Samuel's Grief and God's Response

Samuel is displeased by the request. He prays about it. God's answer reframes what is happening: "Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them." — 1 Samuel 8:7 (ESV). Israel's demand for a king is not a governmental preference. It is a rejection of the covenant arrangement in which God Himself is king and raises leaders as He chooses. The people are asking for a human king who can be seen, who will march before them and fight their battles — a king like the gods of the nations, visible and controllable. They are trading the LORD who delivered them from Egypt for a political institution they can manage on their terms.

God tells Samuel to grant the request, but first to warn them solemnly about what a king will do. Samuel delivers the warning with precision: the king will take their sons for his army and his chariots, for his fields and his weapons. He will take their daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of their fields, vineyards, and orchards. He will take a tenth of their grain and their vineyards for his officers. He will take their servants and donkeys. "And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day." — 1 Samuel 8:18 (ESV).

The warning is specific and sequential — taxation, conscription, taking their land, taking their labor. Samuel is not being theoretical. He is describing what centralized monarchy does in the ancient world, what it will do to ordinary Israelite households across generations. God permits Israel to have what they ask for while ensuring they understand the consequences, respecting their agency while preserving His own sovereignty. He does not simply refuse or simply comply. What we find striking is that God grants this even though He names it as rejection. He does not override their will. He lets them choose, but He makes sure they choose with clear eyes.

The people will not be moved. "No! But there shall be a king over us, 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." — 1 Samuel 8:19–20 (ESV). Samuel reports this to the LORD. The LORD tells him: grant their request. Give them a king.

Finding Saul: A Search for Donkeys

The next chapter introduces Saul — son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin — with an unexpected premise: his father's donkeys have wandered off, and Kish sends Saul with a servant to find them. The search takes them through the hill country of Ephraim and Benjamin for three days without success. Saul proposes turning back, but the servant suggests they consult the man of God in a nearby city — a seer, a man who can tell them which way to go. They have no gift to bring him but a quarter shekel of silver, which will do.

The man of God is Samuel. God has already told him the day before: "Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel." — 1 Samuel 9:16 (ESV). Saul arrives while Samuel is on his way to a high place where a feast is prepared. Samuel sees him, and God speaks: "Here is the man of whom I spoke to you! He it is who shall restrain my people." — 1 Samuel 9:17 (ESV).

Saul approaches Samuel and asks directions to the seer's house. Samuel tells him: I am the seer. He tells Saul the donkeys have been found, and then he says something that must have left Saul bewildered: "And for whom is all that is desirable in Israel? Is it not for you and for all your father's house?" — 1 Samuel 9:20 (ESV). Saul objects — his tribe is Benjamin, the smallest of the tribes; his family is the least of the families of Benjamin. Samuel ignores the protest and brings him to the feast, seats him at the head of the thirty guests, and gives him the reserved portion.

Robert Alter observes that the donkey-search that brings Saul to Samuel is one of the narrative's ways of showing that Israel's first king arrives at his kingship sideways — looking for something else, not seeking power, brought to the anointing by what looks like accident. He came looking for donkeys. He found a kingdom. We find ourselves thinking that this is often how significant things happen — through the search for something smaller that leads somewhere much larger.

The Private Anointing

In the morning Samuel walks with Saul to the edge of the city and asks his servant to go ahead. Then Samuel takes a flask of oil and pours it on Saul's head:

"And Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, 'Has not the LORD anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the LORD's people and save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. And this shall be the sign to you that the LORD has anointed you to be prince over his heritage.'" — 1 Samuel 10:1 (ESV)

The anointing is private — just Samuel and Saul on the road, a flask of oil, a word spoken. Saul is a king before anyone else knows he is a king. Samuel then describes three signs that will confirm the anointing: he will meet two men near Rachel's tomb who will tell him the donkeys are found; then three men going to Bethel who will give him two loaves of bread; then a band of prophets coming down from a high place with harps and tambourines and flutes, and the Spirit of the LORD will rush upon him and he will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.

All three signs come to pass exactly as Samuel described. The Spirit of the LORD rushes upon Saul, and he prophesies with the prophets. People who know him ask each other: "Is Saul also among the prophets?" — 1 Samuel 10:11 (ESV). This becomes a proverb. A man anointed in private has been visibly marked by the Spirit in public, though no one yet knows fully what it means. What we find significant here is that Saul's kingship is genuinely from God. The private anointing with oil, the three signs, the Spirit rushing upon him — all of these establish the origin. What goes wrong later cannot be blamed on a false calling. He was genuinely chosen.

The Public Confirmation

Samuel calls all Israel to Mizpah for the selection of the king. The lot is cast — tribe by tribe, clan by clan, family by family — and it falls on Saul the son of Kish. But Saul is not present. He is hiding among the baggage. The people find him and bring him out, and when he stands among the people, he is a head taller than any of them. Samuel presents him: "Do you see him whom the LORD has chosen? There is none like him among all the people." — 1 Samuel 10:24 (ESV). And all the people shout: "Long live the king!"

The scene is both triumphant and shadowed. Saul is physically impressive, chosen by lot under God's direction, anointed in private and confirmed in public. But not everyone is satisfied — some worthless fellows despise him and bring him no present. Saul keeps silent. The people disperse. The kingdom has begun in ambiguity, as it will continue.

Saul's hidden character appears early. He hides among the baggage at his own public confirmation. Whether this is genuine humility or something more complicated, the narrative plants the detail without explanation. We will come to understand it differently as the story unfolds. A man who hides at the moment of his greatest recognition is showing us something about how he relates to the calling he has been given. We are not sure yet what it means. Neither, perhaps, is he.

Last updated: March 3, 2026.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.