Be like — What stupidity! It was their happiness that they were unlike all other nations, Numbers 23:9; Deuteronomy 33:28, as in other glorious privileges, so especially in this, that the Lord was their immediate king and lawgiver. But they will have a king to go out before them, and to fight their battles. Could they desire a battle better fought for them than the last was, by Samuel's prayers and God's thunders? Were they fond to try the chance of war, at the same uncertainty that others did? And what was the issue? Their first king was slain in battle: and so was Joshua, one of the last and best.
Related Commentaries of 1 Samuel 8:20
1 Samuel 8:20
20 That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.