1 Samuel 8:13 - Printer Friendly

ESV: He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.

NIV: He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers.

NASB: He will also take your daughters and use them as perfumers, cooks, and bakers.

CSB: He can take your daughters to become perfumers, cooks, and bakers.

NLT: The king will take your daughters from you and force them to cook and bake and make perfumes for him.

KJV: And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers.

NKJV: He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.

Samuel is giving what we might call "fair warning" to the Israelites about the ways and rights of a human king. Israel wanted to appoint a king to be like other surrounding cultures (1 Samuel 8:4–5). This disclaimer points out some of the drawbacks to that arrangement. A king could claim the nation's sons for his chariots, military leaders, farmers, and weapons-builders (1 Samuel 8:11–12). Now he adds that the king will take their daughters to be cooks and bakers and to make perfumes.

Cooks and bakers would be responsible for feeding the royal household, along with perhaps the members of the army and other staff of the king. Perfumers created pleasant aromas around the palace and the king's person, along with preparing ointments and spices for various uses.

Once again, the emphasis is on the fact that the king would exercise his right to take the children of other Israelites to serve his own family and purposes. Some may have seen this as an honor and opportunity for a good job, while others would have been wary of this loss of freedom.

First Samuel 8:10–18 describes a solemn, legal warning Samuel gives the elders of Israel. He cautions about all the things a human king will take from them. He will take their sons and daughters as his servants, their land for his officials, and a percentage of their crops and flocks. In many ways, Samuel officially warns the Israelites that they will become slaves to their own king. When that happens and they cry out to the Lord, He will not answer them because they will have chosen this for themselves.

Samuel is old, and his sons are corrupt. The elders of Israel gather in Ramah to ask Samuel to appoint a king over them. Samuel resists, but the Lord tells the prophet to do as the people have said after warning them about what a king will take from them. The list includes their children, property, fields, crops, and freedom. The Lord will not save them from their king, Samuel warns. The elders insist they still want a king like all the other nations. The Lord agrees and tells Samuel to provide them one.

First Samuel 8 jumps forward in time perhaps thirty years from the events of the previous chapter. Samuel is now old and his sons, also judges, are corrupt. The elders of Israel gather to ask Samuel to appoint a king for them. Samuel doesn't like it, but he takes the request to the Lord. The Lord tells Samuel to do it, even though the people are rejecting Him as their king. Samuel warns the elders of all the things a king will take from them to serve himself. The elders still insist, and the Lord grants their request.

First Samuel introduces the key figures who led Israel after the era of the judges. The books of 1 and 2 Samuel were originally part of a single text, split in certain translations shortly before the birth of Christ. Some of the Bible’s most famous characters are depicted in this book. These including the prophet Samuel, Israel’s first king, Saul, her greatest king, David, and other famous names such as Goliath and Jonathan. By the end of this book, Saul has fallen; the book of 2 Samuel begins with David’s ascension to the throne.

Accessed 5/4/2024 12:17:44 PM