A King After Their Own Hearts
“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,’ 15 you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother.” – Deut. 17:14-15
In the book of Judges, we see telegraphed for us how the Israelites began distancing themselves from God and becoming more and more like the nations around them. Starting in chapter 1, we see the various tribes failing to drive out the Canaanites from among their lands. In fact, “when Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not drive them out completely” (vs. 28). Israel becomes dependent on the other nations and keeps them close, entrenching not just them but their religious practices and culture.
The angel of the Lord confronts the people about their lack of obedience, and tells them that those nations “shall become thorns in [their] sides, and their gods shall be a snare to [them]” (2:3). The people of Israel “lifted up their voices and wept” (2:4) and sacrificed, but their repentance would not be long-lasting. Their faithlessness culminates in what is described in 2:11 as the people doing “what was evil in the sight of the LORD and served the Baals”. They go from tolerating and enabling the gods of the Canaanites, to actually worshiping them!
A deteriorating pattern then emerges of God raising up judges who would save them from the plunderers. “But whenever the judge died, they turned back and were more corrupt than their fathers (2:19). At first the people would at least cry out to God, and He would provide a judge, but as time went on, they would begin to try and solve the problem themselves. With Jephthah, we don’t see them even consulting God, instead they appoint him as a “might warrior” to be their leader (ch. 11). By the time we get to Samson in chapter 13, it’s depicted as God working unsolicited and without petition to raise up a deliverer for them despite the people “again [doing] what was evil in the sight of the Lord” (vs. 1).
In the opening chapters of 1 Samuel, we read how God raised up Samuel who would be Israel’s final, effective judge. In chapter 7, Samuel challenges the people to “put away the foreign gods...and direct[their] heart[s] to the Lord and serve him only” if they were really “returning to the Lord with all [their] heart”(v. 3). The people did and God worked through Samuel to deliver the people once again and “the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel” (v. 13).
However, chapter 8 narrates the coming to pass of what God said would happen in Deuteronomy 17. Due in part to Samuel’s age, in part to his justice-perverting sons, but mostly because the people were “rejecting [God] from being king over them” (v. 7), the people ask Samuel for a king. They want a king to be “like all the nations”, when God called Abraham out for the very purpose of being different. The people decided that a heavenly king who would always give them what they needed was inferior to an earthly one would give them what they wanted. They wanted a king after their own hearts.
Let’s all reflect on our faithfulness and to whom we entrust ourselves. May we always remember the source of all authority, strength, & love and firmly enthrone Christ as the king of our hearts.
Jason Budd
