Based on what little we know of Eli, the judge whom Samuel assisted, he doesn’t seem to have been a horrible judge. He acknowledged the Lord’s authority (1 Samuel 3:18) and served Him to some extent. However, his selfish desire to honor his own sons at the expense of fulfilling God’s Law, such that he refused to remove them as priests and end their desecration of the worship system (note that his sons’ eating of the fat of God’s sacrifices in 1 Samuel 2:12-17 comes from the same sin of gluttony that led to their father being “heavy” in 1 Samuel 4:18), led to his being rejected as leader over Israel. Eli’s two sons were killed in battle, Eli died of a broken neck, and Samuel took over.

Notice the parallel to 1 Samuel 8, when Samuel’s corrupt sons were taking over as judges from Samuel: the current judge is at the end of his life, two worthless men are about to take over, and Israel is in danger. The people knew the story of Eli well (it had probably already been made into Scripture, but even if it hadn’t, their parents and grandparents would have told them about it). They knew God delivered their fathers from Eli’s sons with the righteous judge Samuel. It should have been obvious that He would do the same thing again. The people, however, were impatient, and rather than wait and pray for the Lord’s salvation, they demanded a king to rule over them.

And what was Israel’s salvation intended to be? David. David was a righteous king, a man after God’s own heart, who fully delivered Israel from the Philistines. David’s coming was inevitable (after all, without him, how would God have brought forth a savior from his offspring? Acts 13:22-23). It was not, however, slated for that exact moment.

This thesis can be confirmed by looking at the chronology of Saul’s reign. Saul reigned for two years, then sinned and was told by Samuel that his kingdom would be ripped away from him (see The Time of the Judges and the United Kingdom).  This means that two years into Saul’s 40-year reign, Saul sinned and fell into wickedness. The rest of his reign was marked by poor leadership, idolatry, and rebellion.

No Israelite reading this Scripture in Old Covenant times could fail to note the parallel to the Exodus. There were two years from the time Moses and Aaron stood before Pharaoh until God attempted to bring the Israelites into the Land of Canaan. They were meant to immediately enter the Promised Land and conquer it. However, because of their wickedness, they were forced to wander an additional 38 years, until every man aged 20 and over at the time of the rebellion was dead, except for Caleb and Joshua (Numbers 14:26-35).

Similarly, the Israelites of Samuel’s day sinned by asking for a king before God approved. Had they not done so, they probably would have been given deliverance from Samuel’s sons quickly, followed by the righteous rule of David immediately upon his anointing (without waiting for Saul’s wicked reign to end). Instead, because of their impatience, they had to suffer through Saul and wait longer for David, just as the Israelites at the time of Moses had to wait to enter the Promised Land.