The First Three Kings of Israel

God heard the people of Israel when they cried out for a king. Saul was the
“people’s choice.” He was tall and handsome, but he didn’t have what it took to be a great king. David was known as the “man after God’s own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14, NKJV). He was a much better king than Saul. Solomon was one of the wisest people in entire Bible, yet sin crept in and brought the downfall of Israel. God answered His people’s prayers for a king but none could have been more different from one another than Israel’s first three kings: Saul, David, and Solomon.
The desire for a king was not new to the people of Israel. The Israelite people had cried out for a king in the past. Judges 8:22 says, “The Israelites said to Gideon, ‘Rule over us, you, your son and your grandson, because you have saved us from the hand of
Midian.’” Gideon had just wiped out the army of Midian. When his people asked him to be king, he wanted nothing to do with it, saying, “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you” (Judges 8:23, NKJV). Their desire for a king was not necessarily wrong either. It had been foretold numerous times in the past that a king would rise up. In Genesis 17:6, God told Abraham that kings will come from him. Numbers 24:17 says, “I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A scepter will rise out of Israel. I will crush the foreheads of Moab,

the skills of all the people of Sheth.” Nevertheless, their desire for a king was rooted in sin. They refused to listen to Samuel with he tried to tell them that God would be their king saying, “No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:19­20).
When it came time for the people of Israel to choose a king, they chose Saul, a man from the tribe of Benjamin. 1 Samuel 9:2 says, “And he (Kish, son of Abiel) had a choice and handsome son whose name was Saul. There was not a more handsom person than he among the children of Israel. From his shoulders upward he was taller than any of the people”. Because Saul was tall and handsome, the people thought he would make a good king. Dr. Ed Hindson wrote, “The events surrounding the selection of Saul for king demonstrate that he was the people’s choice, more than God’s choice for a king. The people seemed to focus on Saul’s outward appearance rather than his heart” ( The Essence of the Old Testament Ch. 15). Saul was eventually rejected as king by God because he disobeyed God and lied about it. In 1 Samuel 15:3, Samuel tells Saul to “attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them.” Saul disobeyed, keeping king Agag alive as a hostage and keeping the best livestock for himself (V. 9). When Samuel confronted Saul asking, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears?” Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord” (1 Samuel 15:14­15). Dawn Sellars wrote, “The implication here is that Saul stood passively by, apparently unable, or else unwilling, to prevent the people from conduct which he knew to be in breach of the divine instruction”

(334). It was at that point that Saul was rejected as king with Samuel saying, “I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel” (V. 26).
God then chose a new king to reign over Israel: David, the youngest son of Jesse, from the tribe of Judah. From the beginning, David had attributes that made him a better king than Saul. When David stood against Goliath in the valley of Elah, he proved that he trusted God more than Saul, saying, “Your servant has killed both lion and bear; and this
Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God” (1
Samuel 17:36). David didn’t look at the size difference between him and Goliath; all he looked at was God’s hand of protection on him. Even in David’s sin and wrongdoing, he showed that he was a better king than Saul. When David slept with Bathsheba and had her husband killed, he was confronted by the prophet Nathan in parable (2 Samuel 12).
As soon as David realized that the parable was about him, he immediatly confessed, saying, “I have sinned against the Lord” (V. 13). He knew the wrong he did and instantly cried out to God in sorrow. These two things proved that David truly was a better king by being more courageous and more humble than Saul.
The third king, Solomon, was one of the wisest men in history, but he, like all of mankind, still succumbed to sin. One sin in particular led to the division of Israel after his death. 1 Kings 11:4 says, “When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the Lord his God”. Solomon’s mistake was to have pagen wives that worshiped other gods. Dr. Ron Rhodes says, “King Solomon had 700 hundred wives and 300 hundred concubines, many from lands of which God had

previously instructed the Israelites to avoid intermarrying. God knew that such intermarrying would lead to the worship of false gods” (“If Bigamy is Sinful, Why did
King Solomon Have so Many Wives?”). This led God to become angry with him and raise up enemies against Solomon (V. 14). This also caused Solomon’s servant,
Jeroboam, to rebel against him and he ended up taking the northern half of Israel with him (V. 31). With Jeroboam taking 10 of the tribes from Solomon, Israel became divided.
The first three kings of Israel were very different from each other. Saul did not follow God. David truly followed God but went astray for a while. Solomon was the wisest of the three but ended up dividing the nation. The people of Israel’s cries were heard when God sent them Kings to rule over them. Works Cited
Hindson, Ed, and Gary Yates. The Essence of the Old Testament: A Survey. Nashville,
. TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2012. Print.
Rhodes, Dr. Ron. "If Bigamy is Sinful, Why did King Solomon Have so Many Wives?"
. (1995): n. pag. Web 12 April 2016.
.Sellars, Dawn. "An Obedient Servant? The Reign of King Saul (1 Samuel 13­15)
.
Reassessed" Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 35.3 (2011): 334. Web.
. 13 April 2016.