Is This Really What You Want?
The Lord promised Abraham and his descendants that he would give them Canaan. The Israelites promised that they would obey him at Mount Sinai. God and Israel had made a covenant.
The two stone tablets that the covenant was written on were in the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was in a tent in Jerusalem. David wanted to build a temple to house the Ark.
Moses also wrote the covenant on parchment. He recorded other words that the Lord gave Israel. Moses wrote five books in all. They record history, commands, and direction from the Lord God.
Some of the commands concerned what the Israelites were to do once they occupied the promised land. They were to conquer it by war. The Lord promised to fight for them. When they won battles, they were to kill all the Canaanites. None of them were to live. All the spoils of war were to go to the Lord when the Lord told them so. Because the Israelites disobeyed the Lord, he told them he would keep some of their enemies in Canaan to test and to train them.
The Israelites were tired of being attacked and war. They believed it was because they didn’t have a king who would fight for them. So they asked for a king. This was yet another rejection of the Lord. God gave them a king as they asked. The king did fight for them. However, naturally, the Israelites still had to fight. Having a king did not make their lives easier as they believed. It made their life more complicated.
