1. How does the story of chapter 7 reveal the conditions of victory even on the field of former defeats?
   Have you had some such experience?
2. Wanting a king was not necessarily wrong (cf. Deut. 17:14, 15), especially in view of the situation described in 8:1-3.
   Why then did God, while granting their request, at the same time rebuke the people for making it? Why was the desire to be like ‘all the other nations’ (8:5, 10) wrong?
   Contrast Samuel’s actions with the attitude of the people.

Notes

1. 7:6. The pouring out of water symbolized separation from sin.
2. 8:7 The ‘you’ and me’ in the last clauses are emphatic.
   The people were rejecting God (cf. 10:19), as later Saul did (15:23)
3. 8:10-18. The behavior described is typical of oriental despots.