and they said to him, Behold, you are old, and your sons don't walk in your ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.
God purposed to bless all other nations through His theocratic reign over Israel. This was a rule that God chose to administer mediatorially, through divinely chosen individuals who spoke and acted for God in governing functions and who were personally responsible to Him for what they did. These vice-regents were people like Moses, Joshua, the judges (including Samuel), and the kings, but God remained the real sovereign down to the end of this kingdom in history (1 Chronicles 29:25). The Shekinah cloud visibly represented God’s presence as the divine ruler. This glorious cloud entered and filled the tabernacle at the inception of the kingdom (Exodus 40:34-38). It led the nation into the Promised Land and stood over Solomon’s temple (2 Chronicles 7:1-2). Finally it departed from Jerusalem spectacularly as the kingdom ended at the Babylonian captivity, when governmental sovereignty passed from Israel to the Gentiles (Ezekiel 11:23; Daniel 2:31-38). God will restore this mediatorial kingdom to Israel when Jesus Christ returns to earth in power and great glory. Christ will then (at His second coming) serve as God’s vice-regent and reign over all the nations as the perfect mediatorial king (Micah 4:1-8). This earthly kingdom is different from God’s heavenly kingdom, over which He reigns directly from heaven. This heavenly kingdom includes all objects, persons, events, activities, natural phenomena, and history (Psalms 103:19; Daniel 4:17). The earthly kingdom is a part of this larger universal kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:24).