8:5. And they said to him: Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: make us a king, to judge us, as all nations have.
8:6. And the word was displeasing in the eyes of Samuel, that they should say: Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed to the Lord.
8:7. And the Lord said to Samuel: Hearken to the voice of the people in all that they say to thee. For they have not rejected thee, but me, that I should not reign over them.
Rejected, etc… The government of Israel hitherto had been a theocracy, in which God himself immediately ruled, by laws which he had enacted, and by judges extraordinarily raised up by himself; and therefore he complains that his people rejected him, in desiring a change of government.
8:8. According to all their works, they have done from the day that I brought them out of Egypt until this day: as they have forsaken me, and served strange gods, so do they also unto thee.
8:9. Now, therefore, hearken to their voice: but yet testify to them, and foretell them the right of the king, that shall reign over them.
The right… That is, the manner (misphat) after which he shall proceed, having no one to control him, when he has the power in his hand.
8:10. Then Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people that had desired a king of him,
8:11. And said: This will be the right of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and put them in his chariots, and will make them his horsemen, and his running footmen, to run before his chariots,
8:12. And he will appoint of them to be his tribunes, and his centurions, and to plough his fields, and to reap his corn, and to make him arms and chariots.