The Anointing of Saul — Israel's First King
The people demand a king "like all the nations." Samuel warns them what monarchy costs — and anoints Saul of the tribe of Benjamin, the tallest and most self-effacing man in Israel.
The elders came to Samuel at Ramah demanding, "Appoint a king to judge us, like all the nations." It grieved him, but God's answer was unexpected: "They have not rejected you, they have rejected Me." Samuel laid out "the law of the king": he will take your sons for his chariots and your daughters for his kitchens, a tenth of your fields, your best servants and cattle, and one day you will cry out because of the king you chose. The people repeated: let there be a king over us.
At that moment the future king was out looking for his father's lost donkeys. Saul son of Kish, of Benjamin, stood a head taller than anyone; he stopped to ask the local seer about the animals and was told the donkeys were found and he himself was called to something else. Samuel poured oil from a flask on his head. Later, when lots fell on him at Mizpah, Saul could not be found: he had hidden among the baggage.
Recognition came through action. When Nahash the Ammonite besieged Jabesh-gilead, Saul cut his plough team in pieces and sent them through the tribes as a summons. A huge levy assembled, Jabesh was saved, and at Gilgal the people confirmed him as king. Seder Olam counts thirteen years from Eli's death (2871) to David's accession — the years of Samuel and Saul together, of which Samuel judged alone for some eleven; Saul's own reign fills the last two.