Now therefore listen to their voice: however you shall protest solemnly to them, and shall show them the manner of the king who shall reign over them.
and show them the manner of the king that shall reign over them: or the right or judgment z; not a legal right or form of government, but an assumed, arbitrary, and despotic power, such as the kings of the east exercised over their subjects, a king like whom the Israelites desired to have; namely, what unbounded liberties he would take with them, what slaves he would make of them, and what of their property he would take to himself at pleasure, as is after related. The word signifies, not a divine law, according to which the king should govern, but a custom, or a custom he would introduce, as the word is rendered, 1 Samuel 2:13 and is different from that in 1 Samuel 10:25.