Israel was under the oppression of the Philistines and the Ammonites, and
there didn’t seem to be any end in sight for all the wars and struggles
with other nations. It seemed to everyone like the problem was that there
was no king. So the people tell their priest and leader, Samuel, that’s
exactly what they want—a king. God tells Samuel, “It’s not you they’ve
rejected; they’ve rejected me” (1 Sam. 8:7), and God tells him in 1 Samuel
8:22, “Listen to them and give them a king.” Israel chose a king over God.
And the choice isn’t quite that straight forward even though it seemed to
make sense. But the reason it seemed that there was no better option was
that Israel was too nearsighted to see the big picture of what God was
doing in the world.