which was at all times the carrying out of God’s wish, devoid of all wish for mere personal aggrandizement, but doing all in his power at all times for the good of the people whom God had entrusted to him. Not such was the king in the mind of the people. Clearly they were blamed, not for the fact that they had asked for a king, but because they pictured to themselves a king who was simply like any other Eastern despot, a king who practically dethroned God from the sovereignty of Israel. It was the