. Israel was not yet a real country, just a group of twelve related tribes, held together by a common faith and their family histories. Recall the last statement in the book of Judges: there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Throughout that book, Israel got in trouble 12-13 times, and the Lord raised up a leadera “judge” to rescue them. Now a new enemy loomed on the horizon, the toughest one yet – the Philistines with their advanced iron age technology. Perhaps from lack of faith, or perhaps just from a different point of view, a movement arose for a king. In the minds of the people, all the nations around them had kings, who would raise armies and lead them in battle. So a delegation came to Samuel, who apparently had arisen as the nation's leader.

As Samuel aged, he began to prime his sons to take his place, but they were following Eli's sons worshipping money. The elders got their fill of this and came to Samuel and faced him with the problem. They gave him their solution: choose us a king.  All the people around us have a king. (If all the people around you jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?) Up to that point, Israel had considered Yahweh God their king. Samuel had two problems. The first was personal. He felt the people were rejecting him. He didn't recognize the huge influence he had over the country for years. In many ways he was the equivalent of a king, a judge, and a prophet as well as a priest. But naturally he felt rejected. His second problem was theological. The Lord had been providing for them as needed – 13 different judges! Was this a sign of their faith's crashing?

The Lord answered both questions. First, he reassured Samuel that Israel was not rejecting him, Samuel, but the Lord. God told him to go ahead and find a king for them.He reminded the priest that as far back as Moses and coming up through 13 cycles of judges, Israel had deserted Yahweh and turned to other gods. Before proceeding, however, he was to warn the elders who came to him how a king would operate. He listed all the ways a king would draft their children: into the army and the work force. Further he would tax them and appropriate their land to give to his cronies.

But Israel ignored his warning, again stating they wanted a king like everyone else. They had an image of a man they could be proud of, a leader into battle. Finally, after another conversation with God, Samuel sent the delegation home with a promise he'd work on it.

Note this is a pivotal junction for Israel. We are about to see them swing into a more tightly controlled nation and less of separate tribes. Their will remain a definite north-south line where Israel will later split into two kingdoms. In fact, we will see that David first became king of Judah and the other ten tribes joined later. we are about to see the beginning of the United Kingdom (no, not Great Britain).
The United Kingdom included all 12 tribes under Saul, David, and Solomon. After Sol's death, the kingdom split into what we call the Divided Kingdom, Israel in the North, and Judah in the South.

In Chapter 9 the scene shifts to Saul, the son of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest of the tribes. Remember in the story of Joseph, he and Ben were the favored sons of Jacob by his favorite wife – the last two in his old age. There was no tribe of Joseph, but to make up for the priestly tribe of Levi being scattered, Joe's two sons named two tribes later in the Northern Kingdom: Ephraim and Manasseh.

Anyway, Kish had some donkeys that had wandered off and sent Saul to look for them. After three days of searching, he was planning to go home until one of the accompanying men suggested they consult the priest Samuel, who was known as a seer. (Note the comment in 9:9, one of the earliest we have on etymology. Indicates a note made by a later translator perhaps. What we used to call “seer,” we now call “prophet.”)

A very detailed description follows of how they met a succession of people who led them to Samuel. Behold, the Lord had gone ahead of him and told Samuel to expect and prepare for Saul's arrival. The preparations resulted in a choice meal, a cool roof-top bed, and assurance the donkeys had returned home. The next day, Samuel tells him in another detailed description who he will meet and what will happen on his way home. Then the priest anoints the young man as king over Israel, an act they both keep to themselves until chapter 12.