It needed a head, a leader who should bring its discordant elements into peace and order, and lead its united forces against the common enemy.  Monarchy alone could save it from destruction.  The theocracy had failed, the authority of the high-priests and of the Law they administered was hardly felt beyond Shiloh; an age of war and anarchy required military rather than religious control.  The Israelites were passing through the same experience as other kindred members of the Semitic race.  In Assyria the high-priests of Assur had been succeeded by kings; in southern Arabia the high-priest had similarly been superseded by the king, and the kings of Edom had but recently taken the place of aluphim or “dukes.”

The first attempt to found a monarchy was made by the northern tribes.  Jerubbaal, the conqueror of the Midianites, established his power among the mixed Hebrew and Canaanite inhabitants of Ophrah and Shechem, and his son Abimelech by a Canaanitish wife received the title of king.  But the attempt was premature.  The kingdom of Manasseh passed away with Abimelech; the other tribes were not yet ready to acknowledge the supremacy of a chieftain who was not sprung from themselves, and Abimelech, moreover, was half-Canaanitish by descent.

The pressure of Philistine conquest at last forced the Israelites with a common voice to “demand a king.”  Reinforced by bodies of their kinsfolk from Krete and the islands of the Greek seas, the Philistines poured over the frontier of Judah, plundering and destroying as they went.  At first they were contented with raids; but the raids gradually passed into a continuous warfare and a settled purpose to conquer Canaan, and reduce it to tribute from one end to the other.  The Israelitish forces were annihilated in a decisive battle, the ark of the covenant was taken by the heathen, and the two sons of the high-priest perished on the field of battle.  The Philistine army marched northward into the heart of the mountains of Ephraim, the sanctuary of Shiloh was destroyed and its priesthood dispersed.  It was not long before the Philistine domination was acknowledged throughout the Israelitish territory on the western side of the Jordan, and Canaan became Palestine, “the land of the Philistines.”

In the more inaccessible parts of Benjamin, indeed, a few Israelites still maintained a fitful independence, and Samuel, the representative of the traditions of Shiloh, was allowed to judge his own people, and preside over a Naioth or “monastery” of dervish-like prophets under the eye of a Philistine garrison.  Israel seemed about to disappear from among the nations of the world.

But it had not yet wholly forgotten that it was a single people, the descendants of a common forefather, sharers in a common history, and above all, worshippers of the same God.  In their extremity the Israelites called for a king.  Saul, the Benjamite of Gibeah, was elected, and events soon proved the wisdom of the choice.  Jabesh-gilead was rescued from the Ammonite king, the Philistine garrisons were driven out of the centre of the country, and, for a time at least, a large part of the Israelitish territory was cleared of its enemies.  Saul was able to turn his arms against the Amalekite marauders of the desert, as well as the princes of Zobah to the north-east of Ammon.