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1 Samuel 8:1-2
New Catholic Bible
1 Samuel 8:1-2
New Catholic Bible
The Inauguration of the Monarchy[a]
Chapter 8
The People Request a King. 1 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. 2 The name of the older was Joel, and the name of the younger was Abijah, and they were judges at Beer-sheba.
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- 1 Samuel 8:1 Israel needs a strong authority to deal with the Philistine threat. Neighboring peoples offer a model: monarchy. But does not having a king mean imitating the pagan nations and betraying the Lord, who is the only true king of his people? The conscience of Israel is disturbed; the passages we shall be reading here (revised by the author of the book) bear witness to this unease: some Israelites are in favor of a monarchy, others opposed to it.
