LESSON SIXTEEN
Israel Receives a King
The Book of Judges ended with the line, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Israel needs a king.
This is not entirely unexpected. God promised that a descendant of Eve would crush the Serpent’s head—he would defeat evil and restore God’s blessing to our broken world. Genesis shows that this king would come through Abraham’s line, and ultimately through Judah’s tribe.
This leads to the surprise in the next story: when Israel asks for a king, God disapproves. Why? Because God looks on the heart and discerns the people’s motive. They do not want God to rule them through a faithful king; they want to rule themselves through a king, “like all the nations” do.
Yet the Lord graciously provides a king anyway. Astonishingly, Israel rejects God by requesting a king, yet God grants one to bless them (and the world) in the end. This is how God works: he folds even our rebellion into his plan to do us good. He eventually does it again through the cross of King Jesus, where humanity’s rejection of God results in lavish grace for all who receive it.
On page after page, the Bible unfolds the story of God’s unswerving commitment to bless us in spite of ourselves.