1 Samuel, Chapter 8 - Chosen or Normal? | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Shalom friends. Welcome back to the Prophets of Israel daily brought to you by the Land of Israel network at the landofisrael.com. Shalom Jeremy, good to see you. >> Good to see you, too. >> Today we open Samuel 1, the first book of Samuel chapter 8. And friends, this is a very consequential chapter. This is something that I always goes back to in my mind as a real turning point. This is the moment Israel asks for a king. This is the moment that fundamentally changes really the identity of the nation of Israel forever. So let's set the scene here for a second. Shmuel Hanavi, Samuel the prophet, has been leading Israel for years. He's been the shofet, right, the judge of Israel. As far as I know, in his time, he's been the only true prophet at all. Am I right, Jeremy? He's the only prophet there. I don't remember >> know if he's the only prophet because there was a prophet that came to Eli and said, "Your children are going to die." >> Right, I was saying Ish Elohim, but he's definitely the greatest, okay, that's for sure. But there wasn't a lot of prophecy then. There was a sort of a a void. So he's been the moral and spiritual anchor of the entire nation. That much we can really say. But now he's old, and like Eli before him, his sons are not walking in his footsteps. So the text opens verse 1. Vayhi k'sher Zaken Shmuel, and it came to pass when Samuel was old that he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. Let's go on to verse 2. V'e shem b'no ha'bechor Yoel, the name of his firstborn was Yoel, and the name of his second was Aviya. Judges in Beersheba. Now pay attention to that geography. Beersheba, the southern frontier. Samuel sends his sons to administer justice at the edge of the country. And what do they do? Verse 3. V'lo halchu banav b'drachav, his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after batza, unjust gain. They took shochad, bribes, and they perverted justice. >> You know, Ari, there is um a pattern here, and it's painful. And so, what does this obviously remind us of? It's the high priest Eli and his sons. I mean, Samuel grew up in the shadow of Eli's failed sons. He saw firsthand what corrupt priestly heirs can do to the spiritual life of a nation, and now he himself is getting on in years, and his own sons are repeating the exact same pattern, same sin, the same generation gap. It's really just heartbreaking. And I think the text is letting us know a truth about leadership that isn't easy to swallow. And what's that truth? Leadership cannot be inherited. The merit of the father doesn't save the son, and it's a lesson taught throughout the Torah and the prophets. We saw it with Moses. We saw it with Eli. And now with Shmuel. And you see it with a lot of leaders in communities, in congregations. I mean, I've seen a lot of it both in the Jewish and non-Jewish circles. I mean, it's a warning to leaders. Don't get so entirely immersed in the well-being of the klal, in the well-being of the nation, that you neglect the upbringing and parenting of your own children. They deserve parents because that's the only way to raise them upright. It's not just going to be inherited. And if it can happen to Moses, if it can happen to Shmuel, it can happen to all of us. >> Yeah. Yeah. And my my wife Shayna and I, we try to really make sure that numerous Shabbats, we try as much as we can to have it where it's just sometimes only our family, just us. And it requires a lot of prayer. Ultimately, it's in God's hands. But the you're right. That's right. And interestingly, the text doesn't dwell on Samuel's grief. It moves immediately to the consequence. Verse 4. All the elders of gathered together and came to Shmuel at Rama. And what do they say to Shmuel? Let's continue with verse five. And they said to him, "Behold, you are old and your sons have not walked in your ways. Now point for us a king to judge us like all the nations." There it is. Three Hebrew words that will haunt us the rest of Tanakh. And I don't say that lightly, really the rest of Tanakh. >> Yeah, you got me. The maybe it's not even just the Tanakh, maybe it's the rest of history that we just constantly want to be like the nations. And you know, this actually happens to be a real tension in the chapter. The Torah itself, back in Devarim, in the book of Deuteronomy, commands the appointment of a king. And so, is asking a king a mitzvah, a commandment, or is it a sin? And our sages have debated this for 2,000 years. And the answer the text seems to give to us is it depends why you're asking. The elders, they don't say, you know, "Appoint us a king to lead us in Hashem's ways." They say, "Make us normal. Just make us like everyone else and all the other nations." So, the sin isn't the institution, the sin is the motivation. And so, the longing to fit in, the longing to look like the other nations around them, that is the Jewish people's oldest temptation and it ends up being our oldest curse. >> Yeah, Jeremy, I have to tell you, just on a very personal level, uh it really does hit close to home because my father was not a particularly learned man. He never received a Jewish education. His entire life's mission was to give me and my sisters the Jewish education that he never got at all costs. But he was very passionately a Jew and he raised me that the absolute worst sin I could ever do was it wasn't about violating the Sabbath or eating non-kosher food. The worst thing I could ever do was to try to be like everybody else, to want to be like all the other nations, like everyone. The worst thing I could ever want to do is to hide my Jewish identity. And growing up, I thought the that he sort of defaulted to that because he didn't know the laws and the commandments is in and then the the nuances of the Torah. But in my old age, I've really come to believe that while he may not have understood the nuances, he did understand one of the deepest truths of the Torah, that we are separate and we are different, that we are kadosh, set aside from the nations for a specific mission and purpose. And we see here in the verse in verse number six, that Samuel understood that, too. Listen to Samuel's reaction, verse six. And the matter was evil in the eyes of Samuel when they said, "Give us a king to judge us." And Samuel prayed to Hashem. Notice that Samuel does not refuse them on his own authority. He doesn't lecture. He doesn't shame them. He prays. He brings the question to to the real address. Verse seven. And Hashem said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in everything they say to you, for it is not you they have rejected, it is me they have rejected from reigning over them." Think about that. The creator of the universe, the one who took them out of Egypt, the one who split the sea, the one who fed them with manna, the the that God says, "They don't want me as their king anymore. They want a king of flesh and blood. They want a They want what they can see." Verse eight. "Just as they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, abandoning me and serving other gods, so they are doing now to you, also." Right? And and and Hashem himself continues in verse nine. "Now listen to their voice, but warn them clearly and tell them the mishpat hamelach, the way of the king, who will reign over them. >> You know, there's something really fatherly about this response. Hashem doesn't crush their request. It hurts Hashem's heart, that's what he says, but he doesn't say no. He says, "Tell them what it will cost. Let them see what they're asking for, and then let them choose." And it's just remarkable cuz they are seeing with their own eyes. A man as righteous and as good as Samuel has children that have become corrupt, and now they're asking for that exact setup. Give us the king whose children and children's children will rule over us. And so now Shmuel is tasked to lay out the price and the risks involved and let them choose their own fate. So Hashem lets us choose, but he insists that when we choose, we choose with our eyes wide open as much as possible. >> Right. Yeah, and so Shmuel delivers the speech, and what a speech it is. Verse 10. And Samuel told all the words of Hashem to the people who were asking him for a king. And he goes on in verse 11. And he said, "This will be the way of the king who reigns over you. He will take your sons and place them in his chariots and among his horsemen, and they will run before his chariot." Listen to the verb yikakh, right? And he will take. That's why I made it caps there. It it it it echoes throughout the entire speech again and again. The verse 12. He will appoint them as commanders of thousands and commanders of 50s to plow his fields and reap his harvest, to make his weapons of war and the equipment of his chariots. Uh verse 13. And your daughters he will take to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. Uh this is what's happening again and again here. Verse 14. And your fields, your vineyards, and your finest olive groves he will take, and he will give them to his servants. Verse 15. He will tax a tenth of your seed crops and your vineyards and give it to the officers and servants. Your male and female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys he will take for his own work. I mean, it just keeps going. He will tax a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. That last line is what really like is worth thinking about for a second. Va'atem ti'yulu avadim. You yourselves will become his avadim. You will become his slaves. The very same word that describes their status in Egypt. The very thing Hashem rescued them from is what they are now begging to walk back into. Voluntarily, willingly, with their eyes open. Right? Verse 18. And you will cry out on that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and Hashem will not answer you on that day. And by the way, this may be the the most sobering line in this chapter here. Right? Because think about it. In Mitzrayim, in Egypt, when Israel cried out from under the yoke of Pharaoh, Hashem heard. He sent Mosha. He brought the plagues. He split the sea. But here, the warning is the inverse. When you cry out from under the yoke of the king you choose, I'm not going to answer. This is the principle of like again, mida keneged mida, measure for measure. You wanted distance from me? You'll have it. You'll have it. You wanted to be like the nations? You'll get the silence that the nations get. And then comes one of the hardest verses in what is already a pretty hard chapter, verses 19 and 20. But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, "No. There must be a king over us. So that we too can be like all the nations. That our king may judge us and go out before us to fight our battles." There it is again. K'chol hagoyim, like all the nations. They're not just asking, they're insisting. They have heard the price tag line by line, and they're saying, "We'll pay it. Just let us be normal. Just let us blend in." Right? Verses 21 and and and 22. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the ears of Hashem. And Hashem said to Samuel, "Listen to their voice and appoint them a king." And Samuel said to the men of Israel, "Go, each man to his city." Right? The chapter ends quietly, and the the elders go home, the decision is made, Israel will have a king. The era of the Shoftim, the judges, is officially closing. And the era of Melachim, the kings, is about to begin. And I I I I want us just to take a second. I know we're running here a lot of time, but let's just think about that, because perhaps more than any other, it speaks to where we are right now. Modern Israel was reborn in 1948, and from day one, that same agonizing pull has been with us. Are we a Jewish state with a unique mission and a unique covenant with our creator, or we just another nation among the nations, a member of the UN, a normal democracy seeking for normal acceptance from a world that has never accepted us as normal? Right? K'chol Hagoyim, like all the nations. That has been the temptation of Zionist leadership for over a century. Not just the leadership of the country, the people. You know, some of our prime ministers, you know, leaned one way, some leaned the other, and the world kept trying to be uh and we we just kept trying to be accepted. It it it just keeps showing us year after year, war after war, vote after UN vote, that we will never be like the nations. The creator of the universe didn't design us to be like the nations. We were chosen to be a Kadosh, a holy nation, and an Or Lagoyim, a light unto the nations. Not a normal one. You know, in our generation after October 7th, after the wars in the north and the south, after watching the international institutions abandon us hypocritically again and again, many in Israel are waking up and remembering this chapter. Remembering what our security has never come from being like the nations. It's come from being with Hashem. And that is the chuva, the return, that I believe this generation is being called to, to stop apologizing, to stop performing, to stop begging the world to validate our existence, and to come home fully, fully to come home, physically, geographically, and spiritually to the land of Israel and the one who gave it to us. You know, the the kings will come. David will come, Solomon, they'll come, and ultimately Mashiach ben David, Messiah son of David, he will come. May it be soon in our days. But the line that started this chapter, the elder standing Ramah saying, "Make us like them." That line still runs through every Jewish heart on some level one or the other. The question is not whether we'll have human leaders. The question is whether they will lead us towards Hashem or away from him. Whether they will help us fulfill our purpose or help us run away from it. So, tomorrow we open chapter nine and we meet a tall, handsome young man from the smallest tribe, Shaul ben Kish, Saul son of Kish, the first king, and the journey begins. Now, what we've been living through in Israel, my friends, isn't just news, it's prophecy unfolding in real time. And uh we've been documenting it in a video series called the War of Redemption, which this chapter really showed how this War of Redemption that we're fighting now is a continuation from [music] the wars and the struggles we had back then. And once you watch it, you'll never be able to read the headlines the [music] same way again. You could find it at www.thelandofisrael.com. Hazak Ve'amatz, my friends, from the hills of Judea. We'll see you tomorrow.