What were they waiting for? (Samuel & Kings)

The book of Samuel begins with the birth of a son and a consecration of that son to the Lord (1 Samuel 1-2). This is contrasted with the wickedness of a pair of sons who served in the priesthood (1 Samuel 2:12-2:36). The people of Israel were inhabiting the promised land, but they had not driven out the enemies God had commanded them to drive out. Subsequently, the people trade their devotion to the Lord for all sorts of worship practices they deem best. After God provides a great victory in returning the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 4-6) the people demand a change to the status quo. The people demand the end of the era of Judges (due to Samuel's sons taking bribes and perverting Justice 1 Sam 8:2-3). The people demand a king:

4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah 5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” (1 Samuel 8:4-5)

Notice that the people make a comparative statement. The people desire a king to judge them just as all the nations have. This may not be that big of a deal at face value. After all, the judges weren't exactly shining beacons of following God's word. The people of God were (and still are) a holy people. This concept "holy people" is worthy of it's own study, and I highly recommend R.C. Sproul's book "The holiness of God" (you can watch R.C. Sproul's lectures on Youtube here). God's holy people were not just declared holy because of their moral standing before God, they were holy because they were set apart by God. 

Yet throughout the era of Judges the people didn't want to be set apart, they wanted to be like the other nations. The people didn't want the judges God had sent, the people didn't want the rules God had given, the people didn't want the worship God had prescribed. The people were waiting for their own kind of ruler, their own kind of rules, and their own kind of worship. It's as though the old testament Israelites were saying through their words and actions "We didn't asked to be children of Abraham, we didn't ask for the promised land, we didn't ask for deliverance from Egypt, we didn't ask for the Lord to govern us, we didn't ask to be set apart by God". It reminds me of a scene in the movie "The Incredibles" when a super hero saves a man attempting suicide by jumping from a building. After the man is saved, he goes on to sue the super hero! The man's lawyer says "Mr. Sansweet didn't ask to be saved. Mr. Sansweet didn't want to be saved!" The super hero responds "Hey, I saved your life" to which Mr. Sansweet responds "you didn't save my life, you ruined my death!" The old testament people of God thus entered a time of the kings, where men, some godly, many wicked, would exercise authority over the people. 

The period of the kings doesn't start out well, as Saul is the one who the people like. He's tall, handsome, charismatic, he fits the profile of a king like the kings of the nations. Unfortunately, he's all too alike to the kings of the nations. We read in 1 Samuel 18:6-16 that Saul's jealousy is the final step in his eventual possession by a harmful spirit sent by God. Rather than wanting and waiting for what God had planned, Saul burned with a desire for his own plans to become reality. David becomes king after a long and arduous stint as an outlaw within his own lands. David is the writer of many of the Psalms, and sees an expansion of Israel's borders. David is hardly perfect, and his lineage quickly descends into chaos. Solomon is wise and prosperous, but that leads him to an arrogance which systematically breaks God's commands for the king (See the following study on Solomon's systematic breakdown). For all of David and Solomon's achievements, the kingship as an office spirals downwards. 

The repeated use of "walk" יָלַךְ occurs throughout 1 & 2 Kings to describe kings who did what wrong in the eyes of the Lord. Abijam is one of the first kings described in this way in 1 Kings 15:3:

And he walked in all the sins that his father did before him, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father. 

Contrasted with this description are the kings who do what is right before the Lord, Asa is one of the first described in this way in 1 Kings 15:11:

And Asa did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as David his father had done.

In both scenarios, references to David are made, and this theme will continue throughout 1 & 2 Kings, and into the record of 1 & 2 Chronicles. Referring to the ways of the previous king or father is shorthand for summarizing the reign of the king. This is what the people wanted. They wanted a king, they wanted a king like the other nations. Rather than to be other, separate, holy as the Lord had made them to be. They were waiting to be like the other nations, and thus they became like the other nations. They rose and fell, they conquered and were conquered. The time of the kings ends with the people of God captured and sent into exile. Driven from the promised land. The once golden Jerusalem where God had descended to dwell (2 Chronicles 7:1), was now a ruined city. We're told of this demise in 2 Chronicles 36:17-21:

17 Therefore he brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or aged. He gave them all into his hand. 18 And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. 19 And they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels. 20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

The promised seed of Abraham was carried off, the promised land laid bare. What would the people wait for now? What had the desires of their hearts brought them? They had wanted to be like all the other peoples, and now they were until such a time as God would provide a return from exile.