1 Samuel 8:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

They have rejected me, &c.— Samuel had now, by a wise and painful direction of affairs, restored the purity of religion, and rescued the nation from the power of the Philistines, and their other hostile neighbours, against whom they were utterly unable to make head when he entered upon the administration. At this very time, the people, debauched as usual by power and prosperity, took the pretence of the corrupt conduct of the prophet's two sons, to go in a tumultuous manner and demand a king: but the secret spring of their rebellion was the ambition of their leaders, who could live no longer without the splendor of a regal court and household. Give me, say they, in Hosea 13:10 a king and princes, where every one of them might shine a distinguished officer of state. They could get nothing when their affairs led them to their judges' poor residence, in the schools of the prophets, but the GIFT of the Holy Spirit; which a courtier, I suppose, would not prize even at the rate at which Simon Magus held it, of a paltry piece of money. This it was, and this only, that made their demand criminal; for the choosing regal rather than aristocratic viceroys, was a thing plainly indulged to them by the law of Moses. Deuteronomy 17:14-15. Div. Leg. vol. 4: p. 80.