As mentioned in my last post, I’ll quote this in full using the NRSV text and then in a couple of places where the word choice seems interesting, I’ll highlight the LXX text.  

[1] When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. [2] The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and then name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beer-sheba. [3] Yet his sons did not follow in his ways, but turned aside after gain; they took bribes and perverted justice.

[4] Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, [5] and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then a king to govern us, like other nations.” [6] But the thing displeased Samuel when they said “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the LORD, [7] and the LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. [8] Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you. [9] Now then listen to their voice; only– you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

[10] So Samuel reported all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. [11] He said, “These will the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; [12] and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. [13] He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. [15] He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and given it to his officers and his courtiers. [16] He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. [18] And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the LORD will not answer you in that day.”

This is an interesting passage in a few ways.  The first is that it seems like there is at least some extent to which the people of Israel have a legitimate grievance. Samuel’s sons are in fact unjust! In the LXX, the word for “judges” is a participle form of the verb δικάζω dikazō which means “to judge,” and would most aptly be translated as “ones who are judging” or something similar. This same verb is used in vv. 5 where the NRSV has “to govern,” so in the LXX text it is explicitly the case that the people of Israel are asking to replace the judgment of judges with the judgment of a king. 

It should also be noted that this verb is once again cognate to δίκη dikē. By contract, the verb in vv. 7 that God uses to describe his reign over Israel is βασιλέυω basileuō, which means literally “to reign as king” and is related to the word for king. It is also interesting here that God compares himself to judges that the text itself describes as unjust! Presumably, however, Israel’s infidelity towards the Lord is not spawned from God’s injustice towards them, and the actual comparison is between the God’s of other people and the rulers of other people, wherein the demand for a king like those of the other nations is a form of political apostasy equivalent to worshiping the idol of a golden calf. 

Verses 10-18 then proceed to accurately describe monarchy as an oppressive and extractive relationship between a king and the people that the king rules.  Care is taken here to describe the monarchy as usurping tithes that properly belong to God, which is in keeping with a well-established tendency in the Hebrew Bible to describe God as the only true sovereign and fidelity to other political hierarchies as a religious failing of sorts.  Having briefly visited this passage, now let us return to Isaiah, where we will find this context to hopefully be quite helpful.