Father Pat's Pastoral Ponderings The Sunday After the Ascension
May 16, 2010 IIn biblical historiography few subjects are more
ambivalent than Israel's adoption of monarchy toward the end of
the eleventh century. Notwithstanding a growing impulse for this
form of polity at the time, resistance against it ran deep in
the culture and tribal loyalties of the people. The chief
spokesman for the resistance was none other than the last of
Israel's "Judges," Samuel, to whom it ironically fell to anoint
the people's first kings: Saul and David. Two reasons supported
Samuel's opposition to the monarchy: First, its proposed
adoption was difficult to reconcile with the theological
principle that the Lord himself was Israel's king (1 Samuel 8:7;
10:19; 12:12). The true kingship was theocracy. Second, royal
government would oppress the people with capricious and onerous
demands (8:11-18). It was a social evil. Samuel was divinely
directed, nonetheless, to accede to Israel's demand for a king
(8:22), and the Lord himself m