In this week's parashah (section) (Shoftim, Judges), the mitzvah of appointing a king for the Jewish people appears. Originally, the king was appointed by a certified prophet, meaning one whose prophecies were already known to be true. Later, the kingship was passed from father to son.
The first king of the Jewish people was named Saul, and he was appointed by the prophet Shmuel. When one analyzes the story of this appointment, a question arises. On the one hand, as mentioned, the Torah states that one of the commandments to be fulfilled when the Jewish people entered the Land of Israel was to appoint a king. In fact, the Torah defines several laws that delineate the rights and obligations of the king, making it clear that the Torah, so to speak, desires that there be a king. On the other hand, when the Jewish people ask Shmuel to appoint a king, he becomes angry and disapproves of the request, to the point that God comforts him by saying that, in reality, they rejected Him, not Shmuel. If the Torah commands the appointment of a king, why did Shmuel become angry when asked to do so?
To understand this, we must grasp that there are two aspects to a king. At its most basic level, a king's function is to instill fear in the people so that they do not transgress the laws of coexistence. This is how the country's law and the system of criminal punishments, in conjunction with the police, operate. As our sages say (Pirkei Avot 3:2): "Were it not for their fear (the king's), they would devour one another alive." In other words, the king enforces divine law, the law of the Torah. If it were not for the king's physical presence on earth instilling fear, the people would not observe the laws.
The king's second, and higher, role was to act as an intermediary between God and the people. He wasn't simply a more powerful human being, or, so to speak, someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. Rather, he possessed a deeper understanding of God and conveyed that understanding to the rest of the people. He perceived God in a higher light than others, and this perception influenced the people to cultivate a deeper connection with God.
That is why a prophet was needed to appoint him. For the first function of the king, it was enough for him to impose himself, or to demonstrate physical prowess or tactical intelligence, etc., but to fulfill the second function, divine testimony regarding the person's qualities was necessary, something revealed through the prophet. It should be clarified that when one studies the Tanakh (the Bible), it becomes clear that a large number of kings (mainly those of the Kingdom of Israel in the north) were not this type of person, fulfilling the second function, but rather were only of the first type and, even worse, led the people into idolatry and away from God, the opposite of their true function. This is because, after all, every human being has free will to choose their path. In fact, the classic example of a wicked king, Jeroboam ben Nebat, was originally a great sage and had enormous potential to guide the people, but he chose to guide himself and the people down the opposite path.
With this in mind, we can understand why Shmuel was angered when they asked for a king, because he wanted the Jewish people to be at such a level of reverence for God that a king wouldn't be necessary to enforce the laws. However, the people wanted a king only to fulfill the first function...