Was it God's will for Israel to have a king?

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

Something else was asked yesterday...how did they get a king? By voting or some other method? ( The other nations especially)

Among the Celts and Teutonic peoples, kings were often elected by the men. Oftentimes an elected king would go about trying to conquer neighboring clans/tribes to establish himself as king over larger territories and over more people.

In Israel, each family had a head and related families formed what today would be called clans. These also each had a head. Together, all the related clans or families made a tribe, and usually the head of the chief or most influential family was head of the tribe, usually descended directly from the ancestor of the tribe from father to eldest son. These chiefs or heads of families and tribes are in fact the ancient equivalent of a "king", which in the ancient world was literally primarily a clan chief. So Israel was literally a nation of "kings". The family heads also served as priests prior to the establishment of the Aaronic priesthood. Some of those priestly functions remained even after the Aaronic priesthood was ordained (as each father had certain responsibilities to ensure his family followed the law of God, etc). A nation of kings and priests in other words.

When the people demanded a king like the other nations, they were demanding a centralised government under one man and his family, to unify them, protect them, and provide legislation. They didn't want to be united by God and His one Law, and didn't trust His protection, in other words. So God sent a prophet (Samuel) to anoint Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin. Eventually, God chose another (David, of the tribe of Judah) and Saul was deposed. God ordained that David's family would reign over Israel permanently, father to son.

Because of Solomon's sins, God chose Jereboam of the tribe of Ephraim to rule as king over ten of the tribes. He would have been established like David with a permanent dynasty, but he flaked out and lost it. After that, some of the northern Kingdom f Israel's kings inherited the throne, some seized the throne by intrigue and assassinating the sitting king, some were appointed by more powerful foreign governments as puppet kings, etc.

Jesus, as Son of David, is the last king of the dynasty of David, and reigns forever over Isrsel.