1 Samuel 8:18

18 And ye shall cry in that day from the face of your king, whom ye have chosen to you; and the Lord shall not hear you in that day; for ye [have] asked (for) a king to you. (And ye shall cry out on that day because of your king, whom ye have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord shall not hear you on that day; for ye have asked for a king for yourselves.)

1 Samuel 8:18 Meaning and Commentary

1 Samuel 8:18

And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your king
His power and pride, his oppression and tyranny, his heavy exactions, and intolerable yoke, and yet not be able to free themselves from them; all that they could do would be only to cry out under them as grievously distressed, and not knowing how to help themselves; and which would be the more aggravated, because they brought all this upon themselves, as it follows:

which ye shall have chosen you;
for though the choice of a king for them, at a proper time, God had reserved to himself, yet in later times, as is here suggested, they would choose for themselves, and did, see ( Hosea 8:4 ) besides, to have a king in general was at first their own choice, though the particular person was by the designation of the Lord:

and the Lord will not hear you in that day;
will not regard them, have no compassion on them, suffer them to remain under their oppressions, and not deliver them out of them; because they rejected him from being their King, and put themselves out of his protection, into the hands of another, and therefore it was just to leave them to their own choice.

1 Samuel 8:18 In-Context

16 And he shall take away your servants, and your handmaids, and your best young men, and your asses, and he shall set these in his work. (And he shall take away your servants, and your servantesses, and your best young men, and your donkeys, and he shall make them do his bidding/and he shall make them work for him.)
17 Also he shall take the tenth part of your flocks; and ye shall be his servants.
18 And ye shall cry in that day from the face of your king, whom ye have chosen to you; and the Lord shall not hear you in that day; for ye [have] asked (for) a king to you. (And ye shall cry out on that day because of your king, whom ye have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord shall not hear you on that day; for ye have asked for a king for yourselves.)
19 Soothly the people would not hear the voice of Samuel, but they said, Nay, for a king shall be on us; (But the people would not listen to Samuel, and they said, No! let a king rule over us;)
20 and (then) we also shall be as all folks (and then we shall be like all the other nations), and our king shall deem us, and he shall go out before us, and he shall fight our battles for us.
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.