For more than 100 years the tribes of the Hebrews lived independently from one another in the land of Canaan after the Exodus. If they had any trouble with their pagan neighbors they would call upon another of the tribes of Israel and they would go and beat up the one causing trouble. This system ceased to work with the arrival of the Philistines in what is now Gaza. They were not another Canaanite tribe but a highly organized kingdom which could marshal a unified force. That explains the call for a king on the part of the Jewish people. “Appoint a king over us, as other nations have, to judge us.” A new crisis required a new response — no longer independent tribes but a nation.
