1 Samuel 8: "...fight our battles for us."

The hopefulness found in the previous chapter doesn't last long.  During most of Samuel's reign as judge the people succeeded in following God's Law.  It was an era of peace, as we saw the defeat of the Philistines, and spiritually speaking things were serene as well, as the great prophet Samuel set an example for the people of what holiness looked like.  But then, as we read in 1 Samuel 8, things begin to unravel.  It begins with Samuel's own sons proving to be unworthy judges.  This prompts the people to begin to call for (as they'd done before) a king to rule over them.  In a way, Chapter 8 is frustrating to read, because we see a people asking for something that we can see will not ultimately be good for them, but they blindly want it anyway.  Such is the way of us humans -- we can't see what it is that is truly good for us, and instead desire that which will end up harming us.  What I thought was interesting was Samuel's admonition.  He goes on for several verses detailing what the Israelites can expect under a king: loss of property, hardship, forced tithes, and ultimately slavery.  I thought these verses were profoundly wise.  Several millennia ago in ancient Israel, here is a man telling us exactly what power does, exactly how kings become tyrants, and nothing has since changed.  And amazingly the people couldn't care less!  They still demand a king.  Verse 20 says it all: "And we also will be like all nations: and our king shall judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles for us."  God has clearly said that He desires His people to be set apart, to not be like other nations, yet that is exactly what the people are clamoring for -- to be just like the nations surrounding them.  They've chosen the world over God.  In a perfect world the only king would be God Himself, but here in this fallen world we can't see this, and so we demand an earthly king, who will protect us and "fight our battles for us."  The lack of faith in all this is alarming, but sadly, to be expected.  So in the end, God gives the people what they want, and Samuel says they will have a king.  The words of Saint Augustine seem fitting here: "God, in anger, grants a person what he desires wrongfully."  The whole idea of the Jewish kingship is an interesting one.  King David is seen as the archetypically good king, and the Jews look back on his kingship as a high point, an ideal era that they long to return to.  But the tone throughout Scripture is clearly that God does not desire His people to be ruled by a king.  Yet He's given His people free will, and just as He did not desire Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit, they did and God gave them what they deserved/desired.  So it is with kingship.  The people got what they deserved/desired.  Back in Deuteronomy 17 we were given guidelines for what to do should the people demand a king, i.e., how that king ought to rule.  So now, that possibility has become a reality under Samuel, and there will be strict guidelines set so that an Israelite king will be as just as possible and hopefully not as tyrannical as the pagan kings of other nations.  Time to see now how that all goes.