¹⁷Then Samuel summoned the people to Yahweh at Mizpah, ¹⁸and he said to the Israelites,^q “Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: ‘I brought Israel up from Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing you.’ ¹⁹But you today have rejected your God who always delivers you from all of your calamities and your distresses. You have said to him, ‘No, but you must appoint a king over us!’ So then present yourselves before Yahweh by your tribes and by your clans.”

²⁰So Samuel brought near all the tribes of Israel, and the tribe of Benjamin was selected by lot. ²¹Then he brought near the tribe of Benjamin according to its families, and the family of Matri was selected by lot. Then Saul the son of Kish was chosen, and they sought him, but he could not be found. ²²So they inquired again of Yahweh, “Did the man come here?” ^r And Yahweh said, “Look, he is hiding himself among the baggage.” ²³So they ran and took him from there, and when he took his stand among the people, he was taller than all the people from his shoulders and up. ²⁴Then Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see him whom Yahweh has chosen? For there is no one like him among all the people!” And all the people shouted and said, “Long live the king!”

²⁵Then Samuel told the people the custom of the kingship, and he wrote the rules down on a scroll and laid it before Yahweh. Then Samuel sent all the people away, each to his own house. ²⁶And Saul also went to his house at Gibeah, and the troops whose hearts^s God had touched went with him. ²⁷However, some worthless men^t said, “How can this man deliver us?” So they despised him and brought no gift to him, but he kept silent.^u

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Footnotes

qLiterally “sons/children of Israel”
rLiterally “Did he come still here a man”
sHebrew “heart”
tLiterally “sons of wickedness”
uThe Dead Sea Scrolls contained a nearly complete scroll of 1 and 2 Samuel, the oldest Hebrew manuscript extant. There is a story therein that provides a setting for the acts of Nahash in 1 Samuel 11, which otherwise seems to occur obtrusively. This story may be translated: “Now Nahash, king of the Ammonites, harshly tormented the Gadites and the Reubenites, and he gouged out all their right eyes, and struck terror and dread in Israel. No Israelite beyond the Jordan remained whose right eye was not gouged out by Nahash king of the Ammonites, except for seven thousand men who had fled from the Ammonites and entered Jabesh Gilead. About a month later …” This early text leaves off with 11:1 at this point