A king shall reign over us: See Poole on "1 Samuel 11:1". When the Lord your God was your king, i.e. when God was your immediate King and Governor, who was both able and willing to deliver you, if you had cried to him, whereof you and your ancestors have had plentiful experience; so that you did not at all need any other king; and your desire of another was a manifest reproach against God, as if he were either grown impotent, or unfaithful, or unmerciful to you.
Related Commentaries of 1 Samuel 12:12
1 Samuel 12:12
12 And when ye saw that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon came against you, ye said unto me, Nay; but a king shall reign over us: when the LORD your God was your king.