The first government given to Israel was the highest conceivable — the direct government of God. They could say with truth, The Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King. That they should prove themselves unworthy of this supreme honor, this exalted government, which set them above all the nations of the earth, might perhaps be expected; but that they should reject it was the basest ingratitude, and, surrounded as they were by powerful enemies on all sides, the greatest folly. It was this grave dishonor put upon the Lord which called forth the address that now invites our attention. “They have not rejected thee,” God said to Samuel, “but they have rejected Me that I should not reign over them.”
Bible Treasury, Vol. 18