In 1 Samuel 10:25 it says, ‘Then Samuel told the people the manner of the kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the lord’. What did he write?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘The Problems of Becoming and Being a King’ (1990).

I imagine that the kind of thing he wrote was the kind of thing he later expounded to them, according to chapter 12: what the manner of the kingdom should be, and setting before the people clearly what now were the issues at stake. Since they had asked for a king, and been given a king, what was the serious defect in the business of having a king, but nevertheless how they could, if they were wise, get around that defect. He was warning them in advance of the actual situation: 'the manner of the kingdom', just as God had told him to in chapter 8: 'you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them' (1 Samuel 8:9).