Israel asks for a king like "all the other nations" (v.5) so they could be "like all the other nations." (v.20) It wasn't that God never wanted Israel to have a king (cf. Gen 17:6, 49:12, and especially Deut. 17:14-20!) but he did not intend for them to be like all the other nations. They were to be God's treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation (Ex. 19:5-6). They were rejecting God as their protector and ruler so they could more resemble the nations around them --the very opposite of holiness! The pressure and temptation to assimilate to the world is as powerful today as it was then.