Prosecuting a People

Samuel the defendant now becomes Samuel the prosecutor. Having elicited the people’s testimony that he himself has been faithful in his role as a prophet, he now sets out to establish that God also has been faithful to the Israelites.

The people have just agreed that God is a witness to their testimony that Samuel has been blameless. Now Samuel notes that the God whom they have just called as their witness is the same God who raised up Moses and Aaron, and used them to bring die people of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt. In other words, the people have just sworn before the God of their fathers, the one who performed the ultimate deliverance for Israel. But the Exodus hardly exhausts the tally of God’s ” ‘righteous acts,’ ” or “favors,” to Israel, and Samuel commands the people to listen to him as he briefly recalls the pattern of God’s working among them. Since the time of their arrival in the Canaan, he notes, the Israelites have repeatedly drifted away from their God and toward the idols of the pagan peoples. Each time they did so, God ” ‘sold them into the hand’ ” of a foreign power, such as the Canaanites (led by Sisera, Judg. 4–5), the Philistines (Judg. 10:7; 13:1), or the Moabites (Judg. 3:12–30). In doing so, God was being faithful to His covenant (Deut. 28:25; 31:16–18). And indeed, He was being kind to His people by causing them to see their sin. When they turned back to Him in repentance, confessing their sin and vowing covenant fealty, He was faithful each time to send a deliverer, such as Jerubbaal (Gideon), Bedan (possibly Barak), Jephthah, Samuel, and others. The pattern was well-established—God was always faithful. Thus, when Nahash, king of the Ammonites, began wreaking havoc on Israel’s eastern border, the people should have remembered this pattern and looked to God for relief. Instead, they asked Samuel to give them a human king to protect them. But there was no need for a human ruler. Their God was their true King, and He had always proved faithful. But the people were unable to trust Him.

With these words, Samuel drives home the core problem in Israel’s request for a monarch. It was a grievous rejection of God. He had never given His people reason to distrust Him, but they were unwilling to rely upon Him. They were unfaithful to their Faithful One.