But the thing displeased Samuel
Not that they called him an old man, and suggested that he was incapacitated for his office, nor for observing the unbecoming walk of his sons, but for what follows:
when they said, give us a king to judge us;
what displeased him was, that they were for changing their form of government, not only to remove it from him, and his sons, but from the Lord himself, who was king over them; the ill consequences of which, many of them at least, he easily foresaw, and which gave him great uneasiness, both on account of the glory of God, and their own good; insomuch, as Josephus F25 says, he could neither eat nor sleep, but watched all night, and spent it in prayer, as follows:
and Samuel prayed unto the Lord;
to know his mind and will, and what answer he should return unto them.