>>686103
Because they wanted a king like the other nations, a pagan-like king. Most kings in that time had both political and religious power, several times being king priests. So obviously God didn't want this kind of king ruling Israel. Also, in orthodoxy, several church fathers advocated for monarchy while being against democracy, polyarchy and anarchy.
Also friendly reminder that the downfall of the monachies started with the french revolution, a revolution spawned by masonic anti-christian enlightnement values like equality, including my own country, which influenced other countries of europe and led to other revolutions agains't monarch, and 90% of christian countries were monarchies before 1789, with the exclusion of a few oddballs like the venetian republic, San marino, and even then, the republics there were very much different from current ones.