When the elders of Israel told Samuel that they wanted a king, it displeased Samuel, but the Lord said to him: “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (see 1 Samuel 8:4–9). Notice why those people wanted a king. They wanted security just like the nations around them! That is a wrong motive: isn’t God their protector? God rejects this motive, but is not distracted from his plan: a king who obeys God as King will lead God’s people to complete redemption, to Jesus, the King of kings.
14 “When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’