When you have come to the land which the LORD your God gives you, and possess it and dwell in it, and say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,”
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 14. King. The Rabbins observe, that one was to be elected before the place for the temple was fixed upon, that the tribes might not contend about that honour. Grotius.—God foresees that the people will insist upon having a king, and gives his consent, reserving to himself the choice, and appointing laws for him, that he may not forget that he is the only lieutenant of the most high. Yet God testified his displeasure, when the Israelites demanded a king, because they did it in a seditious manner, so as to reject the prophet Samuel, whom he had given them for a ruler, in whom they could discover no fault. Calmet. 1 Kennicott. 8:7 and 10:19.